jews in the d

After The
Vote — 2018

Making sense of what happened and what comes next.

JACKIE HEADAPOHL MANAGING EDITOR

I

f there is one piece of good news that
both Democrats and Republicans can
celebrate about the 2018 midterms,
it’s that voter turnout was the strongest
in decades, about 113 million nationally,
or 49 percent of eligible voters, com-
pared to 36 percent of eligible voters in
2014. About 4.3 million people voted in
Michigan, 1 million more than in the last
gubernatorial election.
According to Edie Goldenberg, a
professor of political science and public
policy at the University
of Michigan, “The high
voter turnout is extraor-
dinary and reflects the
efforts of many grassroots
organizations that have
been working tirelessly
Edie
over the past two years.
Goldenberg
“It also reflects the
sharpness of divides and the competi-
tiveness of a lot of races for elected office,
as well as President Trump’s efforts to
mobilize his base,” she said.
According to Goldenberg, young peo-
ple turned out at a higher rate than nor-
mal. “Their turnout did have an impact
on close races in their districts,” she
said. “Their opinions of President Trump
are decisively more negative than the
older population overall. To the extent
that President Trump ‘nationalized’ these
state races, he mobilized voters on both
sides, and younger voters tended to vote
for the candidates opposing President
Trump.”

NO REAL SURPRISES
When all (or most) of the ballots
were counted, at the end of the night
we learned Democrats would con-
trol the House of Representatives and
Republicans made slight gains in the
Senate.
“Republicans were expected to make
gains in the Senate as there were 10
Democrats running in states won by

Robert Sedler

Trump. No blue states
went Republican,” said
Robert Sedler, a professor
of constitutional law at
Wayne State University.
“The House turned over
as expected, despite
gerrymandering to favor

Republicans.”
Now that Democrats control the
House of Representatives, Sedler expects
the country will see more compromises
on legislation.
“The drafters of the Constitution
made it difficult to enact legislation
without consensus, and the only way to
get consensus is through compromise,”
he said. “I see the possibility that com-
promises will be made on infrastructure,
middle-class tax cuts and immigration.
It might even be easier to reach com-
promise now that Republicans no lon-
ger have to worry about the (far-right)
Freedom Caucus … or there may just be
gridlock.”
He also said not to pay attention
to “any babble about impeachment.
Doing so would not be of benefit to the
Democrats.”

THE JEWISH VOTE
According to Dr. Herbert Weisberg,
emeritus professor of political science at
the Ohio State University,
there was “some move-
ment among Jews this fall
toward the Democratic
side.” Weisberg, who pre-
viously taught at U-M,
has a book, The Politics
Dr. Herbert
of American Jews: The
Weisberg
Politics of Tradition, that
will be published by U-M Press next
year.
Early exit polls show the Jewish vote
nationally as 79 percent Democratic, 17
percent Republican and 4 percent not
answering, Weisberg said.

“The Jewish vote for Barack Obama
and for Hillary Clinton was about 70
percent,” he added.
The number of Jews in the legislature
is also on the way up, he said. “Jacky
Rosen, a former synagogue president,
was elected to the Senate from Nevada.
The two Jewish Republicans in the
House of Representatives, Lee Zeldin
from New York and David Kutoff from
Tennessee, were re-elected, and it looks
like there will be about two dozen Jewish
Democrats in the House, including two
newcomers from Michigan, Andy Levin
and Elissa Slotkin.”
According to Nancy Kaufman, CEO of
the National Council of Jewish Women,
it was pretty clear what was motivating
most Jewish woman voters this year.
“NCJW empowers Jewish women to
act on the Jewish values we hold dear,
and there’s been a major challenge over
the past two years to
those values. Women had
enough,” she said.
Kaufman said there was
enormous mobilization
of Jewish women, “partic-
ular after the Kavanaugh
Nancy
hearings that left many
Kaufman
women feeling margin-
alized.
“As Jewish women, they felt their voic-
es needed to be heard. The shootings in
Pittsburgh and the rise in hate crimes
and anti-Semitic attacks were further
motivating,” she said, “as was what’s
going on at the Southern border.”
Kaufman cited the deep Jewish com-
mitment to welcoming the stranger. “It
upset people to see troops at the bor-
der and children separated from their
parents,” said Kaufman, who adds that
Jewish women historically have been at
the core of progressive social change —
even before women had the right to vote.
“People felt they couldn’t sit idly
by while reproductive rights and an

independent judiciary were being chal-
lenged,” she said.
NCJW didn’t support individual can-
didates, but did work on ballot propos-
als, particularly those related to voting
rights, including Proposal 2 in Michigan,
which will end gerrymandering in the
state, and a proposal in Florida that will
allow those with a felony record to vote.
Both of those proposals were approved
by voters.

YEAR OF THE WOMAN
According to Kaufman, the number of
women running in the 2018 midterms
was unprecedented. On election night,
98 women won House seats, including
65 incumbents. The previous record
was 85. Twelve women won Senate
seats, joining nine incumbents. (Some
races are still pending.)
“Particularly encouraging was the
number of young women who are
becoming part of the political process,”
Kaufman added.
In Michigan, all the winners at the
top of the ticket were women and
Democrats. Gretchen Whitmer won
the governor’s race. Dana Nessel
was elected attorney general. Jocelyn
Benson will be secretary of state.
Debbie Stabenow will be returning to
the Senate, and two newcomers, Haley
Stevens and Elissa Slotkin, flipped two
districts from red to blue on their way
to the House of Representatives. The
only male at the top of the ticket was
Lt. Gov.-elect Garlin Gilchrist.
“It was a spectacular year for
women, way overdue,” said political
commentator Jack Lessenberry, who
hosts a radio show on 910 AM.
Lessenberry was most surprised that
Megan Cavanaugh beat incumbent
Michigan U.S. Supreme Court Justice
Curtis Wilder. “It was the first time
in 10 years an incumbent justice was
defeated,” he said.

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November 15 • 2018

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