When Adam Hamilton was mulling whether to run for the U.S. Senate in Kansas last winter, a rabbi was among the close friends he turned to for advice.
Arthur Nemitoff had led Congregation B’nai Jehudah in Overland Park for 18 years, just a couple miles from Mr. Hamilton’s Methodist megachurch, which occasionally lent its space to the Reform synagogue for High Holiday services.
On Tuesday, the 72-year-old rabbi was on hand for Mr. Hamilton’s victory party, when the pastor became the first Democrat elected to the Senate from Kansas since 1932.
“It’s really a statement about what this country wants — about decency and kindness and cooperation in Washington,” Rabbi Nemitoff said on Wednesday, ecstatic about the blue wave.
Jews are one of the most reliably Democratic voting blocs in America, and Rabbi Nemitoff was not alone in celebrating the party’s monumental midterm wins.
Many liberal Jews breathed a sigh of relief at the repudiation of the Trump political project, which has been profoundly unpopular in the American Jewish community since its inception.
Republican Jews, meanwhile, sought to preserve red strongholds like Florida, where some described feeling relatively safe from prejudice. Still other Jewish voters expressed more complicated feelings, ill at ease with MAGA conservatism but also concerned about antisemitism on the American left and their place in a Democratic Party renegotiating its stance toward Israel.
Nowhere was this unease more acute than in Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed, the Democrat who won the Senate race, campaigned during the primary with Hasan Piker, a firebrand socialist influencer.
Mr. Piker has said he would “vote for Hamas over Israel every single time” and likened being a liberal Zionist — a term that describes many American Jews and non-Jews — to being a “liberal Nazi.”
In March, after a man who the authorities said was inspired by sympathy for Hezbollah rammed his car into a Michigan synagogue and opened fire, Mr. El-Sayed said that “hurt people hurt people.” He was referring to reports that the assailant had lost relatives in the war between Israel and Hezbollah, which the United States has designated as a terrorist group.
The words left a deep mark on many members of the Jewish community, and the candidate later apologized for the timing of his comments.
As a consequence, while many Jewish Michiganders happily pulled the lever for Mr. El-Sayed, others found themselves agonizing over their vote.
“We Jews are more divided than ever, especially here in Michigan,” Rabbi Marla Hornsten, one of the spiritual leaders of the synagogue that was attacked, said in her Yom Kippur sermon last month. “This election has brought out the worst in us.”
The campaign of Mike Rogers, Mr. El-Sayed’s Republican opponent, took note of these divisions and worked assiduously to make inroads into Michigan’s Jewish community. Those appeals appear to have had an impact.
Exit polls and preliminary results show that Michigan Jews, like the broader American Jewish community, voted Democratic overall. But they also show that Mr. El-Sayed’s margin in Jewish areas lagged behind other Democrats, such as Governor-elect Jocelyn Benson.
West Bloomfield Township, where the synagogue attack took place, swung approximately 4 percentage points to Mr. Rogers, a former congressman, compared with 2024, when he ran unsuccessfully against Senator Elissa Slotkin.
Such concerns also surfaced elsewhere. Neta Meltzer, the executive director of the Jewish Community Relations Bureau, a nonprofit group in Kansas, said many Jewish Kansans “were just excited” about voting for Mr. Hamilton. But she added that some had questions about his positions on Israel and their implications for Jewish safety.
Mr. Hamilton has said he supports Israel’s right to exist and funding its Iron Dome. But he has also sharply criticized the country’s conduct in Gaza and advocated cutting off arms transfers.
Rabbi Nemitoff, who joined the pastor on multiple trips to the Holy Land, said the two had “spent a tremendous number of hours in Palestinian homes and in Jewish homes, listening to the stories and trying to figure out ways to be partners with both sides.”
Tensions over antisemitism and Israel were far from the whole story for American Jews on Election Day.
In Pennsylvania, Gov. Josh Shapiro walloped his Republican opponent 60 percent to 38 percent. His win ushered in a Democratic trifecta into a purple state that President Trump won just two years ago.
“It feels electric,” said Alana Burman, a state government worker in Harrisburg, Pa., whose district flipped from red to blue, electing Janelle Stelson.
“I think for many who have experienced some of the rising tide of antisemitism directly or indirectly, it’s kind of a beacon of hope,” she said of Mr. Shapiro’s win. “Knowing that there’s still room for Jewish leaders in today’s environment is really encouraging.”
At the same time, referencing the public discourse over Israel, she said, “I wish people who had critiques of America’s foreign policy also had the nuance to not use antisemitic tropes to get there.”
In Colorado, Attorney General Phil Weiser, who has deep ties to the local Jewish community, cruised to victory in the governor’s race. In Illinois, Governor J.B. Pritzker handily secured re-election. And in Texas, Jon Rosenthal, a Jewish engineer, defeated Bo French, a far-right Republican official whose history of bigoted commentary drew national attention to his bid for Railroad Commissioner.
Republican Jews, who make up around a quarter of the community according to most surveys, also played a role in the midterm’s tumultuous events. In Florida, Jewish conservatives were among those who turned out in force to keep the state red, making it a rare exception in an otherwise blue tide.
“I’m liking how Florida has been, how we’re doing,” said Mo Moas, 28, a Broward County resident who works in construction. “With a lot of, just, hate against Jews nowadays and with all the stuff in other states, you just prefer that what you’re hearing from Jews over there doesn’t come to Florida.”
Madelyn Levy, 65, of Hollywood, Fla., said she had crossed party lines to vote Republican because she felt the party was stronger on security for Jewish Americans. Last fall, she said, someone yelled an obscenity about Jews as she was returning home from her synagogue on a Jewish holiday, a first for her.
“I feel like this country is back into 1935, and it scares the hell out of me,” she said. “I’m afraid for what’s happening to Jewish people.”
Others were less pessimistic.
“I recognize there’s an increase in antisemitism,” said Rabbi Sholom Dubov, 67, executive director of Chabad Lubavitch in Orlando. But this warranted vigilance, he argued, not alarmism.
The rabbi expressed a hope that “the prevailing sensible minds will see there’s a common decency and humanity in every person.”
Eric Adelson contributed reporting from Orlando, and David Ovalle from Hollywood, Fla.
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