New York Jewish Week: Trump Blame Game Plays Out In Midterms Debate
Last Thursday Clyde Haberman, Rabbi Jill Jacobs, Jeff Jacoby, Hailie Soifer, and Julian Zelizer appeared at the Center for Jewish History in New York City for a forum, “Jews, Politics, and the 2018 Midterm Elections.” Ostensibly the major discussion was to focus on whether the Jewish vote could tip the balance of the Nov. 6 contests, but it quickly shifted toward Donald Trump: Whether his rhetoric is a “dog whistle” cynically used to rally extremist groups, or even whether the president is, himself, anti-Semitic.
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Though the original subject matter of the forum was somewhat overshadowed by the debate about Trump and anti-Semitism, Soifer, the first executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America and former Obama Administration staffer, discussed a recent survey commissioned by the Council and conducted by the Jewish Electorate Institute. The poll found that despite Trump’s perceived friendliness toward Israel, 74 percent of Jews plan to vote for Democratic candidates in the midterms, largely because of their overwhelming disapproval — 75 percent — of the president.
“Ultimately, we believe that the races will come down to a very narrow margin,” said Soifer. “So while the Jewish population is only 2 percent of the population as a whole, we know that we do vote, we’re a very important part of the electorate, and areas where the concentration of the Jewish population is largest are also very clearly aligned with those races for both the house and the senate that matter in the 2018 elections.”