President Donald Trump’s unrelenting effort this election cycle to cast Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden as a socialist appears to have paid off in the crucial swing state of Florida. Though polling suggested Biden was slightly favored to win Florida’s 29 electoral votes, Trump endured on Tuesday night, carrying the state with more than 51% of the vote.
Pivotal to Trump’s victory in the Sunshine State was strong support from the Latino voting bloc in South Florida’s Miami-Dade County, which includes a sizable population of Cuban-Americans who are sensitive to accusations of socialism because of their historical antagonism to Fidel Castro’s communist regime.
While former Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton carried Miami-Dade by a margin of 30 points last cycle, Trump’s messaging — including a recent tweet characterizing Biden as “a proven Castro puppet” — seems to have been effective in convincing some voters to tilt Republican.
“I believe the steady messaging around socialism is one of the primary reasons why Democrats did so poorly in Miami-Dade,” Justin Day, a Democratic strategist in Florida, told Jewish Insider in an email. “It led to Biden losing the state and the loss of two congressional seats.”
Reps. Donna Shalala (D-FL) and Debbie Mucarsel-Powell (D-FL), first-term incumbents who assumed office last year and represented districts in Miami-Dade County, also fell on Tuesday night and had faced harsh criticism from Republican opponents who sought to portray them as socialists. Maria Elvira Salazar, a Cuban-American former TV journalist who defeated Shalala, was persistent throughout her campaign in accusing the Democratic congresswoman of harboring socialist sympathies.
Shalala, a former longtime president of the University of Miami, did herself no favors when she described herself as a “pragmatic socialist” in a recent interview with a local NBC station. She later claimed that she meant to say “pragmatic capitalist” and simply misspoke, but Salazar seized on the blunder.
“We had the opportunity to expose who my opponent really is,” Salazar told JI in an interview last week in which she confidently predicted that she would win her election with the support of Hispanic Democrats in the district.
Ron Klein, a former Florida congressman who chairs the Jewish Democratic Council of America, said that Spanish-language advertisements in Florida tying Biden to socialism seem to have had a negative impact on the Democratic candidate’s prospects in Miami-Dade County.
The Biden campaign dismissed such rhetoric and even released its own ads to dispel the accusations, while Biden, a moderate Democrat, claimed outright that he was not a socialist. But such efforts appear to have fallen short in Florida.
“It seems like the Biden campaign didn’t push back hard enough,” Klein told JI.
That wasn’t the only problem Biden had in Florida on election night, according to Klein, who added his belief that Democratic turnout in South Florida could have been stronger to offset Republican support in the rest of the state. “It’s math in Florida,” Klein said. “It’s a complicated formula.”
But Day, the Democratic strategist, said that Democrats would have to find a more effective way to counter accusations of socialism if they want to win future elections.
“If Democrats don’t figure out a message to push back on the socialist narrative,” he said, “we are going to have a hard time finding success in Florida.”
Not too long ago, the venture capitalist Roy Bahat — who runs Bloomberg Beta in San Francisco and is active in Democratic politics — concluded that the stakes were too high this election season for him to sit back and watch the proceedings from the comfortable vantage point of a dependably blue state. So in September he packed up his belongings and moved with his wife and two kids to Whitefish Bay, a suburb of Milwaukee, to help get out the vote.
His decision to relocate to the Badger State for three months or so may seem peculiar given that Wisconsin is now experiencing a massive spike in coronavirus cases and is not widely known for its inviting autumn weather. Couldn’t Bahat have set up shop in another battleground state with a more temperate climate, like Florida or Arizona? But no, Wisconsin made the most sense. Bahat’s wife, Sara Fenske Bahat, a Milwaukee native who chairs the MBA program at the California College of the Arts, has long been active in supporting the Democratic Party of Wisconsin — and this cycle, the couple felt it was imperative to get involved on the ground.
