WASHINGTON – When Democrats argued about a House member’s comments on Israel and U.S. lawmakers, many saw it as an emerging dispute between the party’s old guard and some of its younger members.

President Donald Trump saw it as a political opportunity with Jewish voters.

In tweets, public statements and speeches to supporters, Trump and his aides are trying to use claims of anti-Semitism to pry Jewish voters away from their longtime allegiance to the Democratic Party.

In his latest effort, a Friday morning tweet, Trump said Jewish people were leaving the Democratic Party in what he called a “Jexodus,” though he did not cite evidence for such a shift. He said Republicans were “waiting with open arms” for Jewish voters. “Remember Jerusalem (U.S. Embassy) and the horrible Iran Nuclear Deal!” he tweeted.

The phrase “Jexodus” stirred controversy on Twitter with some users calling it offensive to Jewish people.

Democrats increased their share of the Jewish vote between the 2016 and 2018 elections, from 71 percent to 79 percent. A new Gallup report, based on tracking poll data from 2018, said that “one in six U.S. Jews identify as Republican.” About half described themselves as Democrats.

“‘Jexodus’ is a Republican fantasy that will fail,” said Halie Soifer, executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America. Soifer was among many who said they were offended by Trump’s term.

Divide and attract – it’s a familiar tactic for the politically aggressive president who has also tried to woo members of other familiar Democratic constituencies, including women and African-Americans.

“He’s always stirring the pot,” said Stuart Rothenberg, senior editor at the Inside Elections newsletter.

Trump’s efforts to paint the Democratic party as anti-Jewish came after tweets and comments by freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., who suggested that pro-Israel lobbying groups controlled U.S. lawmakers through political money.

While some Democrats said the remarks played into anti-Semitic slurs about how Jewish money controls American politics, Omar said they were “not intended to offend my constituents or Jewish Americans as a whole.” Several Democrats said Omar was being attacked unfairly.

Trump, meanwhile, went on offense.

Seeking to foment Democratic discord, Trump issued a March 5 tweet that described Omar’s “terrible comments” as “a dark day for Israel!”

Three days later, after a fractious House debate over a resolution condemning hate, Trump raised the stakes while speaking with reporters as he left the White House on a weekend trip to Florida, describing the Democrats as an “anti-Israel party.”

“They’ve become an anti-Jewish party and that’s too bad,” he said while en route to Alabama to review tornado damage.

During his weekend in Florida, Trump reportedly went even further: The website Axios reported the president told donors during a fundraiser at this Mar-a-Lago estate that “the Democrats hate Jewish people.”

Jesse Lehrich, a foreign policy spokesman for 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton, said Trump’s attacks ring hollow from a man who spoke sympathetically of some of the white supremacists who held a 2017 march in Charlottesville, Virginia.

“American Jews overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and a brazen attempt to weaponize anti-Semitism by a man who has mainstreamed bigotry seems like a bad way to win them over,” Lehrich said.

Matthew Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition, said “there’s a lot of enthusiasm and a lot of support” among Jewish voters for what Trump is doing, though he has not seen any new polling on the question.

“Everything at this point is anecdotal,” he said.

Brooks also said Trump is appealing to Jewish donors and was “smart to do so.”

In terms of elections, Jewish voters have remained overwhelmingly Democratic during the Trump political era.

According to exit polling conducted for a consortium of news organizations for the 2016 election, Clinton defeated Trump 71 percent to 24 percent among Jewish voters. In last year’s congressional elections, according to those exit polls, Jews broke for Democratic candidates over Republican ones by 79 percent to 17 percent.

While Jewish voters are a small part of the electorate – 3 percent in 2016; 2 percent in 2018 – they are a significant segment in key swing states like Florida and Pennsylvania. That’s why the the Trump campaign, and the Democrats, are making a concerted effort to attract them.

Soifer, the executive director of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, cited the drop-off of Jewish support for Republicans in the 2018 midterm elections to say that Trump and the GOP are losing traction with these voters.

Many voters know that Trump has appeared to welcome support from white supremacists who have also engaged in anti-Semitism, she said: “There is what he tweets and then there is reality.”

A Gallup report released Thursday said that, according to 2018 data, 52 percent of Jewish-Americans described themselves as Democrats, while only 16 percent identified themselves as Republicans. Among Jewish respondents, 26 percent approved of Trump’s performance as president; 71 percent disapproved.

Gallup added: “With Jewish Americans representing about 2% of the U.S. population, most opinion polls do not have enough Jewish respondents in a single poll to report reliable estimates for the group.”

Aides said Trump will continue pursuing Jewish votes as he seeks re-election in 2020. “The long history of anti-Semitism from Ilhan Omar and the failure of House Democrats to take appropriate action in response has shown all Americans that Democrats stand squarely with their radical left base,” said Michael Glassner, the campaign’s chief operating officer.

Trump’s basic argument, a claim that Democrats have failed a longtime constituency, is one he has used with other groups of voters, particularly African-Americans – and there is evidence he is having success.

According to a YouGov daily tracking poll released Monday, 15 percent of African-Americans somewhat or strongly approved of the president’s job performance – still low but better than his election numbers. Trump carried only 8 percent the African-American vote in 2016, according to exit polls.

Rothenberg, the senior editor at Inside Elections, said there is no doubt some Democrats are uncomfortable with some of the new voices in the Democratic Party, but there are also some uncomfortable with Trump and how he
“goes overboard” with his “stream-of-consciousness aggression.”

“Could it move a handful of Jewish votes? Yeah, I guess it could,” Rothenberg said. “But, on the other hand, Trump is very simplistic … He is a very polarizing figure.”