The Jew in American Politics (part 8): Jewish Voting Behavior: 1932-1967

Elsewhere in the book, Weyl is keen to point out that "only" on the order of 1% of American Jews were card-carrying members of the Communist Party. Here he acknowledges 15-20% of Jews supported the Communist-endorsed Henry A. Wallace in the 1948 election ("The raison d'etre of this third-party movement was to obtain continuing American support of the Soviet Union and American acquiescence in continuing Soviet aggression").

Other than that, we see the familiar pattern of Jews bloc-voting for Democratic candidates.

We also get to hear more about how the Jewish fight against freedom of association was purely the result of misguided universalism ('Another case of the Jewish voters cutting off their own noses was the vote in 1964 on various state and city "public accommodations" ordinances. These measures restricted or totally abolished the right of house and apartment owners to refuse to sell or rent on the basis of race. The purpose was to enable Negroes to move into previously white residential areas. Since residential discrimination against Jews had become pretty much of a dead letter, the Jewish interest was identical with that of the other whites. [. . .] In Detroit some Jewish districts voted ten-to-one against a homeowners' rights ordinance designed to permit landlords to sell or rent at their discretion. In Los Angeles, Jewish districts voted two-to-one against Proposition 14, a very similar measure, which was approved by California voters as a whole by a two-thirds majority.'). Since residential discrimination against Jews had diminished by this time, it's obviously impossible Jews maintained an overblown concern with suppressing freedom of association out of perceived self-interest.

Jewish Voting Behavior: 1932-1967

Jewish electoral support of Franklin D. Roosevelt rose steadily during the four campaigns in which he won the Presidency and by 1944 was almost unanimous. Thus, an analysis of voting behavior in seven primarily Jewish wards in Chicago revealed FDR majorities of from 70.9% to 95.9%. The differences in these percentages were not correlated with income. [. . .]

Harry Truman was unable to capture Jewish support to the same degree as his predecessor. [. . .]

This comparative lack of enthusiasm for the new President was not due to any repudiation of Truman's liberal-to-radical domestic program. It was based much more on the fact that Truman, under grave provocation, had refused to continue the Rooseveltian policy of seeking a permanent alliance with Soviet Russia at all costs. [. . .]

Proof that this was a real issue was the strong Jewish support of Henry Agard Wallace, the presidential candidate of the Progressive Party. The raison d'etre of this third-party movement was to obtain continuing American support of the Soviet Union and American acquiescence in continuing Soviet aggression. Its domestic program was essentially a rehash of Communist-inspired, popular-front type social demands which, if enacted, would have hogtied the American economy. The Wallace movement, as President Truman observed many years later, gave the Communists a front by means of which they were able to infiltrate American national politics and spread disunity and confusion. A mystic and zealot Wallace was apparently innocent of the way in which the Communists were manipulating his movement. Years after this sorry political fiasco, Wallace would reminisce to the press in bitterness and sorrow about the way he had been used as a cat's paw by the subversive element.

Based on an analysis of heavily Jewish wards in key cities, Fuchs found that Wallace won from l2% to 27% of the vote whereas nationally he had attracted only about 2%. Many of the Jewish supporters of the Progressive Party were no doubt unaware of the fact that it was an instrumentality of the Communist Party, but they could not have been unaware of the fact that Truman had referred contemptuously to "Henry Wallace and his Communists" and that the raison d'etre of the new movement was to get the United States to appease Soviet Russia.

Truman probably got from 60% to 75% of the Jewish vote, Wallace from l5% to 20% and Dewey, the Republican standard-bearer, from l0% to 20%. This ardent support of Wallace by a significant minority of American Jews was not characteristic of the behavior of any other ethnic or national group of high educational, social or economic status in the United States population. Thus, an analysis partly financed by the Ford Foundation revealed that the only other areas in which Wallace was strong were: Negroes (overwhelmingly so), the foreign born, union members and the college-bred.

Stevenson and Kennedy

The emergence of Adlai E. Stevenson on the national political horizon in 1952 gave American Jews another idol. In the 1952 elections, about three-quarters of American Jewry supported Stevenson. The actual percentages, as calculated by three public opinion polling organizations, ranged from 73% (Survey Research Center of the University of Michigan) to 77% (American Institute of Public Opinion). This was considerably greater than the support which Stevenson was able to muster from any other special group. Neither Negroes nor trade union members nor any other national or ethnic minority gave him comparable backing. [. . .]

Despite some misgivings about his Catholicism, his Irish origin and the alleged anti-Semitic tendencies of his father, John F. Kennedy got the overwhelming endorsement of Jewish voters. Thus, the California Poll showed 9l% of Jewish voters, but only 73% of Catholics and 38% of Protestants, supporting him. "No other group, whether classified by religion or by race, age, occupation, residence or birth, was so solidly Democratic. Negroes were next, with 82.9%, and Catholics third, with 77.9%. Groups 60 to 70 per cent for Kennedy were unskilled labor, craftsmen and foremen, foreign-born persons, and renters." [. . .]

When the returns were in, most of the minority groups were found to have been heavily for Johnson. Within this element the Negroes and Jews were remarkable for their virtual unanimity. The Voter Profile Analysis service showed that Negro precincts in six Northern and Southern states turned in majorities of 97% to 99% for Johnson. The Jewish precincts ranged from 89% to 95%. By comparison, Irish were in the 66%-to-88% range, Italians about the same and Slavs 72% to 88% behind the Democratic candidate. [. . .]

Another case of the Jewish voters cutting off their own noses was the vote in 1964 on various state and city "public accommodations" ordinances. These measures restricted or totally abolished the right of house and apartment owners to refuse to sell or rent on the basis of race. The purpose was to enable Negroes to move into previously white residential areas. Since residential discrimination against Jews had become pretty much of a dead letter, the Jewish interest was identical with that of the other whites. Experience had shown that an influx of Negroes often caused panic selling, the deterioration of once attractive neighborhoods and substantial loss of properly investment.

In Detroit some Jewish districts voted ten-to-one against a homeowners' rights ordinance designed to permit landlords to sell or rent at their discretion. In Los Angeles, Jewish districts voted two-to-one against Proposition 14, a very similar measure, which was approved by California voters as a whole by a two-thirds majority. What is even more significant is that Los Angeles lower-middle-class Jewish precincts, which were already experiencing the Negro presence, also voted against Proposition 14, though by less decisive majorities.

A similar issue was the 1964 fight of Alabama Governor George C. Wallace to win direct primary contests in various states for the Democratic nomination for President of the United States. In some Maryland precincts that were heavily Jewish, the vote against Wallace was better than ten to one. In all of the three states in which he campaigned-Indiana, Maryland and Wisconsin-Wallace found the Jewish vote massively against him. On this issue, the Jews were on the other side of the fence from such other traditional Democratic supporters as the voters of Italian, Irish and Slavic extraction, not to mention the Southern whites of Anglo-Saxon stock. These other groups supported Wallace largely because they wanted to prevent the mixing of Negroes and whites en masse in public schools and residential areas. Here again, where an issue of principle was involved, the Jews voted against their own material interests.