Record-Breaking Jewish Vote for Trump
RJC Impact Felt in Florida, Nationally

Adam Kredo at the Washington Free Beacon reports:    

[Donald] Trump won 30.5 percent of the Jewish vote, up from the 24 percent he received in 2016, according to the Republican Jewish Coalition, which conducted an analysis of national exit polls along with analyst groups Basswood Research and McLaughlin & Associates. The poll included 600 registered voters nationwide who identified as Jewish.  

The president won 43 percent of the Jewish vote in Florida, a historic high, according to polls conducted by the New York Times and Associated Press. This helped Trump clinch the state and remain competitive in the race as several states continue to count ballots. The poll also indicates that Jewish voters are increasingly willing to vote Republican despite the plurality of Jews historically voting Democratic. The RJC sees these inroads as critical to GOP candidates in contested states such as Florida.  

"There is no doubt that in this election, when Donald Trump won in the key battleground state of Florida by fewer than 3 points, the Jewish vote was critical to his victory," RJC executive director Matthew Brooks said in a statement on the organization's exit polling.  

The Forward reports on the RJC’s impact: 

The Republican Jewish Coalition spent millions of dollars in South Florida on television advertisements and other voter outreach. Matt Brooks, RJC’s executive director, said he believed that work had shifted the Jewish vote a meaningful amount across the state.  

“I’d see it as contributory,” he said of the RJC’s work in Florida. “Any time you’re able to move an impactful demographic group like the Jewish vote in South Florida in one direction … obviously it contributes and helps, in this case, the president.”  

This JNS report looked at the issues that motivated Jewish voters: 

Given that the RJC invested heavily in ad buys aimed at persuading Jewish voters that Trump deserved their votes because of his record on Israel, this demonstrates that the effort succeeded to some extent. Indeed, as the RJC poll showed, those voters who considered Israel and foreign-policy issues to be their priority went for Trump by a whopping 87 percent to 6 percent margin. This validates the conventional wisdom that Orthodox voters, who went for Trump by a 70-19 margin, look to Israel as their litmus test.  

Jews, like other Americans, generally vote along partisan lines for the candidates of the party with which they affiliate. However, it also reveals that it’s still possible for politicians to increase Jewish support, albeit marginally, by demonstrating—as Trump has done—that they are a friend of Israel.  

The RJC’s grassroots efforts made a difference this year! Just to give you an idea of the scale of our efforts, here are some key metrics:

• $10 million invested nationwide, $5 million of that in Florida
• 67 Virtual National Days of Action
• 2,075 National Victory Team volunteers recruited
• 551,402 Jewish outreach phone calls
• 144,271 Jewish outreach Get-Out-The-Vote texts
• 204,225 Jewish outreach emails
• 500,000 direct mail pieces
• 9 ads on digital and television platforms, seen millions of times