In battleground Pennsylvania, undecided Jewish voters could help swing the election

Bala Cynwyd, Pennsylvania (CNN) — When Stephanie Spielman describes how she feels as a Jewish voter this election year, she is visibly despondent.

“There’s a feeling of real emptiness, kind of hollowness,” she said.

A lifelong Pennsylvania Democrat who usually votes blue, up and down the ticket, Spielman left the Democratic Party this year.

“I do not believe they are seriously supporting the Jewish community. They are not seriously engaging with us,” she said, walking down a leafy suburban Philadelphia street – one whose residents are crucial to the outcome of this election.

Jewish Americans have been a core part of the Democratic coalition for generations. But Israel’s retaliatory war against Hamas in Gaza and the turmoil it set off, including protests and a spike in antisemitic incidents, make Republicans believe they can make inroads with Jewish voters.

And in an election that will likely be decided on the margins, the votes of Jewish Pennsylvanians like Spielman could be key to determining who wins the commonwealth’s 19 electoral votes – and with it, the presidency.

Spielman said she agrees with the sentiment of protesters in the streets and on college campuses who are upset about the humanitarian situation in Gaza. What scares her is when it devolves into antisemitism, and she does not believe Democratic leaders are calling that out the way they should.

“The response never seems to be, ‘Oh, thank you for pointing that out. Help me learn about what antisemitism is. Help me learn about blood libel. Help me learn, how can I advocate for Palestinians without engaging in antisemitic tropes? How can I advocate for humanitarian ceasefires, for humanitarian aid without antisemitism?’ And I just don’t hear that coming from the Democratic Party at all,” she said.

Still, Spielman is voting for Kamala Harris this year as a protest vote against Donald Trump, who she thinks is worse for Jews, and for America more broadly.

But she’s on text chains with scores of Jewish voters in this swing state who are still undecided and open to arguments from Republicans aggressively pursuing them.

Republicans ramp up their appeals

Jews make up a tiny portion of the American population – a little more than 2%. The Jewish electorate is even smaller, but big enough to make a difference in a handful of swing states, especially Pennsylvania.

The American Jewish Population Project at Brandeis University estimates there are about 300,000 Jewish voters in the Keystone State. When you consider that Joe Biden won Pennsylvania by less than 82,000 votes in 2020, and Trump by about 44,000 votes in 2016, the margins matter.

And Republicans see an opening this year and are pursuing Jewish voters like never before.

The Republican Jewish Coalition has spent years building data on Jewish voters in swing states, according to the group’s CEO, Matt Brooks.

“We know, almost to a voter, what the issues are that motivate them, and we can deliver a message,” Brooks said in an interview.

“For instance, there are people who care deeply about Israel. There are people who care deeply about the issue of antisemitism. But there’s also people in the Jewish community who care deeply about the economy, rising interest rates, the cost of food and gasoline,” he added.

CNN followed canvassers with the coalition over the weekend here around Bala Cynwyd, a small town in the Philadelphia suburb of Montgomery County, which has a relatively large Jewish population.

They used an app on their phones fueled by data the Republican Jewish Coalition has collected that told them exactly which doors to knock on: Jews likely to vote Republican.

One of the volunteers was former Florida Rep. Peter Deutsch – a Democrat who endorsed Trump earlier this month. He said he is camping out in Pennsylvania through Election Day at his own expense, making the case to Jewish voters – especially Democrats like himself – that Harris can’t be trusted to support Israel.

“To me, the most important thing that the president of the United States does is try to achieve and maintain world peace, and I don’t think it’s a close call on those issues in terms of Trump versus Harris,” Deutsch said, adding that the vice president continues to speak in a way about Israel that “validates” his decision.

Walking past countless houses with Harris signs in the heavily Jewish neighborhood, Deutsch and others pushing for Trump stopped only at the few houses where the app said potential supporters lived.

Claude Schoenberg was home and eager to discuss the latest from the campaign trail, including his perception that Harris had endorsed a protester who accused Israel of genocide against Palestinians in Gaza, which the the vice president’s campaign denies.

Schoenberg said that his grown children, who have never voted for Trump, will support the former president in this election.

“They’ll be horrified that I outed them,” he joked.

But jokes aside, his comment spoke volumes about the dynamic that Republicans are openly trying to exploit – and while they don’t expect large numbers of Jewish voters to come their way, there may be more than there were before.

Democrats try to push back

Amanda Berman has been sounding the alarm about this with any Democrat who will listen. She runs the Zioness Action Fund, a grassroots organization trying to convince Jewish voters why they should vote for Harris.

“I do think that, as of now, there are an unprecedented number of undecided Jewish voters, and I hear from them all the time,” Berman told CNN.

She now lives in New York but grew up in the Philadelphia suburbs.

“I’m from this community, and I know how people are feeling. There’s a trauma response happening, in particular since October 7. There are a lot of concerns that could be better addressed, for sure,” she said.

Berman’s group is trying to do just that - putting out the word about parts of the Biden-Harris record that Jewish voters could appreciate, such as the unprecedented amount of funding to support Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza and pointing out that Trump’s running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, voted against a supplemental bill that included money for Israel.

“This administration sent a nuclear submarine, two aircraft carriers to protect Israel from Iranian threats. Mobilized a coalition of countries, including Arab countries, to shoot down Iranian missiles. This is unprecedented in the history of the US-Israel relationship,” said Berman.

The Jewish Democratic Council of America is also mobilizing with similar messages to voters – arguing that Harris would be good for both Israel and the American Jewish community and that Trump would be dangerous.

On the very same street where Republican Jewish canvassers were knocking on doors, Jewish Democrats gathered in a sukkah, a temporary outside structure erected and used every year to celebrate the Jewish festival of Sukkot. After rallying volunteers who had traveled from all over the country, they fanned out to knock on doors as part of a larger ground operation for Harris.

