Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on Aug. 8, 2024. Photo by Joe Raedle/Getty Images

By Jacob Kornbluh August 8, 2024

Former President Donald Trump claimed without evidence that his support among American Jews is “way up” in recent weeks, enough to make up for a loss in support among Black voters.

Trump made the remarks during a press conference broadcast on live TV Thursday afternoon in an effort to reset the presidential race amid growing momentum for his Democratic rival, Vice President Kamala Harris. 

The Republican nominee offered no polling data to support his claim that he’s gaining ground with Jewish voters. A recent Siena Research poll of New York voters showed Trump leading by one point – 50% to 49% – among Jewish voters in the state. However, the sample of Jewish respondents was relatively small — 9% of the 1,199 likely voters polled. 

American Jews vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. The most recent public polls of Jewish voters nationally showed Trump securing about 24% of the vote against President Joe Biden, who withdrew from the presidential race last month. In 2020 against Biden, Trump garnered 21%, according to an exit poll commissioned for J Street, while a Republican Jewish Coalition-sponsored poll showed him with 30%.

But even a small slip of Jewish voters toward Trump could potentially influence outcomes in crucial battleground states. Jewish voters are estimated to make up 1% to 3% of the electorate in Pennsylvania, Michigan, Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Wisconsin — states that Biden won in 2020 by less than 3%.

Taking questions from reporters from his Mar-A-Lago resort in Florida, Trump also repeated his frequent assertion that he doesn’t understand how Jews could vote for the Harris-Walz ticket. They “should have their head examined,” he said.

The Harris campaign said in response: “Jewish people should not ‘have their head examined’ for not supporting him. That’s actually antisemitic.”

At other points in the more than hour-long press conference, Trump: 

• Repeated his claim that Hamas wouldn’t have attacked Israel if he had been reelected in 2020.
• Said he wouldn’t consider cutting aid to Israel. Harris is under pressure from the Uncommitted movement to agree to stop supplying military aid to Israel, a move her spokesperson Thursday said she would not make.
• Called Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro “a terrible guy.” Shapiro, who has a 61% approval rate in his home state, was Harris’ runner-up choice for a running mate.

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