As former President Donald Trump tries to win over Jewish voters in the 2024 election, he’s made a point of attacking Jewish Democrats — targeting the faith of three of the most prominent Jewish Americans in politics and criticizing Jews who back Democrats as “absolute fools” who need “their head examined.”
Those attacks have increasingly colored the background of a pivotal fight for potential swing voters: Jewish Americans in critical battleground states, a group that has consistently supported Democrats in past elections and, this year, is increasingly concerned about issues including rising antisemitism at home, U.S. support for Israel in its war in Gaza, and the hostages held by Hamas — six of whom, including one American, were recently killed in Hamas captivity.
A number of Jewish advocates, quick to note Jewish voters are voting on an array of issues beyond Israel, say Trump’s attacks are blatantly antisemitic and lean on age-old tropes suggesting “dual loyalty” for American Jews between the U.S. and the Jewish state. Even some of Trump’s allies on the right view the comments as increasingly unhelpful in the broader effort to win over a small but meaningful number of Jewish voters in a close election.
“It’s deeply dangerous, deeply disturbing, and it’s part of this broader normalization of antisemitism,” Amy Spitalnick, CEO of the nonpartisan Jewish Council for Public Affairs, told NBC News. “Trump believes that he’s entitled to the Jewish vote, entitled to support from Jews, and when they don’t give it to him, he immediately defaults to this idea of the disloyal or bad Jew.”
Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League, said that “playing this dual loyalty trope” is “classic antisemitism.”
“I just think that’s wrong,” he said. “It’s not the first time it’s happened with President Trump. I mean, we saw this when he was in office.”
Following Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro’s speech at the Democratic National Convention, Trump took to his Truth Social platform to call Shapiro a “highly overrated Jewish Governor” who “for strictly political reasons, refused to acknowledge that I am the best friend that Israel, and the Jewish people, ever had,” adding Shapiro “has done nothing for Israel, and never will.”
Trump has used Palestinian identity as a slur against Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., multiple times this year, saying the prominent Jewish leader has “become like a Palestinian.”
Last month, Trump muttered “yeah” several times as a New York radio host, Sid Rosenberg, described Vice President Kamala Harris’ husband Doug Emhoff as “a crappy Jew.” During that same interview, he said any Jewish person voting for Democrats “should have their head examined” and is “an absolute fool.” (Trump campaign spokesperson Steven Cheung said at the time that Trump “obviously wasn’t agreeing with [the radio host’s] sentiment.”)
It was reminiscent of repeated comments Trump has made during the campaign, like when he said any Jewish person who votes for Democrats “hates their religion.”
Responding to his most recent remark while talking to reporters at the DNC, Shapiro said Trump “has routinely peddled antisemitic tropes like this,” while Emhoff said Trump “should be ashamed.”
The Trump campaign scoffs at the notion that his comments have been offensive, instead calling Harris’ positions and rhetoric unacceptable to Jewish voters. But some prominent conservatives have spoken out against them.
“If Trump’s intention was to alienate every possible gettable Jewish voter who has been disillusioned by Dems but still unsure if they could vote for him, this was an A+ post,” tweeted Philip Klein, editor of the conservative National Review Online, in response to Trump’s Shapiro post.
A fight for Jewish votes
While Jewish Americans can be a difficult group to survey, some polls this year have shown Trump and Republicans making inroads with Jewish voters, who have overwhelmingly voted Democratic at the presidential level for decades. And the Jewish vote could play a key role in states like Arizona, Nevada and Pennsylvania.
One survey of Pennsylvania Jewish voters conducted earlier this month by Honan Strategy Group, a research firm that has worked for prominent Democratic clients, and shared with NBC News, found that 55% favored Harris while 43% backed Trump — a result that was encouraging for the former president, given that north of 60% or 70% of Jewish voters typically vote Democratic. Roughly two-thirds of respondents said the Oct. 7 Hamas attack and a rise in antisemitism made them more likely to vote. A handful of other polls before President Joe Biden dropped out of the 2024 race showed the Democrat with a bigger lead over Trump, though with some slippage compared to 2020 polls.
Trump and his allies, meanwhile, are ramping up their Jewish outreach — and they argue that his words will have little impact in blunting any momentum, pointing to his actions on Israel as president. Earlier this month, Trump launched his “Jewish Voices for Trump” coalition, which says in its mission statement that its aim is “standing up to radical antisemitism, championing Jewish heritage, defending our allies in Israel, and supporting President Trump’s campaign to retake the White House.”
Matt Brooks, CEO of the pro-Trump Republican Jewish Coalition, said his organization has launched a $15 million battleground campaign targeting Jewish voters. His organization is hosting its annual leadership summit starting Wednesday in Las Vegas, featuring appearances from a number of prominent Republican luminaries — including Trump.
“If you look at Michigan, if you look at Georgia, if you look at Arizona and Nevada, in addition to Pennsylvania, those are all states that have a large enough Jewish community that in a close election, with the kinds of gains we’re hoping to make, could have a significant impact in the outcome of the race,” Brooks said.
Jeff Bartos, a 2022 GOP Senate candidate in Pennsylvania who provided a quote in the Trump campaign’s news release announcing its Jewish coalition, said he places more value on the former president’s actions on Israel than he does Trump’s social media posts questioning the sanity of Jewish voters and targeting Jewish politicians on Israel. He pointed to the Abraham Accords, which he said have become more widely appreciated in the years since they were signed, as well as Trump’s efforts to contain Iran and his calls for the release of hostages held in Gaza.
