AP: GOP works to turn out pro-Trump Jewish voters in swing states to trim Democrats’ edge

Tuesday, October 29, 2024

WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — Rachel Weinberg calls herself a religious Jew first, then a proud American. She said she has only one choice for president: Donald Trump.

“I don’t like everything he says,” the 72-year-old retired preschool teacher from Michigan said after volunteer canvassers for the Republican Jewish Coalition knocked on her door Sunday. “But I vote for Israel. It is our life. I support Israel. Trump supports Israel with his mouth and his actions.”

Weinberg’s home in West Bloomfield, in vote-rich Oakland County, was among more than 20 that the Republican Jewish Coalition was visiting that morning. She has voted for Trump in previous elections as well.

The door-to-door outreach to Jewish voters with a history of backing Republicans is part of a new effort the group is undertaking this year in five presidential battleground states in hopes of boosting Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris in the Nov. 5 election. Although surveys show that Jews vote decidedly Democratic, the Republican Jewish Coalition is hoping that the door-knocking will peel off enough votes to make a difference in an election year when the war between Israel and Hamas has stoked debate and provoked division.

About 7 in 10 Jewish voters nationally backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, while about 3 in 10 backed Trump that year, according to AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the electorate. A Pew Research Center poll released last month found that about two-thirds of Jewish voters back Harris.

Biden carried Michigan in 2020 by fewer than 155,000 votes out of roughly 5.5 million cast. Although Jewish voters account for only 2% of the state’s voters, the 15,000 new Jewish Republican voters the coalition has identified since the 2020 election — out of roughly 120,000 Jewish voters in the state — could make an impact in what is shaping up to be a very close race, said Sam Markstein, an RJC spokesperson.

The Republican Jewish Coalition’s targeting is very specific in Michigan, as it is in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. Here, its work is centered in Oakland County, the state’s second most-populous county, with 1.3 million people just northwest of Detroit.

It’s particularly focusing on the upper middle-class suburbs of Farmington Hills, Oak Park, Southfield and West Bloomfield — the township with the state’s largest Jewish population, where Israeli flags hang in some front windows.

Biden defeated Trump in 2020, 66% to 33%, in the West Bloomfield Township precinct where 82-year-old David Cuttner and 22-year-old Noam Nedivi were canvassing for the coalition on Sunday. The margin was not far off the national trend.

The coalition’s robust effort is aimed at chipping away at Democrats’ advantages among this voting bloc. “This includes direct mail, social, digital, all hyper-targeted to the Jewish community. And it’s going to be a full thrust, the largest investment ever to turn out Jewish voters for Republicans,” Markstein said.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has purchased $15 million in advertising in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. But it’s the $5 million it has committed to door-to-door outreach that is new for this election, chiefly its investment in voter data aimed at more efficiently identifying potential Trump supporters.

 

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This article was originally published by AP on October 29, 2024