“We just realized that our time is better spent in a swing state than it is in California,” Bahat, whose fund is backed by Bloomberg L.P., told Jewish Insider in a phone interview on Monday. “Once we started talking about that, we realized that if we thought about doing it, talked with our kids about it, decided not to do it, and then the worst happens, shame on us for the example we’d be setting for our children. So we decided to go for it.”
Wisconsin has always been a key swing state courted by Democrats and Republicans alike. But this cycle, it carries some extra weight. While former Vice President Joe Biden, the Democratic presidential candidate, is favored to win the state, President Donald Trump has put Democrats on edge thanks to his narrow victory over Hillary Clinton in Wisconsin four years ago. Adding to the sense of urgency was a decision last week in which the Supreme Court ruled against counting absentee ballots in Wisconsin received after the election.
Since he arrived in Wisconsin about a month and a half ago with his family — his kids have been able to attend school remotely, a consequence of the pandemic — Bahat has been busy fundraising for Wisconsin Democrats and working to help re-erect the blue wall of Rust Belt states that Democrats had relied on before Trump obliterated it in 2016.
Bahat has also been active in another effort at “last-minute organizing,” volunteering for Walk the Vote, a nationwide grassroots endeavor that encourages voters to join local “parades” so they can safely and securely deliver their ballots to nearby drop boxes amid concerns that votes will not be counted if they are not submitted on time.
“You can do as many of them as you want in New York and California,” said Bahat, who voted in Wisconsin this year. “You’re not going to change who wins the national office.”
Bahat made sure to point out that his advocacy on behalf of the Democratic Party is independent of his Walk the Vote work because the group is nonpartisan.
The experience of living in a crucial swing state in the weeks leading up to one of the most consequential elections in American history has been eye-opening for Bahat.
“It’s obviously a very different feel than being in a coastal city,” he told JI. “This is a place that has struggled economically and is now doing well. It’s a place where the struggles over race and wealth inequality are front and center. And it’s a rare place where you see Biden and Trump signs lawn next to lawn, and people who are friends and neighbors feeling really differently about this race. So in that way, it’s kind of emblematic of what’s happening in America.”
“I’d also say it’s a place where the political traditions in the Jewish community are very deeply interwoven,” Bahat added. “It’s not something we’ve had a chance to engage with deeply since getting here. But one of the things that I grew up believing is that, as Jews, we’re responsible for engaging civically in our time. I went to the Abraham Joshua Heschel School, and the iconic image in my head is him marching with Martin Luther King. It just feels like we’ve had the beginnings of a return to that in this election.”
On Sunday, Bahat helped organize a Walk the Vote event in Whitefish, where he currently lives. The crowd was thin, but he saw that as a promising development. “Very few people showed up because 91% of mailed-out ballots have already been cast,” he said, referring to the situation in Milwaukee County. “That’s a great sign.”
Across the state, approximately 1.9 million voters have cast their ballots before Election Day, according to a Monday morning count. The number amounts to 63% of the state’s turnout in 2016.
For Bahat, the biggest issue this election is “the stability of our democracy,” he said with an air of gravity. “We need that in order to do anything else.” Assuming democracy is preserved, however, Bahat said that as a venture capitalist who invests in startups focused on the future of work he is also thinking about issues of economic justice as unemployment levels have skyrocketed.
“How do we handle support for the new gig economy?” he said. “How do we handle disparities around race and gender and other forms of difference? Those are mostly issues I’m focused on.”
The pandemic has only made work-related concerns all the more pressing, but Bahat noted that such matters have varied depending on socioeconomic status. “It’s certainly reshaped how we work for people who, like you and me, deal in information,” Bahat told JI. But, he added, it has “less reshaped how we’ve worked, unfortunately, for people who are essential workers.”
Bahat declined to offer his views on Biden’s prospects in Wisconsin. “I’ve intentionally not thought about likelihoods because it does not matter to my actions,” he said. “My main effort is making sure every vote gets out and gets counted. I do not have any special view on the odds.”
