There is some non zero number of Jewish Islamophobes I am sure. And some number who would vote for uncritical support of Israel no matter what. It could be against a Jewish candidate even.
My impression is that those numbers are small, but you are free to conclude what you think. The only point I was making is that quoting those numbers as “see how strong Jewish support was for this great candidate!” is not warranted. Those numbers actually
Yes. But the presidential cycle is now on. Tomorrow literally is tomorrow. Not next week. Every candidate and wing is already racing to put their spin on what these results mean moving forward.
I’m just cautioning against uncritically jumping to the conclusion you want it to be.
AES dunks on Mike Rogers (and by extension, Haley Stevens), rather than offering the typical “thanks for running a tough race!”:
El-Sayed: “Mike, enjoy your retirement … you chose hate, and Michigan chose hope … JD, habibi – there is this delicious irony in the fact that you are constitutionally obligated to swear me in in January. Wolverines 1, Buckeyes 0.”
Good! Rogers ran an extremely hateful campaign. Such hate should be called out, not coddled. Fuck him.
Really? Do you think the percentage of Jewish Islamophobes is significantly lower than the percentage of non-Jewish Islamophobes? Do you think the percentage of Islamophobes in the American politics is small?
I’m struggling to find evidence on the question, but my instinct is that Islamophobia among American Jews is roughly in line with Islamophobia among American non-Jews. Further, the Republican party in general, and Rogers’s campaign in particular, have made themselves the home for Islamophobes, whereas el-Sayed’s campaign was for obvious reasons unwelcoming to Islamophobes. Almost every Islamophobic voter in that election, Jewish or otherwise, cast their ballot for Rogers.
As for what the general percentage of Islamophobic voters is: start with the 36% who would not vote for a Muslim candidate. That includes 22% of Democrats, a number remarkably close to the “Nearly one in four Jewish voters in Michigan who supported Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin in 2024 crossed party lines to vote for Republican Mike Rogers instead of Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed.”
When we already have Islamophobia present in the voting public, that seems adequate to explain the lion’s share of the aisle-crossers in this case.
Just a reminder, so far so good. But do not make this about Israel or Palestine or Iran for that matter. Ensure your post ties into the 2026 Senate Race.
Correlated with that identifying as Democratic, liberal, and as progressive are each overrepresented among American Jews compared to the general population. Correlated with less Islamophobia in higher educated higher SES populations which American Jews tend to be.
More would be hijacking. Point was, whatever you assume the reason for the bleed off of Jewish support was, the post that cackles it wasn’t present is not supported.
I, also, think the proportion of Jewish islamophobes is smaller than the proportion in the non-Jewish population. Jews are already used to other people not sharing their religion and background. Jews and Muslims have a lot of the same issues in American civil life, and they both know it. When i lived in NYC, the Muslim restaurants were all frequented by Jews, and the Muslims mostly bought kosher meat, as halal meat wasn’t then available. We both want to take off unusual holidays, have unusual dietary needs, and are looked down on because we aren’t Christian. (Not even really culturally Christian, which most American non-religious people are.)
I would have expected most Jews to have voted for AES, if not for the issue of Palestine. I’m not sure whether the Jewish defections can be explained just by Palestine, or whether a lot of the issue was his perceived antisemitism. There’s surely a lot of overlap between the Jews that cared about each of these issues. My guess is that fear of antisemitism played a role in the election.
I want to expand on this statement - I stand by it, but I think there’s more to it. I think some Jewish Democrats in Michigan who voted Rogers did so because of Israel, but said (and maybe convinced themselves) it was because of antisemitism. So I’d add “lying” to the list above.
I have expounded at length about the conflict I have about El-Sayed in the Pit thread, but I am very happy a Democrat won and I’m very happy I got to elect the first Muslim US Senator. It’s a big deal.
And if I understand the NY Times chart correctly, he led non-white voters by 59 percentage points. Is that kind of demographic lead unusual?
I don’t understand the relevance of that question, unless you think anyone is saying that all Rogers voters are Islamophobes. To clarify: that’s not what I’m saying.
The smiley wasn’t enough to hint I wasn’t serious?
No I don’t think they were Islamophobic. The serious point is that other reasons, whatever they were, had roughly one in four Arab Michigander voters voting for someone who ran an explicitly Islamophobic campaign. Basically the same rough fraction as Jewish Michiganders.
ETA - yes there has been an implication that a Jewish vote for Rogers is suspect as motivated primarily by Islamophobia, and if they say nah then they are lying.
Huh just checked and it seems that other than the collapse of Arab Michigander support during Harris’s run Ds have previous run more like 80 to 99% among them!
