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The Republican Jewish Coalition: David Becomes Goliath

We are happy to share with you a new, incredible article by David Drucker, published yesterday morning in The Dispatch, that highlights the historic growth, impact, and influence of the Republican Jewish Coalition over the last 40 years.

All of the many successes and accomplishments that are highlighted in the piece would not have been possible without the support and dedication of our amazing leaders and members. We are strong because of YOU.

As we mark exactly 100 days until the annual RJC Leadership Summit in Las Vegas, the timing of this article could not be more meaningful. It is a reflection of how far we have come as an organization, and a marker for what we will achieve in the future.

Enjoy these excerpts from the article and photos from the RJC's files. The full article can be found here.

The morning after Speaker Mike Johnson won the gavel and took the reins of the House of Representatives in October 2023, the Louisiana Republican found himself in a new office in the Capitol, attempting furiously to get up to speed.

...Barely 24 hours on the job in his sparsely appointed office, he reviewed documents and fielded a long line of visitors—mostly House Republicans asking for favors—when one of them, Rep. Byron Donalds of Florida, came bearing advice.

"One of the people that came in was Byron Donalds who is a good, close friend and ally and he came in and said: 'You need to go to Las Vegas.' And I laughed, and thought it was a joke, and he said: 'No, RJC is meeting right now, it would be such a big, impactful thing,'" Johnson recalled in a telephone interview with The Dispatch earlier this year. Despite an avalanche of new responsibilities and suddenly impossible scheduling demands, the speaker quickly concluded Donalds was right.

"I don’t have time to do that, but I’ve got to make the time," Johnson remembers thinking. The October 7 attacks in Israel just a few weeks earlier also weighed on Johnson’s decision. The idea of headlining the RJC conference to show solidarity with Israel and American Jews pulled at the speaker’s heartstrings. "That was probably the best suggestion I got in the first week of being speaker," Johnson said.

...For the 40-year-old group, Johnson’s presence that weekend was validation. His decision to rush out to the conference—it was Johnson’s first public event as speaker—offered recognition of the RJC as both a fundraising juggernaut and effective grassroots organizer. More broadly, RJC leaders insist it suggests the group occupies rarified air within the GOP hierarchy that few other party-aligned organizations can claim.

“That was probably the best suggestion I got in the first week of being speaker,” Johnson said.

...[RJC's founders adopted] a two-pronged strategy to maximize political access and policy influence: Never mince words when conveying disagreements with Republican presidents and other GOP officials, but do it behind closed doors first. [Max] Fisher, [Richard] Fox, [George] Klein, [Gordon] Zacks, and others who initially joined the organization believed this approach would ensure they always had a seat at the table where top Republicans with whom they agreed on most issues were making decisions.

"We are your friends; we’re not going to double-cross you," Klein said of the strategy. "We’ll tell you the truth—what we think of what you’re doing, right or wrong."

..."Are we going to be court Jews and keep our mouths shut, or are we going to speak up publicly and aggressively? We chose the latter," Brooks said. "Had we not done that, we would never have had the credibility and the longevity, I think, and the impact that we have now."

"It established a culture that said: When a Republican does the wrong thing, vis-a-vis our issue, we are going to call it out—publicly and privately," Brooks added.

...“Are we going to be court Jews and keep our mouths shut, or are we going to speak up publicly and aggressively? We chose the latter. Had we not done that, we would never have had the credibility and the longevity, I think, and the impact that we have now.”

Matt Brooks

These days, the RJC is monitoring a new threat from the right. Or, maybe it’s best described as the old [Pat] Buchanan threat the group presumed it had stamped out.

Hostility toward Israel and in some cases, rank antisemitism, is rising among popular podcasters, online influencers, and other media personalities. Their reach is often vast, touching listeners and viewers unaware of basic facts about Israel or Jews. Of particular concern is Tucker Carlson, the former Fox News host turned podcaster. His politics are hard to pin down, but he has mainstream notoriety from a long career as a cable television news host and regularly platforms on his programs people who share his apparent suspicion of Israel and Jews.

..."This is an evolution and extension of the kind of worldview that we were troubled by, that started back in the early ‘90s with Pat Buchanan," Brooks said. "Tucker Carlson is the natural heir to Pat Buchanan."

"It’s important that we be vigilant and honest and true to our convictions and to the Jewish community and combat this stuff," he added. "We have a woke right in our party that we need to stand up to, just as we stand up to the woke left."