Bahat predicted that he will be in Wisconsin until at least the end of January. By that point, it is safe to assume that, no matter which way the election goes, he will be ready to escape Wisconsin’s winter weather and make his retreat to San Francisco’s more clement environs.
“It snowed a week ago today,” Bahat said with only a slight sense of alarm. Still, he has made the calculation that his efforts have been worth the trouble. “We’re paying the price with our fingertips,” he told JI. “But that’s OK.”
Royce praised an agreement that ensures Sudan will pay $335 million to the families of Americans killed in the 1998 embassy bombings
Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP
Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, center, is greeted by Chairman Rep. Ed Royce, (R-CA), left, and Ranking Member Rep.Eliot Engel (D-NY), right, before testifying at the House Foreign Affairs Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington in May 2018.
Former chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Ed Royce (R-CA) praised an agreement signed at the State Department last week that ensures Sudan will pay $335 million to the families of the Americans killed in the 1998 bombings of the U.S. Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in exchange for being removed from the list of states sponsoring terrorism.
The agreement — signed Friday and announced on Monday — is part of a normalization deal between Sudan and Israel facilitated by the Trump administration. The compensation has been put in an escrow account pending the rescission of Sudan’s State Sponsor of Terrorism designation and congressional legislation that would restore its immunities to the country’s new transitional government.
Sen. Bob Menendez (D-NJ), the ranking member of the Senate Committee on Foreign Relations, has threatened to block the legislation if the deal does not also address claims against the African nation from victims of the September 11 attacks.
In a recent interview with Jewish Insider, Royce, who served as chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee until his retirement in 2018, called the agreement “an extraordinary diplomatic achievement” for the Trump administration “and for the national security interests of the U.S. But also a measure of justice for the families that have waited over 20 years for this day to come.”
Royce, who now serves as policy director at the Brownstein Hyatt Farber Schreck law and lobbying firm representing the families of the 1998 bombing victims, warned of an “unfortunate outcome” if Congress does not seize the moment to sign off on the agreement’s implementation.
“Sudan says they won’t hold that money indefinitely for the victims and the family members of those who lost their lives in the attacks,” Royce explained. “So there is urgency here because we know that when there’s a window of opportunity like this, and you have our national interest, our sense of justice to the victims, as well as our relationship with our ally all on the line, you want that to be front and center of the attention that the Senate will give to this issue. The clock is ticking.”
Edith Bartley, whose father and brother were killed in the embassy bombings and is now a spokesperson for the families of the bombing victims, said in a statement, “With so much at stake for our families — as well as for our national security and that of our regional allies — lawmakers cannot let this long-sought agreement fall victim to legislative gridlock and quibbling.”
Royce also expressed concern that if the deal falls apart, the progress made on diplomatic relations between Israel and Sudan could be at risk. He also warned that a delay could push Sudan to draw back and strengthen its relationship with Iran, pointing out that Sudan served for years as a route for the transfer of weaponry from Iran to its proxies in the Middle East, including to Hamas in Gaza.
“The fact [is] that now, instead of being an ally for Iran, we have a government which is hostile to the actions that Iran took, starting with the intelligence services in Iran that helped undermine and overthrow that government 30 years ago,” Royce asserted. “And so this is of enormous significance in terms of changing the momentum that we’ve seen reversing in the region against Iran. This is something that I’m hopeful every member of the Senate looks at as they finalize this agreement.”
Royce added that the deal is an interest of all of America’s allies in the region, who expect to see Iran isolated and is a process that “would bring stability to the region.”
“This is not the end of this process,” he continued. “This is the beginning of a process that we know is in motion, because of the communications we receive from other governments that are looking and watching. All of this is on the line and that’s why we must continue the moment.”
Royce also commented on the retirement of his successor at HFAC, Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY), who was defeated by Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary. “I believe that Eliot Engel kept his eye on the ball throughout his entire career, focused on foreign affairs and was deeply committed to seeing what could be done to bring an architecture of stability that would generate economic prosperity around the world, and peace and security around the globe,” Royce said. “And I believe he accomplished a tremendous amount through this commitment he had in his nearly 30 years in the Congress. I think many of us are going to miss Chairman Engel when he retires. I will, and I know many of his colleagues will, and I know many of those who take foreign policy seriously will deeply miss him as well.”
