Republican Jewish Coalition

The RJC Weekly Newsletter

November 12, 2020

Your weekly look at the latest news, analysis, and RJC activities around the country.

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— Featured —

Notes From Norm

 

The Battle for the Senate

 

Welcome to the overtime stage of the 2020 elections. The presidential election is still not finished. We know that Democrats will retain the House of Representatives - albeit with a significantly narrowed majority. But the battle for the Senate will only be settled on January 5, 2021 when Georgia holds two run-off elections.

 

If GOP Senator David Perdue defeats Democrat Jon Ossoff and Senator Kelly Loeffler defeats Democrat Raphael Warnock, the GOP will maintain control of the Senate. If Ossoff and Warnock win, Democrats could be in a position to control all three elected branches and advance harmful legislation.

 

Since I started sharing these Notes from Norm in June, my focus has been on the vital importance of holding the Senate as a bulwark against the increasingly radical Washington Democrats. The good news is that Chuck Schumer and company failed in most of their efforts: Susan Collins won convincingly in Maine, Thom Tillis prevailed in North Carolina, and Joni Ernst came through in Iowa. Now all of us must mobilize to help Senators Perdue and Loeffler secure the 51st and 52nd seat and lock in our majority.

 

I know we'll rise to the challenge. RJC members have come through in a big way. Just through our PAC's web site, we raised millions for the President and our endorsed House and Senate candidates. We were the single largest source of support for Senator Lindsey Graham. Once again, we showed that the Republican Jewish Coalition punches above its weight.

 

So far, RJC-endorsed candidates prevailed in 8 of 11 Senate races and 32 of 49 House races (with 7 races still uncalled). In most of those races, J Street had endorsed the Democrat candidates that our endorsed candidates defeated. Having pro-Israel Republicans in those seats will make a real difference. I am so proud of what we've accomplished, and I look forward to building on those successes in Georgia and beyond.

Donate to Perdue and Loeffler’s runoff campaigns here.

 

 

We Make a Difference!

The RJC had a significant impact on the 2020 election. Our investment in the best data and the strongest grassroots outreach ever undertaken in the Jewish community really paid off. President Donald Trump received 30.5 percent of the Jewish vote nationally and a historic 43 percent of the Jewish vote in the battleground state of Florida. Our donors, our staff, and our terrific volunteers contributed to those outstanding results.

 

The Jewish News Syndicate reports

US President Donald Trump received the highest percent of the Jewish vote for a Republican in decades, while former Vice President Joe Biden hit a new low for a Democratic candidate in recent years, according to a poll released on Wednesday.

Trump received 30.5 percent of the Jewish vote, while Biden got 60.6 percent, according to a Republican Jewish Coalition survey conducted by Basswood Research and McLaughlin & Associates.

According to the RJC poll, Biden’s share of the Jewish vote was the lowest for any Democratic presidential candidate since 1988, while Trump is the highest since that same election.

… In the crucial state of Florida, Jewish voters appeared to be critical to Trump winning the state’s 29 electoral votes as, according to the Associated Press exit poll in the state, with 43 percent of Jews voting for Trump compared to 56 percent for Biden. The 43 percent mark represented the highest percentage of the Jewish vote in the Sunshine State for a Republican presidential candidate. The Republican Jewish Coalition spent more than $5 million targeting Jewish voters in Florida on Trump’s behalf.

Jackson Richman and Sean Savage noted this week that this year’s election results point to a trend toward greater Jewish support for Republicans. After reviewing some of the difficulty in conducting exit polls in the Jewish community, they write

Regardless, these polls indicate “that ‘bedrock Republicanism’ among Jews is more than two-and-half times what it was years ago,” said [historian Jonathan] Sarna, citing that US President Lyndon Johnson, a Democrat, received 90 percent of the Jewish vote, whereas his Republican opponent, Barry Goldwater—at the time, not a particularly popular candidate—got just 10 percent.

In Southeast Florida especially, there’s been a growth in “bedrock Republicanism” due to the growing number of Orthodox Jews, in addition to Russian, Latino, Iranian and other immigrants who overall are “more worried” about the far-left wing of the Democratic Party than the far-right, according to Sarna.

Here's a review of what the RJC did in the 2020 election cycle:

  • $10 million invested nationwide, $5 million of that in Florida;
  • 67 Virtual National Days of Action;
  • 2,075 National Victory Team volunteers recruited;
  • 551,402 Jewish outreach phone calls;
  • 144,271 Jewish outreach Get-Out-The-Vote texts;
  • 204,225 Jewish outreach emails;
  • 500,000 direct mail pieces;
  • 9 ads on digital and television platforms, seen millions of times.

 

Advancing a Pro-Israel Agenda

Josh Hammer has an important op-ed published by the JTA this week, on how conservatives can advance pro-Israel policies under a potential Joe Biden administration. He writes

We don’t know what will happen in the next four years. But Republican Jews do know that Biden’s agenda on Iran, Israel and other issues is not our own, and that he has the power to make worrisome changes even with the check of a Republican-majority Senate.

My advice for the next four years is threefold:

* Biden’s administration must hold the line against the Democratic Party’s far-left progressive wing, which is increasingly unabashed in its anti-Zionism and sometimes veers into outright anti-Semitism.

* Similarly, Senate Republicans must utilize their full arsenal of constitutional tools to hold the line against the administration on Jewish-related issues.

* Finally, fanciful though it may seem, pro-Israel public figures of all stripes must launch a full-throttle campaign to convince the Biden-Harris administration to steer the course paved by the Trump-Netanyahu debunking of the decades-long failed Middle East consensus — and to resist resuscitating the worst proclivities of the Obama administration.

