Polls in democratic nations are snapshots in time, occasionally inaccurate and not always predictive. However, well-designed surveys that ask non-leading questions can reveal important trends and help guide longer-term strategies.
That is how I view recent polling of American Jewish voters by the Mellman Group for the Jewish Electorate Institute.
It corresponds with my experience and analysis and should serve as a warning to the American Jewish community about the state of our country and the US-Israel relationship.
First, some good news: an overwhelming 86% of American Jewish voters describe themselves as pro-Israel. For those of us who understand the strategic importance of the Jewish state to US national security, this is reassuring.
How one defines “pro-Israel” among American Jews crosses a vast spectrum.
US Jews vote for a party that has been increasingly vilifying the Jewish state
But at a minimum, it should mean accepting Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and recognizing the importance of Israel to Jewish peoplehood and identity.
The poll found that 87% believe Israel has the right to exist as the Jewish homeland.
Now the ominous side.
Increasingly influential elements of the Democratic Left portray Israel as uniquely evil and undeserving of legitimacy, accusing it of genocide, apartheid, and settler colonialism.
Too often, American Jews who support Israel are treated as complicit in those alleged crimes.
The evidence that antisemitism is not merely theoretical is overwhelming.
Year after year, FBI hate-crime statistics show Jews disproportionately targeted for religiously motivated hate crimes despite constituting only about 2% of the American population.
And with elements of the far-right joining the ancient, mutating virus of Jew-hatred, blaming Jews for whatever they believe is destroying America, the age-old scapegoating of Jews is again becoming normalized.
But the Democratic Party presents American Jews with a particularly uncomfortable contradiction.
American Jews remain overwhelmingly Democratic. The Mellman poll found 74% of likely Jewish voters planning to vote Democratic in the midterms, compared with 22% Republican.
Yet perceptions of the Democratic Party as pro-Israel have fallen 22 points since 2018.
That should be a political alarm bell.
Consider Michigan Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed. His own words make his position difficult to obscure.
Asked whether Israel has the right to exist as a Jewish state, El-Sayed said he “struggles” with the question and challenged whether a Jewish state is consistent with American liberal values.
His repeated refusal to affirm that right is not simply criticism of Israeli policy; it is a rejection of the principle of Jewish national self-determination.
The IHRA working definition specifically identifies denying the Jewish people their right to self-determination and applying standards to Israel not demanded of other democratic nations as examples that can constitute antisemitism.
Yet after El-Sayed won the Democratic primary, Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer endorsed him. The Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC is now spending tens of millions of dollars supporting El-Sayed’s election.
Mr. Schumer, you cannot write a book warning America about antisemitism, proclaim yourself a defender of Israel, and then endorse a candidate who will not affirm Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.
You cannot talk the talk but refuse to walk the walk, choosing your political position over what you know is the right thing to do.
When David Duke, the former Ku Klux Klan leader, became the Republican Senate nominee in Louisiana in 1990, prominent Republicans repudiated him, and eight Republican senators endorsed his Democratic opponent.
How many Democrats have endorsed the moderate Republican candidate, Mike Rogers?
There are moments when principle must come before party.
The campaign to demonize AIPAC is another warning. An organization once courted by politicians of both parties has become toxic to significant parts of the Democratic base.
The Mellman polling found AIPAC viewed considerably less favorably by Jewish Democrats than Republicans, while Democratic politicians who once coveted pro-Israel support increasingly distance themselves from the organization.
Is this polling predictive or merely a snapshot?
Jews appear married to the Democratic Party for the foreseeable future. The real question is whether pro-Israel Democrats are willing to confront their party’s anti-Israel wing when doing so risks political and social ostracism.
For years, when visibly Orthodox Jews were assaulted, too many American Jews could turn their heads and convince themselves that antisemitism was someone else’s problem.
October 7 changed that.
Secular Jews increasingly see antisemitism touching their own lives: demonstrations against institutions they support because they collaborate with Israelis, campaigns against Jewish or Israeli writers and academics, and Jewish students confronting hostility toward Judaism and Israel not only on college campuses but in K-12.
Assimilation and intermarriage are not inoculations against antisemitism.
Republicans face their own test.
The conspiratorial rhetoric emanating from Tucker Carlson and amplified by figures such as Candace Owens has revived familiar themes about Jewish power, Israel manipulating America, and Jews exercising disproportionate influence over US foreign policy.
Will Republican leaders reject that rhetoric, or will political expediency in the 2028 presidential campaign lead them down the same road?
Time will tell.
I state these facts not to sensationalize or frighten, but to remind my fellow Jewish Americans that ignoring the problem is no longer a choice.
American Jews should not excuse antisemitism because it comes from their preferred political party. They should confront it whether it comes from the anti-Zionist Left or conspiratorial Right.
To deal with the situation, we must see it as it is, not as we wish it to be.
America has been an extraordinary home for the Jewish people.
Preserving our remarkable American democratic experiment requires recognizing that a democracy is ultimately judged not only by the rights enjoyed by its majority, but by whether it protects its minorities, even when doing so becomes politically inconvenient.
The writer is the director of MEPIN, the Middle East Political Information Network, and the senior security editor of The Jerusalem Report. He regularly briefs members and congressional staffers, as well as the US State Department.