By Emily Singer
Trump and his Republican allies in Congress have led a smear campaign against Democratic lawmakers, falsely painting them as anti-Semitic and urging Jews to leave the Democratic Party and join the GOP via a ridiculous campaign called “Jexodus.“
“The ‘Jexodus’ movement encourages Jewish people to leave the Democrat Party,” Trump tweetedin March. “Total disrespect! Republicans are waiting with open arms. Remember Jerusalem (U.S. Embassy) and the horrible Iran Nuclear Deal!”
But that effort has failed spectacularly, according to a new poll out Thursday from the Jewish Electorate Institute.
Despite Trump’s efforts to claim Democrats “hate Jewish people,” the poll found that there has been no increase in the number of American Jews who identify as Republicans. Just 25% of American Jews identify as Republicans in 2019 — unchanged from a year prior — while 65% identify as Democrats, according to the JEI’s poll.
Even more, the poll also found that American Jews overwhelmingly disapprove of Trump, and blame him — not Democrats — for the rise of anti-Semitism and deadly attacks on synagogues that the country has suffered since Trump took office.
Nearly three-quarters of American Jews, or 71%, disapprove of how Trump has handled the rise of anti-Semitism, while nearly 60% say Trump “bears at least some responsibility for the shootings at synagogues in Pittsburgh and Poway, [California].”
“The Jewish American electorate remains overwhelmingly opposed to President Trump, motivated largely by the Jewish community’s positions on domestic policy issues,” the JEI wrote in a summary of its poll findings. “These include immigration and health care, as well as concerns about rising anti-Semitism, gun violence, and rise of white nationalism, which respondents partially attribute to President Trump.”
Trump, for his part, has sought to win over Jews with his Israel policy, moving the American embassy in Israel from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and siding with Israel’s far-right Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
But the poll found that Israel is simply not a voting priority for American Jews. Rather, domestic issues such as health care, gun control, and protecting Medicare and Social Security are the issues Jews vote on — and the issues they give Trump low marks on.
“Jewish American voters, including millennials, prioritize domestic policy issues that impact their lives, including health care, anti-Semitism and growing insecurity among American Jews,” JEI concluded in its poll memo. “A candidate’s stance on Israel is of relatively low importance to Jewish voters as they determine which candidate to support in the 2020 election.”
Ultimately, American Jews see through Trump’s vile smear campaign against Democrats, and show no signs of joining his coalition in 2020.
You can put a fork in the “Jexodus” movement. It’s not only done; it never even got started.
