Analysis: Why GOP Jews are more jazzed about Trump this election
A delegate holds a pro-Israel “Trump” campaign sign during the Republican National Convention in Milwaukee on Tuesday. Photo by Hannah Beier/Bloomberg via Getty Images
By Jacob Kornbluh July 17, 2024
Jacob Kornbluh, the Forward’s senior political reporter, is in Milwaukee this week covering the Republican National Convention. He will also be reporting from the Democratic National Convention in Chicago next month.
MILWAUKEE — Republican Jews at their party’s national convention this week describe their enthusiasm for Trump as more robust than it has ever been.
“Trump is not only going to unite America, he’s going to bring together Jews in the Republican Party in a way that has never happened before,” Florida’s Paul Packer told me Wednesday.
Like other GOP Jews, Packer, who chaired a commission within the Trump administration, cited Oct. 7. He claimed Hamas’ terror attack on Israel — and the wars that ensued — would never have happened had Trump been in office. He blamed President Joe Biden, who beat Trump in 202o, for coddling and emboldening Israel’s enemies. The analysis discounts other factors leading up to the Oct. 7 attacks, but the belief among conventioneers is widely held.
Jacob Blumencranz, a Jewish member of the New York State Assembly, spoke to a more general feeling among GOP Jews here that Republicans but not Democrats since Oct. 7 have shown they can be counted on to support the Jewish state. It explains, he said, the “ton of excitement” Jews at the convention express for Trump. “We’re a unified party when it comes to our agreement that we need to stand by our allies and support our allies, especially in a time of need.”
Rep. David Kutzoff, one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, noted a similarly elevated level of support for Trump among Jewish delegates. “Everyone is excited,” he said. “Everyone is enthused.”
This excitement persists despite the convention’s nomination Monday of Trump’s pick for a running mate. Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance this spring voted against an emergency package that included military aid to Israel. But many Jewish delegates say they don’t doubt Vance’s support for Israel. They instead point to progressive Democrats in Congress, strong critics of Israel, who have racked up more votes against aid to the Jewish state.
Why else are GOP Jews rallying to Trump?
Delegates pointed to other forces fueling Jewish GOP zeal for Trump, including his statements excoriating pro-Palestinian protesters who rocked U.S. campuses this school year, demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and labeling Israel a genocidal and apartheid state. Biden has criticized the protesters excesses — some have crossed the line into antisemitism — but also defended their right to free speech. At the Republican National Convention, speakers promise to hold those protesters accountable, with legal action and deportation.
Jewish delegates also said they appreciate how many non-Jews here have made note of rising antisemitism, and folded Jews, in speeches and supportive comments in the hallways, into Tuesday’s theme at the convention: “Make America Safe Again.” The first national strategy to combat antisemitism, which Biden unveiled in May, is not a topic of conversation.
Weakening support for Biden among Democrats in general also plays into Republican Jewish hopefulness for Trump. It’s easier to rally behind a candidate on the upswing, and Trump appears more formidable since Biden’s faltering debate performance last month. A failed assassination attempt against the former president Saturday, after which a bleeding Trump raised his fist in triumph, only burnished his reputation as a survivor and a fighter.
Of course, American Jews, as a group, are among the most reliable Democratic voters, and not infrequently in past decades have Republican Jews announced that the time is ripe for Jews to migrate to the GOP — and then watched them vote overwhelmingly for Democrats again.
But Jewish delegates express feeling particularly noticed in Milwaukee, and that they expect some Jewish voters elsewhere — even those who have gravitated to Democrats in the past — may pick up on the GOP’s Jewish outreach.
Never before had the head of the Republican Jewish Coalition addressed the convention. But the crowd roared Tuesday when its director, Matt Brooks, told the delegates to “cheer” if they support Israel.
And Rep. Elise Stefanik of New York, who gained national prominence in December for grilling college presidents on antisemitism, gave a fiery speech Tuesday in which she tied Democrats to the anti-Israel chants ubiquitous at campus protests.
The parents of American-Israeli hostage Omer Neutra, and Shabbos Kestenbaum, a Harvard Divinity School graduate who has testified about antisemitic harassment, both have prime time speaking slots at the convention Wednesday.
In a hallway interview, Inna Vernikov, a Republican Jewish member of the New York City Council from Brooklyn and a Trump delegate, described the Democrat’s treatment of Jews in damning terms.
“On October 7, Jews woke up not only to a massacre in Israel but to the betrayal by Joe Biden and the Democratic Party, who have abandoned Israel and the Jewish communities for votes and political convenience,” she said.
But in the aftermath of the Oct. 7 attack, Jews remarked on Biden’s staunch support for Israel, support greatly appreciated even by Republicans. Biden ordered emergency military and financial aid to Israel. He froze funds on their way to Iran. And he flew to Israel — a rare move for a president during a war that does not involve U.S. troops.
That appreciation among the strongest supporters of Israel flagged, however, in the months that followed. Biden’s criticism of Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu’s conduct of the war intensified, and he temporarily withheld a shipment of heavy weapons to Israel.
Vernikov and others extol Trump’s record on Israel. They note his relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, his sanctioning of Iran and his brokering of the Abraham Accords. “This November, the choice for American Jews is clear,” she said.
How the American Jewish vote is shaping up in 2024
Republican Jews at the convention speculate that declining support for Biden after his disastrous debate performance last month gives Trump a better opportunity to court the Jewish vote. And that vote, they point out, could make a difference. Though Jews represent only 2% of the electorate, even a small slip of Jewish voters toward Trump in swing states — including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Nevada — could hand him the election.
The most recent surveys of Jewish voters may indicate some movement away from the Democrats since Biden beat Trump in 2020.
A poll released last month by the non-partisan Jewish Electoral Institute, of 800 Jewish American adults, showed Biden leading Trump 64% to 26% when a third-party candidate was an option. According to an exit poll commissioned for J Street after the 2020 election, 77% of Jews voted for Biden, while Trump garnered 21%.
“The idea that Democrats can take Jewish votes for granted is over,” said Vernikov.
GOP Jews say they are good with Vance
Trump’s choice of a running mate, announced Monday, the first day of the convention, makes many Jews nervous: he’s an isolationist who voted against aid to Israel. And he’s been reluctant to call out antisemitism on the right.
But none of the Republican Jews I’ve talked to in Milwaukee this week expressed any qualms about the Ohio senator.
“He is someone who has the substance and the gravitas to be president,” said Bruce Blakeman, the Jewish Nassau County executive.
Asked about Vance’s support for Georgia Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene, who has been accused in the past of making antisemitic remarks — including her suggestion that a Jewish-funded space laser had sparked wildfires in California in 2018 — Blakeman said she “doesn’t reflect the great majority in the Republican Party.”
“But I’ll take her any day over AOC,” he added, referring to Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, the New York Democrat and staunch critic of Israel.
Brooks acknowledged a divide within his party over foreign policy between isolationists and those who want the U.S. to remain engaged in global affairs.
“We’re going to continue to wage that battle in the party and make sure that the Tucker Carlson wing of the party doesn’t get a foothold,” he said, referring to the isolationist pundit.
Blumencranz said Jewish Republicans can sum up their message to other Jews fairly simply. It’s a matter, he said, of “supporting those who support us.”
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