Jay Lefkowitz Examines the Jewish Vote After the 2024 Election

Jay P. Lefkowitz has returned to a subject he has examined for decades: how American Jews vote, what drives those decisions and whether changing attitudes toward Israel are reshaping longstanding political loyalties.

In “The Jewish Vote in 2024,” published by Commentary Magazine following the 2024 presidential election, Lefkowitz examines the results through the lens of religion, demographics, Israel and the enduring relationship between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party.

His central observation is striking precisely because the election took place against an unusual political backdrop.

Donald Trump improved his performance among Jewish voters in 2024, but Lefkowitz argues that the movement toward the Republican candidate was considerably more modest than might have been expected after October 7 and the increasingly polarized American debate over Israel.

Rather than finding a wholesale political realignment, Lefkowitz describes a Jewish electorate that remains sharply divided according to religious affiliation and level of observance.

A Divide Within the Jewish Electorate

One of the main distinctions in Lefkowitz’s analysis is between secular and less-observant Jewish voters on one side and Orthodox communities on the other.

Jewish voters as a whole continued to favor Kamala Harris in 2024. But voting patterns in heavily Orthodox communities moved strongly toward Trump.

Lefkowitz points to places including Borough Park in Brooklyn, Lakewood in New Jersey and other communities with significant Haredi populations to illustrate the difference.

His argument is that these results cannot be understood solely through attitudes toward Israel.

Social and religious issues also play an important role in Orthodox voting behavior, while non-Orthodox Jewish voters continue to identify closely with many of the domestic-policy priorities associated with the Democratic Party.

That creates what Lefkowitz presents as two increasingly distinct political constituencies within American Jewry.

Israel and American Politics

Israel occupies a prominent place in the essay, although Lefkowitz reaches a somewhat counterintuitive conclusion about its electoral importance.

He argues that support for Israel remains important to many American Jews while simultaneously being less decisive in the voting booth for much of the Jewish electorate than issues including abortion, health care, immigration, inflation and climate change.

That distinction helps explain what otherwise might appear to be a contradiction in the 2024 results.

The election followed a period in which Israel became one of the most contentious subjects in American politics. Yet the broader Jewish vote did not undergo the dramatic partisan shift that some political observers predicted.

For Lefkowitz, the more significant long-term development may instead be demographic.

Orthodox and particularly Haredi Jewish communities are growing more rapidly than more secular sections of the American Jewish population. If their voting behavior remains substantially different from that of Reform, Conservative and unaffiliated Jews, the composition of the Jewish electorate itself could gradually change.

A Subject Lefkowitz Has Followed for Decades

“The Jewish Vote in 2024” is not Lefkowitz’s first examination of the subject.

His writing on Jewish political behavior in Commentary stretches back more than 30 years.

In 1993, Lefkowitz wrote “Jewish Voters & the Democrats,” examining the overwhelming Jewish support for Bill Clinton in the 1992 presidential election.

He returned to the question after the disputed 2000 election with “Does the Jewish Vote Count?” and again following George W. Bush’s 2004 reelection with “The Election and the Jewish Vote.”

Across those essays, a recurring question has been whether changing political circumstances would finally weaken the longstanding relationship between Jewish voters and the Democratic Party.

The 2024 election gave Lefkowitz another opportunity to test that theory.

His conclusion is largely one of continuity.

There has been movement, particularly among Orthodox voters, but American Jews outside the Orthodox community remain one of the most reliably Democratic constituencies in national politics.

Law, Government and Public Policy

Lefkowitz approaches political writing from a career that has crossed law, government, academia and public policy.

A graduate of Columbia University and Columbia Law School, he later returned to Columbia Law School as a lecturer. His teaching has included Supreme Court advocacy and presidential decision-making.

He also spent more than three decades at Kirkland & Ellis, where his legal practice included major trial and appellate litigation and arguments before the Supreme Court of the United States.

His public-service career included senior roles in the George W. Bush administration, including Deputy Assistant to the President for Domestic Policy and General Counsel of the Office of Management and Budget. He later served as U.S. Special Envoy for North Korean Human Rights.

Alongside that legal and government career, Lefkowitz has written extensively on politics, religion, law and public affairs.

Commentary has been one of his most consistent outlets.

Continuing a Long-Running Debate

The significance of “The Jewish Vote in 2024” lies less in identifying a sudden political transformation than in showing how slowly political identities can change.

Lefkowitz finds clear differences between Orthodox and non-Orthodox Jewish voters, measurable Republican gains in some communities and declining consensus over Israel.

But he also finds remarkable continuity.

More than three decades after he first wrote in Commentary about Jewish voters and the Democratic Party, that relationship remains central to understanding the Jewish vote in American presidential elections.

The underlying coalitions may be changing. The demographic balance may also change over time.

For now, however, Lefkowitz’s analysis of the 2024 election suggests evolution rather than political realignment.