The risks of a Bernie Sanders nomination are causing the Democratic establishment anxiety, except in regard to one reliably liberal voting bloc: Jews.
Sanders would ratchet up the pressure on Israel to reach a peace accord with the Palestinians, possibly holding crucial military aid hostage to exact painful concessions from Jerusalem. But, unpalatable as such policies might be with Jewish voters, fidelity to liberal domestic programs and visceral opposition to President Trump are expected to supersede concerns about the socialist Vermont senator’s Israel agenda.
“It’s hard to see Jewish voters backing a president who believes there are very fine people on both sides of a neo-Nazi rally,” said Democratic strategist Jesse Ferguson, who is unaffiliated with any of the 2020 campaigns. Ferguson was referring to a rally of white supremacists in Charlottesville, Virginia, in the summer of 2017, after which Democrats and some Republicans claimed Trump did not adequately condemn those involved.
Fear about how a Sanders administration would treat Israel has sparked pockets of opposition to his 2020 campaign within the Democratic Party. The Democratic Majority for Israel, a group led by veteran Democratic pollster Mark Mellman, ran advertisements against Sanders, 78, in the run-up to the Iowa caucuses. But would worries about Sanders playing hardball with Jerusalem cause a significant percentage of Jewish voters to abandon the Democratic nominee for Trump? Unlikely, Democrats say.
Jewish voters care about Israel. But they tend to prioritize healthcare and other kitchen-table issues popular with other rank-and-file Democrats over U.S. policy in the Middle East, a dynamic often revealed in public opinion polls, explained a Democratic operative focused on Jewish outreach. “And with Trump being Trump, I don’t suspect any of that will change,” the Democratic insider said.
Herb Weisberg, a political science professor at Ohio State University who studies Jewish voting habits, explained why suspicions about Sanders’s Israel agenda are unlikely to cost the Democratic Party votes with this cohort.
“The Reform movement is the largest branch of American Judaism, but I’d expect that group would be most resistant to change,” he said. “They have become most concerned with the increase in anti-Semitic attacks against American Jews in Charlottesville, Pittsburgh, and Poway, which they associate with President Trump’s comments and policies.”
Jewish voters are a dependable Democratic constituency, although that advantage has been more pronounced in some presidential elections than in others. In 1980, Ronald Reagan won 39% of the Jewish vote. Twenty years later, just 19% of Jews voted for George W. Bush. In 2016, Trump won 24% of Jewish voters, a 6-point drop from the 30% Mitt Romney received four years previous.
Privately, Republican strategists concede that, while Trump might do better with Jewish voters this November than he did nearly four years ago, his support is unlikely to spike remarkably — even against Sanders. That view runs counter to Republican predictions about, for instance, suburban voters, who they believe will side with Trump in droves if Sanders is the Democratic standard-bearer.
To the extent Trump enjoys a Jewish bounce, GOP insiders believe it will be more a reaction to the booming economy and other positive results on the domestic front that the president can claim credit for rather than because of his friendly Israel policy. Trump moved the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem and recognized Israel’s annexation of the disputed Golan Heights territory.
If Trump does receive a political boost from these moves, Republicans expect more payoff among evangelical Christians, who tend to be strongly pro-Israel, than Jews. Still, some Jewish Republican political operatives argue that Trump is on track to markedly improve his support among Jews this fall. They credit Trump’s Israel policy and domestic accomplishments.
They also believe Jewish voters are growing uneasy with a Democratic Party led by prominent politicians who associate with anti-Semites such as Louis Farrakhan and call for international sanctions against Israel. The Republican Jewish Coalition is dedicating $10 million to boost Trump’s vote share with Jews in small battlegrounds such as South Florida and suburban neighborhoods near Detroit and Philadelphia, convinced the investment will make a difference — especially if Sanders is the Democratic nominee.
“If Bernie Sanders is the nominee, we run the very real risk of trading in the best friend Israel has ever had in the White House for the first enemy Israel has had in the White House,” said Matt Brooks, who runs the Republican Jewish Coalition.
