Congressman Pat Ryan (pictured above) has been able to pull off several impressive victories in New York’s 18th Congressional District in difficult years for Democrats. Support from the district’s Orthodox Jewish community has been crucial to his success.

Despite being a relatively small segment of the electorate Orthodox Jewish communities have kicked above their weight in New Jersey and New York politics mostly because of their adoption of community-wide bloc voting. Bloc voting is an electoral tactic where members of a certain community vote en masse for a single consensus candidate tossing ideological beliefs and party preference to the side. This technique is used by Orthodox Jewish communities across the New York Metropolitan Area. Leaders in individual Orthodox Jewish communities endorse candidates they believe are best equipped to address local community issues. In most circumstances, the rest of the community abides by the endorsement voting overwhelmingly for that candidate. This often leads to a significant amount of ticket-splitting as the Orthodox Jewish Leaders tend to endorse candidates in both parties.

One such example is the all-Hasidic community of New Square in the Hudson Valley where Orthodox Jewish leaders, ahead of the 2024 election, endorsed Donald Trump for President and Republican Mike Lawler for Congress while supporting Democrat Aron Wieder for State Assembly and Democrat Elijah Reichlin-Melnick for State Senate. The endorsements were a reflection of the national and state-level political atmosphere. Since New York is a reliably blue state Democrats had supermajority control of both chambers of the state legislature at the time of the election. As a result of their supermajorities, the Democratic caucus yields a significant amount of power over issues like the state budget and committee assignments. Thus, in order to have a voice in the majority caucus and a seat at the table for major policy issues being debated in Albany, Orthodox Jewish leaders in New Square decided to support Democrats in State-level elections while allowing members of the community who are traditionally more conservative to support Republicans in national-level elections. As a result of the endorsements, voters in New Square backed Trump for President with 99% of the vote, Lawler for Congress with 99% of the vote, Wieder for State Assembly with 98% of the vote, and Reichlin-Melnick for State Senate with 94% of the vote. Support for Weider was particularly strong due to the fact that he is a member of the Hasidic community, and his election meant that New Square would practically have a direct representation in the State Assembly.

Orthodox Jewish communities in Borough Park, New York and Lakewood, New Jersey have made a similar political calculus. Borough Park, which is overwhelmingly Hasidic and is based in Central Brooklyn, is covered by the 22nd State Senate District and the 48th State Assembly District. In the 2024 Presidential election, both districts were the reddest in their respective chambers with Trump carrying the State Senate District by a margin of 45% points and the State Assembly District by a margin of 70% points. However, both seats are represented in Albany by Hasidic Democrats with Simcha Felder representing the community in the State Senate and Simcha Eichenstein representing the community in the State Assembly. The same is true in Lakewood, New Jersey, a large Orthodox Jewish community in Ocean County. The 30th Legislative District which contains Lakewood backed Donald Trump by a margin of 46% points in the 2024 Presidential election, the largest margin of any legislative district in New Jersey. Despite this one of the district’s two assemblymen, Avi Schnall, is an Orthodox Jewish Democrat. Similar to New York, Democrats have a commanding majority in the New Jersey State Assembly meaning that Democratic members have more power on committees. This caused the Orthodox Jewish Community to rally behind Schnall who would give them a voice on the powerful Education Committee.

(Left) Aaron Wieder, a Hasidic Democrat, flipped New York’s 97th State Assembly District in 2024 thanks to bloc voting in New Square and other Orthodox Jewish Communities in Spring Valley. (Right) Avi Schnall, an Orthodox Jewish Democrat, represents New Jersey’s 30th State Legislative District in the State Assembly even though the district supported Donald Trump overwhelmingly in the 2024 Presidential election.

Ticket-splitting by Orthodox Communities isn’t exclusive to just state-level races or races that have Orthodox Jewish candidates. In 2022 the overwhelmingly Orthodox Jewish community of Kiryas Joel, New York gave Congressman Pat Ryan, a Roman Catholic Democrat, 61% of the vote even as Trump garnered 98% of the vote just two years earlier. The impact of this difference was profound. Had Ryan’s opponent Colin Schmitt garnered a similar percentage of the vote as Trump did, he would have defeated Ryan who only won by a minuscule 3000 votes. The decisive role Orthodox Jewish voters played in Ryan’s re-election bid made their needs a top priority for Ryan in Congress. In the past session of Congress, Ryan advanced a 2-million-dollar grant for a new drinking water facility in Kiryas Joel, and he advocated to ensure local Yeshiva’s remained accredited under New York State Law, a vital issue for the Orthodox Jewish community.

Ryan’s district, New York’s 18th Congressional District, is one of three in the Hudson Valley that is ultra-competitive and typically decided by mere thousands of votes. Similar to New York’s 18th, the other two districts, New York’s 17th District and New York’s 19th District also have sizable Orthodox communities that are usually much larger than the winning candidate’s margin of victory. This makes the Orthodox Jewish vote one of the most important bellwethers that candidates focus on winning. This is mainly because Orthodox Jewish voters have embraced ticket-splitting across the board and are open to supporting the candidate that can best deliver for the community regardless of party. In 2024 for instance an exit poll found that only 10% of Haredi Orthodox Jewish voters reported using straight-ticket voting with the remaining 89% saying they chose various candidates based on the needs of the local community instead of party affiliation or ideology. Compare this to the rest of the United States where ticket-splitting among the general populace was only 1% among Democrats and 2% among Republicans in 2020. Since Orthodox Jewish voters practice Bloc voting they are able to mathematically drown out the votes of communities that are much larger. Even a community of 90,000 voters with 5% willing to split their tickets (which is well above average) would have fewer swing voters than a typical Orthodox Jewish Community of 5,000 voters because ticket-splitting can reach 98-99% in most Orthodox Jewish communities.

The reality of this math has arguably made Orthodox Jewish voters one of the most influential voting groups in America even as their share of the population is less than 0.2%. In 2024, the Speaker of the House Mike Johnson and Minority Leader Hakeem Jefferies visited the Orthodox Jewish communities in the Hudson Valley multiple times as it was conceivable that they could have tipped the House Majority to either party due to the three key swing districts in the region. That level of attention from two of the most powerful men in American politics is a rarity. This gives these Orthodox Jewish Communities the unique opportunity to strike political bargains that result in their priorities and necessities being addressed by Congress.

(Left) A precinct map depicting results from the 2020 Presidential election in Kiryas Joel, New York. (Right) A precinct map depicting the 2022 Congressional Results for New York’s 18th Congressional District in Kiryas Joel. Democratic Congressman Pat Ryan outperformed Joe Biden significantly in the overwhelmingly Hasidic community, allowing him to hold onto his seat in a difficult year for Democrats across New York State.