As they walked, Jewish women from St. Louis, Boston and Chicago explained to CNN why their activism was so crucial – not just for issues around Israel and antisemitism, but also for what they saw as another Jewish value – reproductive freedom

“Women, particularly Jewish women we’re talking to, abortion rights is number one. Right up there with Israel,” said Stacey Newman.

Democrats are also trying to combat what they call pervasive disinformation within the Jewish community about Harris and other Democrats.

“The degree of disinformation and Republican vitriol that has targeted Jewish voters – and it starts from the top. We hear it from Donald Trump himself. He talks about Jewish voters quite a bit. He has repeatedly disparaged the vast majority of us. He has said we have to get our head examined because he knows we’re supporting Democrats,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America.

Soifer worked as a foreign policy aide to Harris in the Senate and can speak personally to undecided Jewish voters who say they don’t know enough about the vice president or are unsure of where she really stands.

“I had the honor of going to Israel with her, and I know that her support of Israel and the Jewish community predate what has been an outstanding record of this White House standing with Israel,” said Soifer.

“As antisemitism was on the rise in this country, she actually reached out to me as a former staffer to see how I was feeling and to talk about what they could be doing as the administration to combat the scourge of hate. And they have put forward the strongest and unprecedented strategy to combat antisemitism on behalf of this White House,” she added.

The closing message in her group’s paid ad targeting Jewish voters uses imagery of neo-Nazis in America and Trump’s comments about the “enemy within,” juxtaposed with images of Harris with her husband, second gentleman Doug Emhoff, who is Jewish, lighting Hanukkah candles.

Focusing on Trump

A big part of Democrats’ strategy when talking to Jewish voters open to supporting Trump is reminding them of his words and record: the fact that he dined with a White supremacist at Mar-a-Lago, that he repeatedly suggests that Jews who vote for Democrats should have their heads examined and that he said “the Jewish people” would be partially to blame if he doesn’t win.

“He’s scapegoating us preemptively for potential election loss. That is the definition of antisemitism,” said Soifer.

Brooks of the Republican Jewish Coalition doesn’t see it that way.

He said he was in the audience in Washington when Trump made those remarks in late September, and while he admitted he would have “said it a little differently,” he insisted that what the former president was trying to say was that he would be a “protector” for the Jewish community.

But Brooks and other Republicans trying to appeal to Jewish voters are more focused on making Harris unpalatable than on convincing them that Trump is a great candidate.

“There is a clear choice. You don’t have to like Donald Trump, but Donald Trump will keep the Jewish community safe,” said Brooks.

The most high-profile way the coalition is spending what it says is an unprecedented $15 million budget is through television and digital advertisements that try to link Harris to the House “squad” of progressive lawmakers, who have been vocal against Israel’s war in Gaza, and that accuse the Biden administration of going too easy on Iran, which funds proxies such as Hamas. Hamas militants launched a brutal assault in Israel on October 7 last year, killing some 1,200 people and taking over 200 hostages.

The coalition’s closing ad, running on cable news and digitally, features three women meant to be “bubbies” – Yiddish for grandma – sitting in a diner, talking about their anxieties.

One of them says Harris is “busy defending the ‘squad.’” Another says: “Trump, I never cared for, but at least he’ll keep us safe.”

Undecided Jewish voters at Hymie’s

The ad by the Republican Jewish Coalition used paid actors and was staged at Hymie’s, a real-life Jewish delicatessen and Philadelphia institution. In a sign of the divisive and unsettled times, the owner is facing backlash from some customers furious that a pro-Trump ad was allowed to be filmed there.

Hymie’s also welcomed CNN to sit down with undecided Jewish voters, including Danny Weiss, a cousin of Zioness Action Fund’s Berman, who has not yet convinced him to vote for Harris.

“I want to hear that she’s going to have my best interest at heart. I don’t like hearing the contradictions that she’s making,” Weiss said, adding that he was turned off by what he described as Harris’ baiting of Trump at their only debate and would have preferred to hear more about her plans.

“I don’t think either candidate really has come out and said what I want to hear. A lot of it has been a traditional political game,” he said.

But Weiss said the October 7 massacre in Israel and the anxiety and antisemitism it has provoked over the past year are a big part of the reason he is still unsure who to vote for.

“Because I’m Jewish, you look at the Republican Party,  you have people who are very antisemitic,” he said. “Then you have people who are back in the liberal party, who are very antisemitic, and we see it on college campuses not too far down the road.”

Harry Willner, a Hymie’s regular, is in the same boat – but more explicit about his dilemma.

“I’m worried about him. He’s a narcissist. He’s a horrible individual,” he said about Trump, before quickly adding: ”Kamala, I’m not sure what she’s gonna do.”

“He has supported Israel in the past. I hope he would support it going forward. He does have Jewish children,” Willner said, referring to the former president’s daughter Ivanka, son-in-law Jared Kushner and their children.

“But Kamala’s husband’s Jewish, I understand. But you don’t know what’s true anymore when either one of them talk. You really don’t,” he added.

His wife, Judy, is trying to convince him to vote for Harris.

“(Trump) came out and said, ‘I’m gonna blame the Jews,’ if he loses. So how do you say, ‘I’m gonna blame the Jews, but I’m gonna support Israel’? He’s gonna blame his daughter? That just, not that I ever considered him because I wouldn’t, but that just blew me away,” Judy Willner said.

Her husband, however, is not so sure.

“I am totally undecided. I don’t know what lever I’m gonna pull when I go to the booth,” Harry Willner said, musing with a nervous laugh that he might write something in, and then “move to Greenland.”

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