Yesterday (Sunday), the vote count in Arizona was completed, allowing for the final results of this year’s U.S. presidential election to be announced. Donald Trump, the former president and leader of the Republican Party, won all seven key swing states that were expected to determine the election outcome: Pennsylvania, Georgia, North Carolina, Michigan, Wisconsin, Arizona, and Nevada. This gives Trump 312 out of 538 electoral votes—a stronger showing than his 2016 victory and better than Biden’s results in the previous election. In terms of the popular vote, the count is not yet finalized (with around 4% of ballots remaining in various states), but it’s already clear that Trump is the first Republican in 20 years to win an absolute majority of the popular vote. The Republicans have also secured a comfortable Senate majority of at least 52 seats, and in the House of Representatives, they are on track to gain a majority by about 4-5 seats, sufficient for advancing legislation and policy.
At the same time, Trump has begun forming the cabinet that will serve him in the coming years. Many of those who accompanied him during his first term are not expected to join the current administration, having fallen out of favor with the president—including Nikki Haley (former U.S. Ambassador to the UN) and Mike Pompeo (Secretary of Defense), both strong supporters of Israel. Israelis may find comfort in the anticipated appointment of Elise Stefanik (a House Representative who gained attention last year for her cross-examination of university heads on the issue of campus anti-Semitism) as the U.S. Ambassador to the UN, and of Senator Marco Rubio from Florida to a cabinet position.
One major question for Israel concerns which branch of Trump’s family he will prioritize. Will his son-in-law Jared Kushner, a Jew married to Ivanka (a convert to Judaism), soon return to Trump’s inner circle? Or will Trump favor his other son-in-law, Michael Boulos, a Maronite Christian of Lebanese descent married to Tiffany Trump? Boulos was very close to Trump during the campaign, helping to successfully attract Arab-American votes in Trump’s favor. Even the latter scenario is unlikely to harm Israel’s interests, especially given the expected near-term end to the conflict in Lebanon.