Around the country today, Americans will cast their votes in federal, state and local elections — if they haven’t already. With millions of mail-in ballots to count, many Senate and House races could take time to be officially called, especially those predicted to come down to very narrow margins. Here are some of the key races Jewish Insider has covered closely this year and will be watching today:
Southern California: Will it be too close to call in SoCal? With Rep. Duncan Hunter’s (R-CA) resignation and Rep. Susan Davis (D-CA) announcing her retirement, the 50th and 53rd congressional districts fielded wide primary fields. In the 50th, former Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA) holds a narrow lead over Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who lost by 3.5 percentage points to Hunter in 2018. Issa and Campa-Najjar — who has both Palestinian and Mexican heritage and whose grandfather was allegedly involved in the attack on Israeli athletes at the Munich Olympics — have sparred over their respective positions on Middle East geopolitics. In the neighboring 53rd district, San Diego City Council President Georgette Gomez and Sara Jacobs, both Democrats, came out on top in California’s jungle primary this spring. The two have tussled over their progressive bona fides, with Gomez earning the endorsement of Justice Democrats, but losing support after going public with her pro-Israel policy positions. Jacobs is the granddaughter of Qualcomm founder Irwin Jacobs, and has largely self-funded her campaign.
Nebraska 2nd: Will Kara Eastman bring home the Bacon this year? That’s the question on the minds of voters in Nebraska’s 2nd congressional district, where Eastman is challenging Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) for the second time, after losing to the former Air Force brigadier general in 2018 by two percentage points. Eastman has been endorsed by a number of heavy-hitters across the Democratic spectrum, including former President Barack Obama, former Vice President Joe Biden, Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Jamie Raskin (D-MD).
New Jersey 2nd: New Jersey’s 2nd congressional district is the race to watch in the Garden State, where most seats are predicted to go to Democrats. But in the district that encompasses the entire southern portion of the state — where former Democratic Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), switched parties earlier this year and pledged his support for President Donald Trump — Van Drew is locked in a tight race against Amy Kennedy, wife of former Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D-RI). If she wins, Kennedy will be the only member of the political dynasty in Washington following Rep. Joe Kennedy’s (D-MA) failed Senate bid in Massachusetts.
New York 1st: One thing is for certain: The next representative from New York’s 1st congressional district will be Jewish. Three-term Rep. Lee Zeldin — one of two Jewish Republicans in the House — is being challenged by college chemistry professor Nancy Goroff, who beat her primary opponent by less than 700 voters. Recent polling gives lifelong Long Islander Zeldin a slight edge in the district, which includes the entire eastern portion of the island. Zeldin has a narrow fundraising lead and had more cash on hand to spend during the final weeks of the race, which may push him over the finish line Tuesday night.
New York 11th: First-term Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) is neck and neck with Nicole Malliotakis in New York City’s only purple district. Rose has risen to prominence as one of the few Purple Heart recipients on Capitol Hill, and spent two weeks earlier this year deployed with the National Guard at the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic. Malliotakis, who has served in New York’s State Assembly since 2011, was the Republican nominee in the 2017 New York City mayoral election, and lost to Bill de Blasio by almost 40 points. Rose has gone to great lengths to distance himself from the mayor, going so far as to release a six-second ad in which he proclaims, “Bill de Blasio is the worst mayor in the history of New York City.”
Texas 10th: In his 15 years representing Texas’s 10th congressional district, Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) has worked his way up the ladder to become the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. He’s being challenged by Mike Siegel, a progressive Democrat who lost the 2018 race to McCaul by five percentage points. Siegel is hoping a second blue wave will push him to victory, as other Democrats in the red state, including Candace Valenzuela and Gina Ortiz Jones, are seeing their districts lean towards Democrats. The race is now rated a tossup by the Cook Political Report. If McCaul falls short, the House Foreign Affairs Committee will lose both its ranking member and chairman following Rep. Eliot Engel’s primary defeat over the summer.
