The presidential campaigns of both Kamala Harris and Donald Trump are focusing substantial energy on Jewish voters who are closely watching Israel and Gaza, as well as rising antisemitism in the United States.

Haaretz Washington correspondent Ben Samuels joined Haaretz Podcast for a special episode devoted to answering questions from Haaretz subscribers. Samuels describes how campaigns have been targeting the American Jewish community – both because they reflect an outsized proportion of significant donations to campaigns on both sides, but also because they can tip the balance in key states.

In the third installment of this series, in which Haaretz journalists address the issues on the minds of their readers, Samuels said that "In swing states, Jewish voters really turn out in a way that isn't necessarily consistent with the size of the population, So you've seen both Jewish political organizations on both sides of the aisle and the Harris and Trump campaigns really try to focus on the Jewish vote as the election comes closer."

What happens in the war between now and November 5th could be a game-changer "if it has an effect on the U.S. economy, or if U.S. troops get embroiled in the fighting," he said.

While the polls so far have demonstrated that Jewish voters are consistently committed to voting Democrat in their traditional overwhelming majority, Jewish Republican leaders reject these findings and are promoting a different narrative.

"They're saying that Jewish Americans have really been alienated and disillusioned by the Democratic Party, both in terms of the White House's approach to the aftermath of October 7, the failure to combat rising antisemitism and supposed enablement of antisemitic protests on college campuses," said Samuels. "Jewish Republicans are really trying to set the tone" and prepare the ground for an unprecedented shift away from Democrats.

But despite this wishful thinking, Samuels said, it remains true that more than 70 percent of Jewish Americans "not only do not like Donald Trump, but" also find that "everything he says traffics in dual loyalty tropes and either flirts with antisemitism or is allegedly openly antisemitic."

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