President of the United States: (No incumbent standing) Donald Trump (R) vs. Kamala Harris (D)

• The Candidates: Former President Republican Donald Trump is running to return to power against Kamala Harris, the current Vice President and former running mate of current President Joe Biden in 2020.
• What’s at Stake? Leadership of the executive branch!
• Haredi Community Involvement: Haredim overwhelmingly favor Trump over Harris (or any Democrat) and have supported Trump in the two prior elections at rates of around 90% and their support for him has only increased in recent years. Satmar rabbi Aaron Teitelbaum has not personally endorsed Donald Trump, but his Aaronite Satmar faction has. An overwhelmingly large majority of Haredim will vote for Trump but those votes will predominantly be in states that are almost certain to give their electoral votes to Harris.

19th Congressional District: Marc Molinaro (R, incumbent) vs. Josh Riley (D)

• The Candidates: Republican Marc Molinaro is looking to win a second term. Like last time, he is up against Democrat Josh Riley, former Dutchess County executive and former state Assembly member.
• What’s at Stake? As both parties look to wrestle clear control of Congress, this race was one of the early recipients of national money, but has faded a little from sight as Molinaro seemed to edge ahead and national interest shifted to the 17th District.
• Haredi Community: Rabbi Zalman Leib Teitelbaum who leads one of the two major Satmar factions endorsed Molinaro in the summer. Although the heart of the faction is in Williamsburg there are a number of Zalmanite communities in the 19th District.

18th Congressional District: Pat Ryan (D, incumbent) vs. Alison Esposito (R)

• The Candidates: Democrat Pat Ryan has served just one term after taking over from Sean Patrick Maloney when the districts were redrawn. He faces Alison Esposito, a career NYPD professional and the 2022 Lieutenant Governor candidate on the surprisingly competitive Lee Zeldin ticket.
• What’s at Stake? This district is one of the three purple New York exurbs that might decide control of Congress.
• Haredi Community: The Aaronite Satmar enclave of Kiryas Joel and the surrounding Hasidic communities have endorsed Ryan on the “bloc vote” sample ballot that they have sent around and on Heimshtut, the local Kiryas Joel newspaper. In a tight race, the support of Kiryas Joel could be the deciding factor.

17th Congressional District: Mike Lawler (R, incumbent) vs. Mondaire Jones (D)

• The Candidates: First-term Republican Mike Lawler faces Mondaire Jones who held the seat before him.
• What’s at Stake? Jones lost his seat through redistricting as Sean Patrick Maloney became the Democratic candidate for the newly-defined district and lost to Lawler. This district, in the Lower Hudson Valley, is one of the most closely-contested battles in the nation. It is a must-win for Democrats as they aim to retake control of the House. But Lawler’s personal popularity and a spoiler candidate for the Working Families Party might help him prevail.
• Haredi Community: The district contains significant numbers of Haredim including non-Hasidic communities as well as the Skver and Vishnitz Hasidim in New Square and Kaser respectively. Lawler has a high level of support among the non-Hasidim and a recording purportedly from the Vishnitz leaders to their community told members to vote for Lawler. To cement Haredi support for Lawler, after meeting on Thursday with Lawler and Speaker of the House Mike Johnson, Rabbi David Twersky – the Skverer Rebbe – also reportedly agreed to cast New Square’s bloc vote of about 3,000 for the Republican.
  

New York State Senate District 42: James Skoufis (D, incumbent) vs. Timothy Jon Mitts (C) and Dorey Houle (R) 

• The Candidates: James Skoufis is well known in the area. He is standing for his fourth representative term, though only his second in the Senate (the first three were in the State Assembly for a similar district). He is running against Dorey Houle who he narrowly beat last time and Timothy Mitts who surprised Houle, beating her in the Conservative Party primary.
• What’s at Stake? Depending on other election results, the Democrats probably need to win this seat to maintain their supermajority in the State Senate.
• Haredi Community: After Skoufis barely won in 2022, he made a point of courting the Kiryas Joel leadership. That seems to have been successful, with the Aaronite Satmar “bloc vote” sample ballot telling their community to vote for him.
  

New York State Senate District 38: Bill Weber (R, incumbent) vs. Elijah Reichlin-Melnick (D)

• The Candidates: For the third time in three cycles, Bill Weber and Elijah Reichlin-Melnick are running against each other. Reichlin-Melnick won the first, Weber won the second, it’s tight again in 2024.
• What’s at Stake? The Democrats hope to regain a seat that they held for a long time before it fell to Weber.
• Haredi Community: Reichlin-Melnick originally stood as a progressive, but this time around has sided with Haredi communities, supporting them on education and condemning NYSED commissioner Betsy Rosa’s raise of property taxes in East Ramapo to pay for public schools that the yeshiva families do not use.

New York State Assembly District 97: John W. McGowan (R, incumbent) vs. Thomas F. Sullivan (C) and Aron Wieder (D) 

• The Candidates: First-term Republican John W. McGowan has a tough task to beat Haredi candidate Aron Wieder who is standing as a very right-wing Democrat, with Thomas F. Sullivan standing to his right as a Conservative Party candidate.
• What’s at Stake? Haredi representation. Wieder is hoping that his Haredi credentials will help him flip the seat to Democrat and, in doing so, allow him – and the Haredi community – some access to the levers of power in Albany.
• Haredi Community: Aron Wieder is the only Haredi candidate in a competitive national or statewide campaign this general election (Simcha Eichenstein in District 48 is running unopposed, as is Kalman Yeger in District 41). Coming from the Belzer community in Brooklyn, he moved to Rockland County and started on his political career when he joined the famously dysfunctional East Ramapo Central School District. Since 2012 he has embarked on a series of runs for State Assembly, only to be beaten at the primary stage (2012, 2014) or in the general election itself (2016).

New York State Assembly District 41: (No incumbent standing) Kalman Yeger (D/R) unopposed 

• The Candidate: Centrist Democrat, Kalman Yeger is standing unopposed on the Democrat, Republican, and Conservative Party lines.
• What’s at Stake? In March, incumbent Helene Weinstein, Chair of the Assembly Ways and Means Committee, announced she would be retiring. Yeger, currently a New York City Council member, will be stepping into her shoes, though not yet her committee assignments.
• Haredi Community: Weinstein, who represented this district for 44 years, had a good relationship with the local Haredi communities. Kalman Yeger, who is Haredi himself and who has represented Orthodox and Haredi communities in New York City since 2017, looks set to continue that excellent relationship.