Republican Campaign Strategists See Jewish Voters Moving Right in 2024

Republican presidential candidate and former President Donald Trump speaks at the Republican Jewish Coalition in Las Vegas on Oct. 28, 2023. Madalina Vasiliu/The Epoch Times

WASHINGTON—Republicans looking to recapture the Senate in November have said that an apparently accelerating shift among Jewish voters from the Democrats to the GOP could significantly boost their candidates in battleground races.

Voting data going back to 1912 compiled by the American-Israeli Cooperative Enterprise show a marked shift in Jewish voting beginning with the 2016 presidential balloting as Republican Donald Trump won 26 percent, compared with the average of 23.75 percent for the four previous GOP presidential candidates.

President Trump increased his share of the Jewish vote by an additional 4 points to 30 percent in 2020.

More recently, an early April I&I/TIPP Poll survey of 1,400 registered voters regarding President Joe Biden’s recent “shift away from Israel” as it fights a war in Gaza found a marked partisan shift, with 55 percent of Republicans saying they strongly or mostly disagree with the shift and 56 percent of Democrats strongly or mostly agreeing.

Historically, support for Israel among U.S. voters has been overwhelmingly bipartisan, especially when the Middle East’s only democratic government has been under attack.

Republican campaign strategists have said that the evidence is still mostly anecdotal, but they’ve said the shifting among Jewish voters is a major plus heading into the 2024 Senate campaigns, made even more intense by the sudden explosion of openly anti-Semitic campus protests and President Biden’s vacillating support of Israel following the Hamas terrorist attack on Oct. 7, 2023, that killed more than 1,200 Israelis.

The GOP needs to gain only one seat to get to a 50–50 split and two to reverse the Democrats’ present 51–49 advantage.

A senior Senate Republican campaign strategist, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told The Epoch Times that although the most recent evidence of an accelerating shift of Jewish voters from Democrat to Republican is indeed anecdotal, it is definitely a consideration in key battleground states.

“Nevada has the largest Jewish voting population on a per capita basis, while Pennsylvania has the highest number, then Wisconsin,” the strategist said.

“I would suggest Pennsylvania is one of the best places to look at that. There you see [Democratic incumbent Sen. Bob] Casey desperately trying to hold on and find different efforts to try and show he is expressing sufficient solidarity with Jewish voters.”

A spokesman for Mr. Casey did not respond to The Epoch Times’ request for comment.

Mr. Casey is opposed by Republican David McCormick, who trails the Democrat by only 4 points among registered voters, according to the most recent Emerson Poll.

Republican Jewish Coalition Senior Political Director Sam Markstein told The Epoch Times: “Where the numbers get really interesting is in the battleground states like Florida where Trump got almost 45 percent of the Jewish vote and states like Georgia where he got 50 percent, and then in other states, you see in 2022 in the exit polling [former Rep.] Lee Zeldin got 46 percent of the Jewish vote in New York [running for governor] and Gov. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) got about the same amount. So the numbers in key states are moving in the right direction.”

Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.) speaks before President Joe Biden talks about the progress of the administration's economic agenda at Belmont Water Treatment Center in Philadelphia on Feb. 3, 2023. Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/AFP via Getty Images

Mr. Markstein said that “looking at the margins of victory in 2016 and 2020, the Jewish community in those states is larger than the margin of victory, so the Jewish vote is going to play a decisive role in the decisive states,” including Arizona, Florida, Nevada, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, and Michigan, all of which have large Jewish populations with high turnouts on election day.

The effects could also extend beyond battleground states, as seen in deep-blue Maryland, where former two-term Republican Gov. Larry Hogan is running strong against Rep. David Trone (D-Md.) to succeed the retiring Sen. Ben Cardin (D-Md.).

“As I travel the state, I often hear from voters who appreciate our strong stand in support of Israel and Maryland’s Jewish community,” Mr. Hogan told The Epoch Times.

“Many of these voters are Democrats who are appalled not just by the rise in anti-Semitism on campuses and across our country but also by the lack of condemnation of that anti-Semitism from leaders in our state and in Washington.

“Too many Democrats are caving to pressure from the far-left because they don’t want to lose support from extremists in their party.”

(Left) Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio). (Right) U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno. Samuel Corum, Kamil Krzaczynski/AFP via Getty Images

In the Ohio race between Sen. Sherrod Brown (D-Ohio) and Bernie Moreno, Mr. Markstein’s group said in its endorsement of the Republican entrepreneur that the incumbent is particularly vulnerable on issues of direct concern to Jewish voters.

“Bernie Moreno is a true political outsider. Sherrod Brown has been in elected office since 1974 and votes with Joe Biden 98 percent of the time,” the endorsement reads.

“Bernie Moreno is a trusted friend of the Jewish community and an unwavering supporter of Israel.

“Sherrod Brown opposed President Trump tearing up the disastrous Iran nuclear deal with the genocidal mullahs in Tehran; and importantly, as Israel responded to the barbaric October 7, 2023 Hamas terrorist attacks, Sherrod Brown joined a November 2023 letter questioning and undermining the Jewish state’s operations inside Gaza to defeat Hamas.”

Among Senate Republican incumbents up for reelection in 2024, Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas) is the No. 1 target of Democrat strategists.

He defeated former Rep. Beto O'Rourke by 219,000 votes in 2018. This year, Mr. Cruz is opposed by Rep. Colin Allred (D-Texas), a former linebacker for the NFL’s Tennessee Titans and a popular Dallas Democrat.

But a recent statewide survey of 1,000 likely voters by Cygnal, based in Alexandria, Virginia, puts Mr. Cruz up 8 points over Mr. Allred.

Even in the vote-rich Dallas-Forth Worth metroplex, Mr. Cruz leads his Democrat opponent by 5 points.

“Democrats are losing ground with critical voting groups on major issues like securing the border, which has now become the top political issue for Texas voters—both in state and federal elections,” Cygnal pollster John Rogers said in a statement.

“This is one, among many reasons why Trump is leading statewide by 9 points and by 5 points in the Dallas-Fort Worth and Houston media markets.

Couple that with Mr. Allred’s slow start and poor name ID in the Senate race and it’s easy to see how Republicans remain well-positioned to keep Texas red.”

The Lone Star State has more than 250,000 Jewish voters, many of whom are likely to look negatively upon Mr. Allred’s close relationship with Imam Omar Sulieman, an anti-Israel Muslim activist who delivered an opening prayer for a 2019 session of the House of Representatives.

Mr. Suleiman has compared Israel to Nazi Germany, called for a Third Intifada against Israel, and compared Israel to the formerly apartheid state of South Africa.