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Trump Launches GOTV Campaign in Israel

While trailing badly in key swing states, the Donald Trump campaign along with the Republican Party in Israel on Monday launched its campaign to court U.S. expats ahead of the November elections.

Under the slogan “Trump: In Israel’s Interest,” the campaign will seek to reassure some 300,000 potential voters that the Republican presidential nominee will safeguard Israel’s interests in the Middle East.

“The Hebrew logo was designed in the same spirit as the American logo,” according to the campaign. “The message is clear: he is appealing to the American-Israeli community, which leans to the right politically and is more associated with the Republican Party.”

Trump’s running mate, Indiana Governor Mike Pence, is not featured in the campaign.

The campaign will set up stands in shopping malls across the country, particularly in cities with a high concentration of U.S voters, including Jerusalem, Modiin, Ra’anana and Beit Shemesh, according to Times of Israel.

“We want to convince them, through our campaign, that it is important for them to vote, that they are doing a service for Israel, kind of like doing (military) reserve duty from their own home by voting for the Republican candidate who’s really got Israel’s interest at heart,” Marc Zell, co-chairman of Republicans Overseas Israel, told The Associated Press.

Last month, Zell told Jewish Insider that he expects Trump will get 80 percent of the vote in Israel.

The Democratic Party will also be reaching out to its members in Israel “through emails and phone banking, reminding our members that they need to request their ballot to vote this year,” according to Alex Montgomery, communications director of Democrats Abroad.

“We will very shortly start running ads on social media across Israel to let potential voters know how they can vote and answer the many questions voters from abroad typically have about the voting process,” he told JNS.

A May poll of Israelis showed that 62 percent are sure or think that Trump will be committed to safeguarding Israel’s security if elected as president.

“Nobody but Donald Trump will save Israel,” Trump tweeted in April 2015.

According to a recent Pew Research poll, 75 percent of Republicans say they sympathize more with Israel, while just 7 percent say they sympathize more with the Palestinians. That sentiment is shared by 77 percent of Trump’s primary supporters, with only 9 percent who say they sympathize with neither side.

Meanwhile, former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor urged Trump to show the same sort of consistency in his expressions of support for Israel as he does in his ferocious opposition to ISIS. “He has been very inconsistent in many of the things that he has said,” Cantor said in an interview with The Jerusalem Post. “I want to see that clarity as far as Israel is concerned – an America that has its back and is leading. I want to see him say that.”

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