Why the 2018 Midterms Were The Hanukkah Election

ed note–Again, a hearty round of applause for all those geniuses in ‘duh muuvmnt’ who contributed in their own special way to this ‘Hannukuh election’–wherein Judea, Inc will wind up being the prime beneficiary–for having added their own voices to those elements seeking Trump’s ouster, to say nothing of the monumental contributions made by the idiots who put together the disaster at Charlottesville, and of course, last but not least, Robert Bowers himself, the unhinged white nationalist who believed that Trump was ‘owned by the Jews’ and who personally lit the Menorah on this ‘Hanukkah election’ by shooting up the Pittsburgh Sin-a-Gog right before election day.

The Jewish Daily Forward

There is a jokey phrase circulating the headquarters of the Democratic Congressional Campaign committee, the Washington Post reports, that goes something like this: The midterms are turning out to be a Hanukkah election more than a Christmas election.

Now, that could refer to the significant number of Jews who won seats, many of them upsets, for the House of Representatives last Tuesday.

But it really is meant to capture the fact that this election is not a one-night wonder of gifts, but rather like a holiday in which the gifts last for day after day.

At least for Democrats. The party out of power needed to pick up 23 seats to take control of the House; the latest count has the lead at 30, and people way smarter than I about this stuff say it could grow to 35 or more. Democratic Senate upsets in Nevada and, now, Arizona narrow the Republicans margin of control in the upper house. Several gubernatorial races broke the Democrats’ way. And Florida still has (yet another) question mark hanging over the state.

“This was, in fact, a very good election for Democrats,” Chris Cillizza wrote on CNN.com two days ago, and the news only got better since.

But this rosy partisan picture was not part of the conventional wisdom as the numbers started coming in on Tuesday night, and I was one of many armchair pundits who thought the vaunted “blue wave” was more of a ripple. That night, in fact, as the results seesawed back and forth, I started several different columns, only to finish one in the wee hours of Wednesday that captured, as best I could, worry that the mixed results would portend even more divisive discord in the country.

And well they might. But the truth is that the extreme pressure to respond to elections in a nanosecond inevitably leads to incomplete conclusions and therefore faulty analysis. Writing with the benefit of more information, some hindsight (and some sleep) I would point to the significant gains that Jews made in this election.

The number of Jewish members of the House of Representatives has increased from 23 to 28; senators from 8 to 9; governors from zero to two. Not the high point of Jewish members of Congress — that happened in 2008, helped by Barack Obama’s coattails. But still, 2018 shows that Jews, who comprise 2% of the population and will be 7% of the new Congress, still have outsized political clout in Washington.

A Hanukkah election, indeed.