“It’s an extraordinarily influential group, and the best evidence of that is who comes to our meetings, in particular the annual event in Vegas."

Eric Levine, New York City attorney and RJC board member.

...Perhaps the clearest sign of the influence the RJC now wields within Republican politics is its annual leadership summit, typically a Thursday-through-Sunday event in late October (except in election years.) Indeed, this is the event that Speaker Johnson rushed off to soon after winning the gavel in the fall of 2023.

...In 2010, the event attracted 250 people. But attendance has exploded since, regularly topping out at roughly 1,500 people who travel from all over the country to attend. That spike has dovetailed with a similar growth in the number of prominent Republicans clamoring for speaking slots.

The demand from Republicans running for office, or mulling a campaign—for president, Congress, governor, dog catcher (okay, maybe not dog catcher)—has been so high that Brooks has had to stagger invitations to the annual conference. Ditto the interest Brooks gets from incumbent Republican leaders and rank-and-file members of Congress, plus a range of local, state, and national GOP officials (including sitting presidents).

It’s hard to find another event on the Republican political calendar other than nominating conventions and perhaps the Conservative Political Action Conference where party financiers, grassroots activists, campaign strategists, well-known conservative media figures, and elected officials can be seen mingling together.

“A powerful organization in politics delivers one of two things: You either deliver money or you deliver votes—and super powerful organizations deliver both."

Matt Brooks

...Brooks... is credited with transforming the RJC from a boutique advocacy group known primarily for fundraising into a sophisticated organization uniquely adept at identifying Jewish voters, figuring out what messages make them tick, and turning them out to vote for Republicans in crucial battlegrounds where their votes can make a difference.

...Since Election Day 2024, the Republican Jewish Coalition has been telling anyone who will listen that Trump’s performance among Jewish voters was a historic success—due in no small part to the money and manpower invested by the RJC. There's data back that assertion up.

...Trump’s support among Jewish voters nationwide last November, whether as good as the Fox News numbers suggest or not, is not really of concern to the RJC. To understand the real and consequential movement toward Trump by Jewish voters in 2024, you have to look under the hood, at the exit polls of battleground states and local precincts with significant populations of Jewish voters. That’s where Trump made his mark with a cohort usually elusive for Republicans; it’s what helped propel him past Harris in swing states that were quite close despite the president’s sweep.

...But the RJC believes that much of this—Trump’s elevated performance with Jewish voters, and Jewish voters’ suspicion of Harris—was the fruit of its investment and labor as funneled through a strategy the group developed over many years. In the 2024 election cycle, the group spent more than $20 million to pay for microtargeting, voter turnout efforts, advertising, and to build a proprietary voter file of Jewish voters for Senate candidates. Crucially, resources were deployed only to battlegrounds where presidential and Senate contests were on the line.

"We learned after several cycles and several iterations of refining this," Brooks said, explaining that, when the RJC initially got into the field business of hustling Jewish votes for Republicans, "we got caught in the trap of trying to [increase] the Jewish vote number, nationally. … So we were throwing a lot of money and a lot of resources at places that didn’t matter in terms of determining who the next president of the United States is."

Ultimately, the RJC decided to stop chasing the national exit poll numbers and instead, Brooks said, "move the needle in a significant way in the battleground states, which are where there’s a large Jewish population and in a close election could have an outsized role [in] determining the results."

...The goal of [the RJC PAC's] first election cycle in 2000 was to donate more than $100,000 to the Republican presidential nominee and GOP congressional candidates. Nearly a quarter century later, the RJC’s political action committee and super PAC spent $20 million to elect Trump and Republicans running for Senate in key states—double the $10 million invested by the group in 2020. And the $20 million in RJC expenditures in 2024 does not include the $100 million donated to GOP candidates and causes by Miram Adelson, nor the additional $25 million contributed by other party financiers affiliated with the RJC, in the same election...

RJC is Celebrating 40 Years!

From our start in 1985 to today, the RJC has been a unique, outspoken, and trusted voice for Jewish Republicans, bringing our message to Republican decision makers and the broader Jewish community.

We support a strong America, and that includes a strong US-Israel alliance. We don't hesitate to call out antisemitism, no matter which side of the political aisle it comes from. Republicans who support American security and prosperity, and who are friends of Israel and our community, know the RJC has their backs - in the policy fights in Washington and in their election battles.

All of this is possible only through the dedication and support of our members and leaders.

Please consider making a gift to the RJC today in honor of our 40 years of growth and success.

We need your support to keep moving forward!

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