Democrat Ted Deutch has won the Florida 19th district special election over Republican Edward Lynch, apparently by a 62%-35% margin.
The previous incumbent, Democrat Bob Wexler, won by 66%-27% in 2008 and 72%-28% in 2002; he had no Republican opponent in 2006 or 2004. In a somewhat different 19th district Wexler won 72%-28% in 2000 and 66%-34% in 1996, when he was first elected.
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Florida 19 has voted solidly Democratic in past national elections: 73%-27% for the Gore-Lieberman ticket in 2000, 65%-34% for John Kerry in 2004 and 65%-34% for Barack Obama in 2008. Turnout in this special election was only 23% of that in the 2008 House race, but the Democratic percentage declined by only 3%. Democratic nominee Deutch was well financed and ran an active campaign; Republican nominee Lynch, who ran against Wexler in 2008, did not have a lot of money and his one TV ad that I saw (hat tip, Jim Geraghty of National Review Online) looked amateurish.
This is one of the most heavily Jewish congressional districts in the nation, and Deutch’s performance suggests that Barack Obama’s harsh criticism of the Israeli government has not hurt Democratic candidates among Jewish voters. Similarly, in the Massachusetts special Senate election January 19, I found that the Democratic percentages held up pretty well in the most heavily Jewish towns (Brookline, Newton, Sharon).
What are the implications for the November elections? Jewish voters are very unevenly distributed throughout the United States, as this estimate of Jewish populations by state indicates. About 2.2% of Americans are Jewish—a decline in percentage over the years; in the 1940s about 4% of the nation’s voters were Jewish. The Jewish percentage is higher than the national average in only nine states and the District of Columbia; it’s identical to the national average in Illinois. Some 54% of American Jews live in just three states (New York, California, Florida); 78% live in eight states (those three plus New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massachusetts and Maryland). Four of these states have potentially seriously contested Senate races (California, Florida, Pennsylvania and Illinois). The Jewish percentages of the population in these states are 3.3%, 3.7%, 2.3% and 2.2%. The Jewish percentages of the electorate would likely be somewhat higher in each case; the http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2008/results/polls.main/ 2008 exit poll shows them at 4%, 4%, 4% and 3%.
I’m not aware of any statistics showing the Jewish percentage of each congressional districts, but I’m pretty certain that few districts have larger Jewish percentages than Florida 19. In what districts do Jewish voters comprise a large critical mass—say, about 20% of the electorate? My list, based on long observation, would include the following: CA 27, CA 28, CA 30, CA 36, CT 4, FL 18, FL 19, FL 20, FL 22, IL 9, IL 10, MD 3, MD 8, MA 4, MA 8, MI 9, NV 1, NJ 5, NJ 8, NJ 9, NJ 11, NY 3, NY 4, NY 5, NY 7, NY 8, NY 9, NY 14, NY 15, NY 17, NY 18, NY 19, OH 11, PA 2, PA 6, PA 7, PA 13. Only a few of these districts are represented by Republicans (FL 18, IL 10, NJ 5, NJ 11, NY 3, PA 6), of which the only one in play is IL 10, where incumbent Mark Kirk is running for the Senate. Of the Democratic seats, I see only a few which look like they might be seriously contested (CT 4, FL 22, MI 9, NY 4, NY 19, PA 7).
Conclusions: There’s likely to be very little falloff in Democratic percentages among Jewish voters. But this will not be a major factor in the large majority of seriously contested Senate and House races.