Alaska Senate: In Alaska, Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) holds a slight lead over Al Gross, the former orthopedic surgeon and commercial fisherman who entered the race as an independent but has received significant backing from Democrats in the lower 48 hoping to wrestle control of the Senate. Sullivan has remained a fairly popular official in the state, earning the endorsement of the Anchorage Daily News last week, but Gross is hoping the independent-minded nature of Alaska voters — who sent Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AK) back to the Senate in a write-in campaign after she lost her 2010 primary — will propel him to victory. A Sullivan campaign ad over the weekend, which featured Gross holding a wad of cash and surrounded by $100 bills as well as a shadowy image of Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) looming in the background, generated controversy and condemnation.
North Carolina 11th: When Mark Meadows took a position as chief of staff to the president, his seat — reliably Republican — opened up, but the party favorite (and Meadows’s personal choice) fell short in the primary, losing to Madison Cawthorn, the then-24-year-old upstart who has said he wants to be the Republican Party’s version of Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and usher in a new generation of young GOP leaders. Cawthorn, who has made waves with controversial social media posts and questions about his academic and professional careers, has picked up support from the president — even appearing at the RNC in August — and is still favored to win over Moe Davis, an attorney and retired Air Force general. While Davis is the clear underdog, he may benefit from newly redrawn district lines, which brought the liberal enclave of Asheville into the district. Cawthorn’s controversies have not been without consequence — once reliably red, the district has moved from “Likely Republican” to “Lean Republican” in the months since Cawthorn became his party’s nominee.
Arizona Senate: Former astronaut Mark Kelly, husband of former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-AZ), has held a steady lead over incumbent Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) over months of polling in Arizona’s special Senate election. The two are battling over who will represent the state in the final two years of the term Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) was elected to in 2016, a year and a half before his 2018 death from glioblastoma. McSally has struggled to gain momentum in a historically red state that is beginning to trend blue, and has not benefited from the same support seen for other GOP senators hoping to keep their seats. In an appearance at a Trump rally in Arizona last week, McSally was quickly ushered on stage and given a minute to speak — less stage time than several out-of-state Republican legislators in town for the event.
South Carolina Senate: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) was still a political neophyte when he flipped a historically blue congressional district in 1994 before heading to the Senate a decade later. Now, Graham is fighting to keep his seat representing the historically red state amid a serious challenge from Jaime Harrison, a lobbyist and Democratic operative who has never held elected office but has given the longtime senator his first competitive Senate race.
Georgia: In line with presidential polling in recent weeks, both Senate elections — the regular election between Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) and Jon Ossoff, and the crowded special election to replace Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA) — are expected to be close, with the special election race almost certain to head to a run-off in January. That race will see Pastor Raphael Warnock, businessman Matt Lieberman, Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) and Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA), who was chosen to replace Isakson earlier this year, battle for the chance to finish out Isakson’s term. Most congressional races in the state are likely to be called early, with Carolyn Bourdeaux leading Rich McCormick in the race for the Georgia 7th open seat and QAnon conspiracy theorist Marjorie Taylor Greene running unopposed after her Democratic opponent dropped out of the race.
Michigan Senate: In the battleground state of Michigan, Republican candidate John James, an African-American Iraq War veteran, is challenging incumbent Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) in a closely watched race that has drawn the attention of national GOP leaders. Last week, James benefited from a $4.6 million cash infusion from the Senate Leadership Fund — a super PAC affiliated with Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell — as Republicans make their final push to scuttle Democrats’ hopes of flipping the Senate this cycle. The 39-year-old Detroit native is a formidable candidate and has managed to give Democrats a scare as polls have occasionally shown a competitive contest. But Peters has maintained a consistent lead heading into Election Day and appears to be in a strong position to defend his seat. In 2018, James ran against Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), losing by a margin of 6.5 percentage points.