“He was the most effective president in history for the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Bartos said. “The president’s social media posts are not as important to me as the impactful and enduring results he achieved as president. That said, I appreciate the president’s candor. I appreciate that he speaks from the heart. I appreciate that he says what’s on his mind.”
“I know where his heart and where his head are, which is not only effective and strong support of the U.S.- Israel relationship, but of building upon the Abraham Accords and achieving more peace and prosperity in the region,” he said.
Both the White House and Harris’ campaign have condemned Trump for his comments aimed at Jewish leaders. James Singer, a Harris campaign spokesperson, told NBC News in a statement that Trump “is a weak man who thinks attacking Jewish Americans makes him strong.”
“Donald Trump has a long history of antisemitic behavior, hanging out with antisemites, and attacking Jewish Americans,” he said, noting Trump’s dinner last fall with prominent antisemite Nick Fuentes. “Trump is going to lose again this November because Americans are sick of his hateful resentment, personal attacks, and extreme agenda.”
Brian Hughes, a senior Trump campaign adviser, responded to NBC News that that pushback is “preposterous” because Harris and Biden have expressed understanding for pro-Palestinian protests on college campuses, adding that Biden said protesters had a point during his convention speech.
“For Harris and the Democrats, who have spent the better part of the spring and summer essentially coddling and apologizing for radical antisemitic protests on college campuses around the country to now try to equate anything President Trump or the campaign talk about as antisemitic is ludicrous,” Hughes said.
A ‘unique’ opportunity
In the early days of her candidacy, Harris has sought to bolster her standing with Jewish swing voters, too. She met privately with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu — who is widely unpopular among Democratic voters — after declining to attend his speech to Congress. One day later, she issued a blistering statement condemning a protest near the Capitol that featured demonstrators spray-painting pro-Hamas graffiti, describing “despicable acts by unpatriotic protestors and dangerous hate-fueled rhetoric.”
At the Democratic convention, Harris proclaimed she will “always ensure Israel has the ability to defend itself, because the people of Israel must never again face the horror that a terrorist organization called Hamas caused on Oct. 7, including unspeakable sexual violence and the massacre of young people at a music festival.”
She also spoke of “heartbreaking” devastation in Gaza and expressed desire for the Palestinian people to “realize their right to dignity, security, freedom and self determination.” But her campaign did not bend to demands from about 30 “Uncommitted” delegates to feature a Palestinian American speaker at the convention, nor has she said she would add conditions to American weapons supplies to Israel. In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash last week, Harris responded “no” when asked if she would change course on Israel policy.
Spitalnick, who noted her organization does not endorse candidates, said Harris’ position “is a mainstream Jewish position and a mainstream American position,” though “you hear those on the extremes … in both directions, trying to argue that that is out of step, when, in fact, it is as mainstream as you can get.”
But after Hamas’ killing of six hostages in recent days — including American Hersh Goldberg-Polin, whose parents spoke at the Democratic convention — Biden and Harris’ posture and policy on Israel is again under the microscope from their political opponents. Conservatives have criticized Harris for earlier this year saying “any major [Israeli] military operation in Rafah,” where the slain hostages were recovered, ”would be a huge mistake.”
In his statement on Sunday, Trump explicitly went after Biden and Harris for the hostage deaths — which other Republicans refrained from doing in their own comments. Trump said the two “have blood on their hands” and are “directly responsible for unnecessary deaths that should have never happened.”
Biden and Harris separately spoke with Goldberg-Polin’s parents following his death and strongly condemned the killings in their own statements, pledging Hamas would pay a heavy price. On Monday, Biden said he thought Netanyahu had not done enough to secure a hostage deal as Israeli protesters took to the streets of Tel Aviv, Jerusalem and other cities demanding the prime minister reach an agreement.
“With these murders, Hamas has even more American blood on its hands. I strongly condemn Hamas’ continued brutality, and so must the entire world,” Harris said, adding, “The threat Hamas poses to the people of Israel — and American citizens in Israel — must be eliminated and Hamas cannot control Gaza. The Palestinian people too have suffered under Hamas’ rule for nearly two decades.”
In targeting Harris, Republicans have also highlighted her search for a running mate — specifically, her choice not to select Shapiro — claiming it as evidence that she or her campaign is harboring antisemitic sentiment after some progressives came out hard against Shapiro’s candidacy, including for his past actions on Israel and comments about some pro-Palestinian protests. Shapiro himself has said antisemitism played no role in his not being named Harris’ running mate.
The RJC’s Brooks, asked about Trump’s social media post about the Pennsylvania governor, said, “As for Josh Shapiro, the real antisemitism isn’t Donald Trump. The real antisemitism is the fact that overtly, there was a campaign mounted … to stop Josh Shapiro from being on the ticket because he was too pro-Israel and too Jewish.”
The Anti-Defamation League’s Greenblatt said he thought both Trump’s post and the anti-Shapiro campaign were “wrong,” calling it “disturbing” to see Jewish leaders “suffer from these identity politics.”
Greenblatt noted the Harris-Trump election features a battle between the only two presidential nominees in American history who have immediate Jewish relatives, whether it be Harris’ husband or Trump’s daughter, son-in-law and grandchildren.
“In both President Trump and Vice President Harris, you have two candidates who are unique as historical figures in terms of their proximity to the Jewish community, and that’s a powerful thing,” he said. “At the end of the day, both of them have a very powerful opportunity in a moment when the Jewish community is feeling vulnerable.”
This article was originally published on NBCNews.com
