Rachel Weinberg calls herself a spiritual Jew first, then a proud American. She mentioned she has just one selection for president: Donald Trump.
Weinberg’s dwelling in West Bloomfield, in vote-rich Oakland County, was amongst greater than 20 that the Republican Jewish Coalition was visiting that morning. She has voted for Trump in earlier elections as effectively.
The door-to-door outreach to Jewish voters with a historical past of backing Republicans is a part of a brand new effort the group is endeavor this 12 months in 5 presidential battleground states in hopes of boosting Trump over Democrat Kamala Harris within the Nov. 5 election. Though surveys present that Jews vote decidedly Democratic, the Republican Jewish Coalition is hoping that the door-knocking will peel off sufficient votes to make a distinction in an election 12 months when the battle between Israel and Hamas has stoked debate and provoked division.
About seven in 10 Jewish voters nationally backed Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, whereas about three in 10 backed Trump that 12 months, in line with AP VoteCast, a sweeping survey of the voters. A Pew Analysis Middle ballot launched final month discovered that about two-thirds of Jewish voters again Harris.
Biden carried Michigan in 2020 by fewer than 155,000 votes out of roughly 5.5 million solid. Though Jewish voters account for less than 2% of the state’s voters, the 15,000 new Jewish Republican voters the coalition has recognized because the 2020 election—out of roughly 120,000 Jewish voters within the state—may make an affect in what’s shaping as much as be a really shut race, mentioned Sam Markstein, an RJC spokesperson.
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s concentrating on may be very particular in Michigan, as it’s in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Right here, its work is centered in Oakland County, the state’s second most-populous county, with 1.3 million folks simply northwest of Detroit.
It is notably specializing in the higher middle-class suburbs of Farmington Hills, Oak Park, Southfield, and West Bloomfield—the township with the state’s largest Jewish inhabitants, the place Israeli flags hold in some entrance home windows.
Biden defeated Trump in 2020, 66% to 33%, within the West Bloomfield Township precinct the place 82-year-old David Cuttner and 22-year-old Noam Nedivi had been canvassing for the coalition on Sunday. The margin was not far off the nationwide development.
The coalition’s sturdy effort is aimed toward chipping away at Democrats’ benefits amongst this voting bloc. “This contains junk mail, social, digital, all hyper-targeted to the Jewish neighborhood. And it’s going to be a full thrust, the most important funding ever to end up Jewish voters for Republicans,” Markstein mentioned.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has bought $15 million in promoting in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, and Pennsylvania. Nevertheless it’s the $5 million it has dedicated to door-to-door outreach that’s new for this election, mainly its funding in voter knowledge aimed toward extra effectively figuring out potential Trump supporters.
Halie Soifer, the CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, mentioned in an announcement that Jewish voters are a key a part of a profitable Democratic coalition.st
“Kamala Harris shares the views and values of the majority of American Jews, while Donald Trump threatens and denigrates us, trafficks in antisemitic rhetoric, aligns with dangerous extremists, and aspires to be a dictator on day one,” Soifer mentioned.
Tensions have been excessive because the battle started on Oct. 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 folks in Israel and took 250 folks hostage. Greater than 42,000 Palestinians have been killed in Gaza within the subsequent preventing, in line with Gaza well being officers.
Republicans had been extra probably than Democrats to be supportive of Israel, whereas Democrats had been extra more likely to be crucial, a survey by the Pearson Institute and The Related Press-NORC Middle for Public Affairs Analysis present in September.
The preventing has intensified the give attention to the connection between Israel and the U.S., which has offered at the least $17.9 billion in army support because the battle started. And plenty of Jews say rising acts of antisemitism in the US and anti-Israel protests in cities and school campuses have made them really feel unsafe. Nedivi, who was canvassing Sunday, mentioned he had been a sufferer of antisemitism on the Michigan school he attends.
Zeke Aharonov had another message for his fellow observant Jews after standing in a line of greater than 200 folks to solid his early vote on the West Bloomfield library Sunday.
“As Jews, it is our duty to be attentive to fascism and to fight it,” the 26-year-old cybersecurity tech mentioned as he left the library. “And our way of fighting fascism is to vote against Donald Trump.”