Jeffrey Katzenberg, Marc Lasry and Nikki Fried make the list of the 800 biggest campaign fundraisers
(Democratic National Convention via AP)
Former Vice President Joe Biden smiles after the roll call vote during the second night of the Democratic National Convention on Tuesday, Aug. 18, 2020.
Ahead of Election Day, former Vice President Joe Biden’s campaign released an extensive list of more than 800 of its biggest fundraisers — who brought in $100,000 or more for the campaign — featuring a number of well-known figures in the Jewish community.
The list includes Quibi founder Jeffrey Katzenberg, Comcast lobbyist David Cohen, casino magnate Neil Bluhm, entrepreneur Paul Egerman, Milwaukee Bucks Senior Vice President Alex Lasry, philanthropist Lisa Pritzker, and lawyers Mark Donig and Marc Stanley.
“[I’m] glad to help the campaign and end our collective nightmare,” Stanley told JI.
Investors Blair Effron, Jon Gray, Marc Lasry, Jonathan Lavine, Jonathan Soros, Alan Leventhal and Stephen Mandel and Bloomberg LP senior advisor Joshua Steiner are also among Biden’s top fundraisers.
Michael Kempner, the CEO of public relations firm MWWPR who was also on the list, said he’s feeling confident about Biden’s chances.
“I’ve been a supporter of Joe Biden’s for 40 years, and truly believe that he is the best person for the job, combined with the urgency of getting rid of Donald Trump, it was an obvious decision” to fundraise for the campaign, Kempner told JI.
Numerous former Obama and Clinton administration officials, including former Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin, counterterrorism official Jarrod Bernstein, Ambassador Susan Levine, Secretary of Commerce Penny Pritzker, Deputy Secretary of State Tom Nides, Export-Import Bank Chairman Fred Hochberg and Federal Trade Commission Chair Jon Leibowitz have also been key Biden supporters.
Some of the most prominent Jewish members of Congress, including Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), Reps. Ted Deutch (D-FL), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Brad Sherman (D-CA) and Jackie Speier (D-CA), and former Rep. Steve Israel are also on the list, as is Nikki Fried, Florida’s agriculture commissioner and the only statewide elected Democrat.
Israeli Diaspora Affairs Minister Omer Yankelevitch will depart next week for her first official foreign trip since taking office, to spend three days meeting with members of the Jewish community in Los Angeles.
Yankelevitch, who entered the ministerial position in May, has been grounded — like much of the world — by the coronavirus pandemic. Despite the challenges involved in such a trip, she told Jewish Insider that it was important for her to meet face-to-face with members of the global Jewish community.
“We decided that despite all the difficulties we want to travel” to visit with Jewish communities abroad, Yankelevitch told JI in an interview in her Knesset office Monday afternoon. “I really want to experience the communities, it’s important for me to make my presence known,” she said. “I want to bring to people abroad the news of all the things we’re working on here on their behalf.” She pointed specifically to efforts to create a “global Jewish education hub” to build an online platform for students and teachers around the world, who may be particularly cut off from traditional education methods during COVID-19.
An advisor to the minister told JI that it was logistically easier to plan socially distanced events and meetings in Los Angeles compared to New York, which is home to the largest concentration of Jews in the United States.
The minister will leave Saturday night and spend three days meeting in limited groups in open spaces with community leaders and laypeople in the Los Angeles area, including Israeli expats and leaders from the Reform, Conservative and Orthodox streams. She will also spend time with student leaders at the University of Southern California connected to the Mosaic United program and the women’s group Momentum (formerly the Jewish Women’s Renaissance Project) — which are both partners of the Diaspora Affairs Ministry.
The trip was specifically designed and authorized to minimize coronavirus risks and will require Yankelevitch to only spend five days in quarantine upon her return to Israel, instead of the mandatory two weeks.
“It’s important to me to experience the community, to experience the organizations, to experience the people,” Yankelevitch said, “to see how we can work together, to enlarge our engagement, to make our presence known and to also express our sense of responsibility.”
