Jewish Pittsburghers react to 2024 general election
“I hope it will be good for the Jewish community,” she said. “I hope it will be good for America as well.”
A lifelong Democrat, Rona Kaufman became disenchanted with some of her party’s policies — particularly regarding Israel and antisemitism — following Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, terrorist attack in Israel.
In the last few months before the general election, one could say Kaufman became the face of the disillusioned Jewish voter. The Duquesne University law professor was interviewed by several local and national media outlets, including MSNBC, the New York Post, The Pittsburgh Tribune-Review and this paper, where she discussed feeling abandoned by her party and her eventual endorsement of Donald Trump for president.
On Nov. 5, Donald Trump defeated Vice President Kamala Harris to become the 47th president of the United States. Kaufman said she was “pleasantly surprised” by the results.
“I hope it will be good for the Jewish community,” she said. “I hope it will be good for America as well.”
It wasn’t just the top of the ticket that Kaufman hoped would turn red. While she was unsure that Trump would be elected, she felt more confident about the outcome of the Senate race between incumbent Democrat Bob Casey and challenger David McCormick, a Republican.
“I thought David McCormick had a better shot than Trump,” Kaufman said. “I thought he would likely win the Senate seat and Trump maybe wouldn’t win Pennsylvania. I certainly didn’t expect such a huge win for Trump.”
The former president captured 312 electoral votes, winning not only Pennsylvania but the other six swing states considered essential this election cycle: Arizona, Georgia, Michigan, Nevada, North Carolina and Wisconsin.
Kaufman said that despite her lifelong allegiance to the Democratic party, she felt no tension about her vote or the Republican party’s victories — not only in the presidential race, but in the Senate, and possibly the House, as well.
“I am not conflicted,” she said. “I wanted the Republicans to win this election because I think it is better for Jews and America, and I really feel strongly about that. I know most people aren’t voting about Israel and Gaza or antisemitism on campus.”
Most Americans, Kaufman opined, voted based on the economy and immigration concerns, but she views the Hamas/Israel war and antisemitism as critical issues for both the Jewish community and American democracy.
“This should be sending a message to the Democratic party that Americans are not interested in a far-left agenda and that a moderate Democratic party would have been more successful,” she said.
As comfortable as Kaufman is with the election results, Sue Berman Kress is equally unsettled.
Kress, who serves on the board of Democratic Jewish Outreach Pennsylvania, is “disappointed and sad,” she said, “but I’m also scared of the unknown of how his administration is going to proceed. If they do what they say they’re going to do, it’s very frightening.”
Kress is concerned about mass deportations, placing Christian nationalism at the center of the education system and the erosion of LGBTQIA rights.
“That’s what they promised the country,” she said.
Kress doesn’t believe Trump’s economic policies will be good for the United States, and thinks that promised tariffs have the possibility of harming the economy.
And she’s concerned that the MAGA arm of the Republican party will alter the political landscape.
“With too much control, they will change the rules of the game so that the fight isn’t the same fight we’ve been working on,” she said. “Democracy works with certain rules of the game, certain players in the game, and the players seem to be changing and the rules seem to be changing.”
Opposed to Trump’s first term in office, Kress said the robust machinery that railed against his policies no longer exists.
“The guardrails that were there — because of changes to the Supreme Court, among other things — they don’t exist,” she said. “I don’t believe Republicans and Democrats play by the same rules. I don’t think Mitch McConnell plays by the same rules as a Democrat Senate majority leader would play.”
Trump, she surmised, made inroads in what were traditional Democratic voting blocs this election cycle, because “he has used the politics of fear effectively,” she said. “I think that he has created reverberations of fear and fear is a real motivator.”
Kress doesn’t have the same concerns for the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania that she does for the country, she said, because Gov. Josh Shapiro has veto power.
“I don’t worry that our state will create an abortion ban or create limits on women’s healthcare that place women in danger,” she said.
Despite Trump’s victory, Marissa Fogel, executive director of the National Council of Jewish Women Pittsburgh, said that NCJW’s philosophy doesn’t change based on election results.
“We are committed to supporting the lives of women and children,” she said. “At NCJW, our focuses are particularly on reproductive justice, economic equity and preserving democracy.”
While NCJW’s philosophy doesn’t change, the organization is responsive to state and local policies, she said, noting that for the last year it has been working on expanding affordable and high quality healthcare, as well as pressuring politicians across Pennsylvania to include paid family leave.
The organization, Fogel said, will continue to work with elected officials who agree with its positions and those who have differing views.
“We will continue to have challenging conversations with elected officials who might not be where we would like them to be and help them understand why access to reproductive healthcare, childcare and paid family leave will benefit all Pennsylvanians,” she said.
Looking at the big picture, Jeremy Kazzaz, the executive director of Beacon Coalition — a Pittsburgh-based non-partisan organization that operates to protect the rights and wellbeing of Jews — said that Democrats had a messaging problem.
“Whether people want to believe it or not, I think that there is a strong feeling about the direction of the country has been going and that those feelings were not addressed by the Democratic party,” he said, adding, “I don’t think they were entirely addressed by the Trump campaign, either.”
Trump, Kazzaz said, effectively leveraged the identity politics embraced by the far left that many people feel are out of sync with their worldview.
He noted that while Democratic Rep. Summer Lee was reelected in Pennsylvania’s 12th District, she lost eight points in the county’s 14th ward — which includes Squirrel Hill — compared to 2022.
That can be attributed to one thing, he said.
“People see how dangerous she can be. And I think she will continue losing that level of support year over year while she’s there as people become more wise to what’s she doing,” he said.
Lee has been an outspoken critic of Israel, calling for an arms embargo against the Jewish state.
Other numbers support Kazzaz’s claim. WESA reported that Lee underperformed Harris by 10 to 20 percentage points in Pittsburgh’s East End neighborhoods. She also performed significantly worse in Upper St. Clair, Bethel Park and Plum.
Overall, Kazzaz said that he was pleased with the winners of the 2024 election and their support for the Jewish community, pointing specifically to state Reps. Valerie Gaydos and Dan Frankel.
He said that state Treasurer Stacey Garrity, a Republican who has expressed support for the Jewish community and Israel, got more votes in Pennsylvania than anybody for any office, in any party.
“She got more votes than Trump, Harris, Casey or McCormick,” he said. (Garrity received 3,514,689 votes statewide.) “I think most of the news about that race is allyship with the Jewish community. So, I think in the Commonwealth we are finding and will continue to find more partners among our neighbors who want to combat antisemitism.” PJC
David Rullo can be reached at drullo@pittsburghjewishchronicle.org.
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