WEST BLOOMFIELD, Mich. (AP) — Rachel Weinberg describes herself first as a religious Jew, then as a proud American. She said she only has one choice for president: Donald Trump.
“I don’t like everything he says,” the 72-year-old retired Michigan preschool teacher said after volunteer canvassers from the Republican Jewish Coalition knocked on her door Sunday. “But I vote for Israel. It is our life. I support Israel. Trump supports Israel with his mouth and his actions.”
Weinberg’s home in West Bloomfield in vote-rich Oakland County was among more than 20 homes the Republican Jewish Coalition visited that morning. She also voted for Trump in previous elections.
The door-to-door outreach to Jewish voters who have supported Republicans in the past is part of a novel initiative the group is undertaking this year in five battleground states in hopes of defeating Trump in the Nov. 5 election against the Democrat Kamala Harris. Although polls show Jews voting firmly Democratic, the Republican Jewish Coalition hopes door-knocking will draw enough votes to make a difference in an election year where the war between Israel and Hamas has heated debate and provoked divisions .
About 7 in 10 Jewish voters nationwide supported Democrat Joe Biden in 2020, while about 3 in 10 supported Trump this year, according to AP VoteCast, a comprehensive voter survey. A Pew Research Center poll released last month found that about two-thirds of Jewish voters support Harris.
Biden led Michigan in 2020 by fewer than 155,000 votes out of about 5.5 million cast. Although Jewish voters make up just 2% of the state’s electorate, the 15,000 novel Jewish Republican voters the coalition has identified since the 2020 election — out of roughly 120,000 Jewish voters in the state — could have an impact on what transpires next.” It was a very close race,” said Sam Markstein, an RJC spokesman.
The Republican Jewish Coalition’s goals are very specific in Michigan, as well as in Arizona, Georgia, Nevada and Pennsylvania. The focus of the work here is in Oakland County, the second largest county in the state with 1.3 million residents northwest of Detroit.
The focus is particularly on the upper-middle-class suburbs of Farmington Hills, Oak Park, Southfield and West Bloomfield – the township with the state’s largest Jewish population, where Israeli flags hang in some front windows.
Biden defeated Trump in 2020, 66% to 33% in West Bloomfield Township, where 82-year-old David Cuttner and 22-year-old Noam Nedivi campaigned for the coalition on Sunday. The margin wasn’t far from the national trend.
The coalition’s determined efforts are aimed at reducing Democrats’ advantages among this voting bloc. “This includes direct mail, social media and digital messaging, all of which are specifically targeted at the Jewish community. And it will be a full-scale push, the largest investment ever, to attract Jewish voters to the Republicans,” Markstein said.
The Republican Jewish Coalition has purchased $15 million in advertising in Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada and Pennsylvania. But novel to this election is the $5 million the company has committed to door-to-door outreach, most notably investing in voter data aimed at identifying potential Trump supporters more efficiently.
Halie Soifer, CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said in a statement that Jewish voters are an critical part of a winning Democratic coalition.
“Kamala Harris shares the views and values of the majority of American Jews, while Donald Trump threatens and denigrates us, traffics in anti-Semitic rhetoric, allies with dangerous extremists and seeks to be a dictator from day one,” Soifer said.
Tensions have been high since the war began on October 7, 2023, when Hamas-led militants killed 1,200 people and took 250 people hostage in Israel. According to Gaza health authorities, more than 42,000 Palestinians in Gaza were killed in the ensuing fighting.
A September poll by the Pearson Institute and the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research found that Republicans were more likely to support Israel than Democrats, while Democrats were more likely to be critical.
The fighting has increased focus on relations between Israel and the United States, which has provided at least $17.9 billion in military aid since the war began. And many Jews say rising anti-Semitic acts in the United States and anti-Israel protests in cities and college campuses have made them feel unsafe. Nedivi, who was promoting on Sunday, said he was a victim of anti-Semitism at the college he attends in Michigan.
Zeke Aharonov had an alternative message for his fellow believers after he stood in a line of more than 200 people to cast his early vote at the West Bloomfield library on Sunday.
“As Jews, it is our duty to be aware of and fight fascism,” said the 26-year-old cybersecurity expert as he left the library. “And our way to fight fascism is to vote against Donald Trump.”
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Poling reporter Amelia Thomson-DeVeaux contributed to this report from Washington.