.. The Republican Senate, for its part, must hold the line against the worst excesses of the Biden-Harris administration. The Constitution’s framers famously wove an elaborate system of checks and balances into our legal order. Despite 100 years of accumulation of unwarranted power in the executive branch, Congress retains many tools to push back against a rogue president.

It is crucial that we have a Republican majority in the Senate that can act - as we have said before - as a brake on extremism. That is precisely why the RJC is so focused on the two runoff elections for US Senate in Georgia, scheduled for January 5, 2021.

 

 

Senators Kelly Loeffler and David Perdue.

The Fight is On in Georgia

As noted above by Senator Norm Coleman, January run-offs will be held in both the regularly scheduled Georgia Senate race pitting GOP Senator David Perdue against Democrat Jon Ossoff, and the special election in which Senator Kelly Loeffler is defending the seat she was appointed to after the retirement of Senator Johnny Isakson.

 

So far, RJC members have donated nearly $300,000 to the Perdue and Loeffler runoff campaigns through the RJC PAC. Have you made your contribution yet? YOU CAN DONATE HERE!

 

Note that donation limits have reset for the runoff. Individuals can give up to $2,800, and couples $5,600, to each candidate regardless of how much you gave to Sen. Perdue and Sen Loeffler during the general election.

 

The Forward reports on the RJC’s efforts in Georgia, which are ramping up now

The Republican Jewish Coalition has already spent $150,000 since Sunday afternoon, according to its executive director Matt Brooks. Its Florida staff will become its Georgia staff, and it is planning new digital ads to target Jewish voters.

The message, Brooks said, will be that “Keeping a Republican Senate is a brake on extremism, and will ensure that the Democrats don’t have a blank check to give to” the party’s progressive leaders, like Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Bernie Sanders. (Brooks told JTA that the RJC will not refer to Biden as “president-elect” until “states certify the election and the courts have ruled on allegations of fraud and irregularities.”)

We’ve already heard from many RJC members who want to volunteer to make calls into Georgia or take on other tasks. If you’d like to volunteer and help bring Senators Perdue and Loeffler over the finish line, contact us at [email protected].

 

RJC Atlanta Chapter Chairman Chuck Berk spoke to the Atlanta Jewish Times about what the Jewish community needs to know about Sen. Kelly Loeffler’s opponent, Raphael Warnock

In a statement to the AJT, Chuck Berk, who heads the Atlanta chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said, “The Jewish community should be appalled by the pro-Palestinian, anti-Israel, anti-Semitic comments by Rev. Warnock and have real concern as to whether, if elected, he would be a supporter of Israel and Jewish issues. But if history is any guide, I doubt that will have any impact. Liberal Jews, including many of our Atlanta rabbis will naively ignore these statements, as they did Obama’s Reverend [Jeremiah] Wright’s statements, the cold shoulder to Israel by Obama-Biden for eight years, throwing Israel under the bus at the UN, and not condemning the Black Lives Matter ‘protestors’ in Los Angeles who attacked and vandalized synagogues, Jewish businesses and memorials with anti-Semitic, anti-Israel slogans (i.e. F*** Israel). We need Georgia senators who have a history of a strong, unblemished record of support for Israel and Jewish causes, like David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler.”

The JTA reports that Warnock’s record on Israel has become a flashpoint for Atlanta Jews:

“Raphael Warnock signed letter likening West Bank to apartheid South Africa,” Jewish Insider reported Thursday.

The publication followed up with another story this week saying that Warnock, a Black pastor who leads the church helmed by the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. until his assassination in 1968, “blasted Israel” in a 2018 sermon.

On Monday, Loeffler amplified that sermon on Twitter, accusing Warnock of having “a long history of anti-Israel extremism.”

… The Republican Jewish Coalition on Tuesday tweeted a story about Warnock’s Israel record, saying, “Believe his actions, not his self-serving words.

____________

 

We still have the RJC/Trump kippah! 
Our extremely popular red Trump kippah is now for sale for just $18. This includes shipping and handling. Supplies are limited. 


BUY YOUR KIPPAH HERE.

 

— Tweets —

 

 

   

      

— Events —

 

RJC Victory Team
Georgia Runoff Days of Action

 

Starting next week, we will hold Virtual Days of Action and make calls on Sundays, Tuesdays, and Thursdays to get out the vote in Georgia for the very important runoff elections there on January 5. Click here to sign up and help!

 

December 2: A Special Virtual Event

Join us for a live webinar on December 2 at 2:30pm Eastern: "The Senate is at Stake - A Conversation with Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler," moderated by RJC National Chairman Senator Norm Coleman. Watch your email for registration information, coming soon!

 

You can watch these past virtual events on the RJC web site:

  • Closing Arguments: What's at Stake for the Jewish Community, featuring Jason Greenblatt
  • A Conversation with Boris Epshteyn
  • A Conversation with Senator Ted Cruz
  • A Conversation with Jason Miller
  • RJC Town Hall with Nikki Haley and Mark Levin

You can access all of them by going to the RJC homepage and scrolling down to the "RJC Live" section. There's a drop-down menu there to select the video you want to see.

 

 

 

While RJC offices are closed and our staff are teleworking, you can reach us by email or by phone (please leave a voicemail message and your call will be returned). Contact information for our offices can be found on our web site. Please visit us online for the latest RJC news, to volunteer for our 2020 outreach efforts, to see details of upcoming events, and to donate to the RJC.

 

— Connect —

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Republican Jewish Coalition | 50 F Street, N.W., Suite 100 | Washington, DC 20001
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