Brooks: Jewish Voters Must Get Out and Vote

Washington Reporter
Wednesday, October 29, 2024

It’s such a cliché to say that this election is “the most important election of our lifetimes,” but in 2024, it’s true. Republicans know it and Democrats know it. You can see it in the desperate, ad hominem attacks on President Donald Trump and down ballot GOP candidates. You can hear it in the mainstream media’s breathlessly positive coverage of Vice President Kamala Harris’s rare public appearances, and in their silence about the serious problems in this country that the Harris-Biden administration has caused, intensified, and ignored.

That sense of urgency about the 2024 election is real — and visceral, especially for American Jews. Our country’s security – and our community’s safety — are truly hanging in the balance. That is why the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) has engaged in the largest ever effort to identify, persuade, and turn out Jewish voters in the key battleground states, where a small shift in votes can have an historic impact.

We have dedicated $15 million to this effort, targeting Jewish voters in Pennsylvania, Nevada, Michigan, Arizona, and Georgia. Our ads are appearing on cable and broadcast TV, on digital, streaming services, in voters’ mailboxes, on their cell phones, and on social media.

RJC has paid staff and hundreds of volunteers on the ground in the battleground states, knocking on doors and hosting voter turnout events. Thousands of volunteers around the country are phone banking. All these efforts are built around the best data operation in Jewish politics, drawn from sophisticated, cutting-edge, and award-winning data modeling technology.

The message itself is simple: As American Jews, our families, our communities, and our United States will be safer with President Trump in the White House and with Republicans leading the Senate and House. With Donald Trump as President, our allies will be stronger, the US military and our foreign policy will be stronger, and our economy will be stronger. Anti-semitism in any form will not be tolerated. Jewish students on college campuses, Jewish families in their neighborhoods, Jewish businesses and synagogues will be protected. Israel will once again have its greatest defender back in the Oval Office.

Our efforts have and will produce tangible results in this election. President Trump won over 30 percent of the Jewish vote in 2020 — a 40-year high — and we’re building on that success. Since Hamas launched its attack on Israel in October 2023, polls have shown more American Jewish voters moving toward the GOP. The huge increase in anti-semitism from the left has been top of mind for American Jews and is causing many Jewish voters to rethink their traditional voting pattern. If current trends hold and our comprehensive outreach efforts succeed, Donald Trump will win. In the key battleground states, every minor shift could make all the difference between a Trump White House and a Harris one.

President Trump was roundly criticized for saying that Jewish Democrats should have their heads examined if they vote for Kamala Harris, and that the Jewish vote could have a decisive effect on this election — but he was right on both counts. Given all the real, concrete good that President Trump did for Jewish Americans and for Israel in his first term, it’s irrational for Jews to blindly follow the Democratic Party line and vote for Harris.

For those Jewish voters who are willing to think through their choices in this election, there are compelling reasons to cast their votes for Donald Trump. And when they do, they could in fact nudge enough battleground states over the line to put Donald Trump back in office and bring our country that much closer to security and prosperity in the years to come.

We’re coming down to the wire. The Republican Jewish Coalition is going all out, connecting with voters and making the case for the GOP. Two weeks from now, the most important election in our lifetimes will be over and the RJC will know we did everything we could. As always, the outcome is in the voters’ hands. American Jewish voters must now do their part and cast those votes!

Matt Brooks is the CEO of the Republican Jewish Coalition, the national grassroots organization of Jewish Republicans.

 

This article appeared on the Washington Reporter website on October 29, 2024.