Some Jewish voters in presidential swing states reconsider their longtime devotion to Democrats

[Pelican Press 0]

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Some ******* voters in presidential swing states reconsider their longtime devotion to Democrats

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — For Rona Kaufman, the signs are everywhere that more Jews feel abandoned by the Democratic Party and may vote for ***********

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.

It’s in her

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feed. It’s in the discomfort she observed during a question-and-answer at a recent Democratic Party campaign event in Pittsburgh. It’s in her own family.

“The family that is my generation and older generations, I don’t think anybody is voting for Harris, and we’ve never voted ***********, ever,” Kaufman, 49, said, referring to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris. “My sister has a Trump sign outside her house, and that is a huge shift.”

How big a shift? Surveys continue to find that most ******* voters still support the Democratic ticket, and Kaufman acknowledges that she’s an exception.

Still, any shift could have enormous implications in

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, where tens of thousands of votes decided the past two presidential elections. Many ******* voters say the 2024 presidential election is like no other in memory, coming amid the growing fallout from ******’

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on Israelis last year.

Jews represent a sliver of the voting-age population in Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin, the so-called blue wall of states that Democrats have come to rely on in recent presidential elections. In a close election, they are a big enough constituency that the campaigns of

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and

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see the potential for any slippage to swing a close contest.

That has forced Harris to walk a line between traditional Democratic constituencies with strong feelings about the war in Gaza, both Jews and ***** Americans — balancing support for ******* with outrage over the deaths of ******** and

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and destruction in the region.

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******* to end its attacks, which continued last week with the ******** of ****** leader

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by ******** troops.

Trump has looked to exploit the opening among ******* voters especially, saying Harris “

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” ******* people, Jews who don’t vote for him “need their

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” and that he’ll be the “

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******* Americans have ever had in the White House.”

In the past, surveys have shown that Jews overwhelmingly vote Democratic. A Pew Research Center poll released last month found that about two-thirds of ******* voters back Harris. In 2020, about 7 in 10 ******* voters supported President Joe Biden, according to AP VoteCast.

The question is whether that has changed, as Jews now see *******’s survival in a new light as its

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widens to Hezbollah and Iran.

That has put a new focus on the relationship between ******* and the U.S., which continues to provide military aid. And many Jews say rising acts of antisemitism in the ******* States and anti-******* protests sweeping across cities and college campuses — including in Philadelphia — have made them feel unsafe.

In Pennsylvania, still fresh in many minds is a gunman absorbed by

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ideology murdering 11 worshippers at the

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synagogue in Pittsburgh in 2018, the deadliest ******* on Jews in U.S. history.

As Pennsylvania plays a central role in the election, many say they’ve never seen such outreach from campaigns as they have now.

From Trump on down, Republicans are attempting to win over ******* voters by highlighting a Democratic Party torn between its traditional and unconditional support for ******* and a growing faction that has accused ******* of war ******* in Gaza, called for ******* to unconditionally stop attacking ******, and demanded that the U.S. end its military support for *******.

For some Jews who typically vote Democratic, that has resonated.

“I think that there are folks who are reluctant Trump voters who feel scared as Jews in this country,” said Jeremy Kazzaz, a Pittsburgh resident and Harris supporter.

Kazzaz, however, said Harris has a long record of fighting antisemitism that is relatively unknown to many voters.

He pointed out that the Biden administration tapped her husband, Doug Emhoff, who is *******, to lead a task force to develop a strategy to ****** antisemitism well before ****** attacked *******. Emhoff has been a key surrogate, campaigning in front of ******* audiences in the Philadelphia suburbs and

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at the groundbreaking of a new complex replacing Pittsburgh’s Tree of Life synagogue.

Still, where Harris’ supporters see strong support of ******* — for instance, the Biden administration sent a

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to *******, along with the troops needed to operate it — others see conditional support.

That includes Biden urging ******* not to hit

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or oil fields. At the same time, Biden has stressed his

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and, in her remarks on the anniversary of ******’ *******, Harris said she’ll “always ensure that ******* has what it needs to defend itself and that I will always work to ensure the safety and security of the ******* people here and around the world.”

Steve Rosenberg, of Philadelphia, who voted for Trump in 2016 and then Biden in 2020, will vote for Trump in 2024. In large part, Rosenberg sees Biden’s

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of Trump-era sanctions on Iran as providing the cash for the Islamic Republic to finance a war against *******. Trump imposed the sanctions after voiding a treaty the Obama administration had reached to slow Iran’s progress toward nuclear weapons, which he called a bad deal.

“The question is, ‘Who is better off today than four years ago?’” Rosenberg said. “And the answer is Iran and the mullahs and their proxies, and it’s because Biden and Kamala Harris have capitulated to Iran.”

Kaufman, a self-described progressive who lives in Pittsburgh’s heavily ******* Squirrel Hill neighborhood, never thought she would vote for Trump.

But now, she expects Trump will continue a hardline stance against Iran — which she calls an imminent threat to democracy, human rights and western civilization — and worries that Harris will appease Iran and pander to the party’s left wing.

Jews with very strong connections to ******* — her parents were born there and her daughter just finished a two-year eight-month mandatory service with the ******** army — are similarly conflicted over supporting Harris, Kaufman said. “I’m saying it out loud everywhere, but most people aren’t saying it out loud.”

Many Jews who support Harris, however, say they see Trump as a threat to democracy.

That’s important, they say, because minorities — including Jews — have reason to ***** persecution under dictators.

They can unfurl a list of comments by Trump that they see as threatening: using the military against domestic

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,

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dual-loyalty tropes about Jews, setting up Jews as

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if he loses and, in the days after ******’ *******,

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******** Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu while praising Hezbollah as “very smart.”

Emhoff called Trump a “known antisemite.”

Some see Trump’s efforts on

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, to stay in power as a threat. Many are wary of his affinity for

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, and bring up his

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far-right activist Nick Fuentes and rapper Ye, two men known for spewing antisemitic rhetoric.

“That’s the conversation that I’m having with Jews,” said ****** Beth Janus of Philadelphia.

Janus said Jews she knows are excited that a woman could be president and that she’s married to a ******* man. Conversely, Trump’s support for ******* is transactional, she said.

“When it serves his needs, his objectives, he supports *******,” Janus said. “But if it didn’t, then he wouldn’t support *******.”

___

Follow Marc Levy at

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#******* #voters #presidential #swing #states #reconsider #longtime #devotion #Democrats

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