When asked if the trip was specifically timed to occur after the U.S. presidential election, Yankelevitch would only say: “Best of luck to whoever wins.”
In an email to supporters this week, Rep. Max Rose’s (D-NY) campaign manager admitted that the first-term congressman’s seat in New York’s 11th congressional district is in danger of flipping.
“In the past few weeks alone, political experts at Roll Call, CNN, and now the National Journal have singled Max out as one of the most vulnerable incumbents anywhere in the country,” read the message. A similar email, sent out by the campaign of Nicole Malliotakis read, “Roll Call named Max Rose the 3rd most vulnerable member of the House.”
The emails underscore just how close the race has become in recent weeks ahead of Rose’s first reelection battle. The 11th district is considered the most conservative part of New York City — won by President Donald Trump in 2016 by 10 points — and one of the couple dozen districts the Cook Political Reportrates a “toss-up.”
A NBC4/Marist poll released on Monday showed a neck-and-neck race, consistent with polling in recent weeks.
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In a recent interview with Jewish Insider, Rose, a Purple Heart recipient and National Guard veteran of the war in Afghanistan, said he tries not to pay attention to the polls, instead choosing to focus on serving “the interests of my community, according to my own values and according to my never-ending commitment to give everything for this country, including my life. I will give my life to this country. I’m a patriot through and through.”
Ultimately, Rose believes that Republican and Democratic voters alike will appreciate that, despite his membership in the Democratic caucus, he “has been willing to stand up to both parties” when he thinks things in Washington are heading in the wrong direction.
Rose also prides himself on standing up for what he believes is right, regardless of which party originated the idea or legislation. He pointed to his support of Trump’s executive order to combat antisemitism on campus, issued last December, and his approval of the targeted killing of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, earlier this year, as instances where he chose values over politics.
An elected official “can’t be thinking about parties, the polls, the next election and what your donors want,” Rose explained. “That very false commitment is why people hate politics. And when we talk about changing politics, that’s what we have to change.”
Malliotakis contested Rose’s effort to portray himself as an independent by highlighting his vote to impeach Trump as well as backing he received from a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “It’s very disingenuous to tell the community that you are independent when you turn around and go to Washington and vote [96%] of time with Nancy Pelosi, including for the most partisan measure we’ve seen in years — which is the impeachment vote against the president,” Malliotakis told JI.
She further suggested Pelosi’s investment on behalf of Rose — who voted against Pelosi in her bid for House speaker last year — is an attempt to “save him because she wants to keep him as a rubber stamp” in Washington.
Outside political groups have been pouring millions into the race for the swing-district seat — adding to the string of attack ads the two candidates have aired. Rose outraised his opponent 3-to-1, raking in about $8.3 million, according to recent FEC filings.
In the interview with JI, Rose avoided attacking his opponent — a pivot away from campaign ads and viral campaign clips that targeted Malliotakis. “Service is a privilege for me,” Rose explained. “I count my lucky stars for the love and the support of my family and the commitment that the community has shown towards building a better country, and I just strive to be there for them. That brings great joy and a great sense of fulfillment.”
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Both candidates have strong ties to the Jewish community and enjoy a nearly even amount of support among members of the large Sephardic segment of the community in the portion of the district that lies in Brooklyn, according to conversations with a handful of constituents.
For Rose’s supporters, his record speaks for itself. In his short time in Congress, the Democratic congressman has stood out as a staunch supporter of Israel and an important voice in the effort to combat rising antisemitism, which has included speaking out against controversial language used by members of his own party.
Rose has also earned points in the Orthodox Jewish community — which has aligned more with the Republican Party in recent years — by supporting the president’s executive order to protect Jewish college students, inviting the administration’s antisemitism envoy to the district and being openly critical of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio.
Jack Ashkenazie, a community activist in Brooklyn, told JI that as a member of Congress, Rose “has shown his support for the issues that are important to us, and it’s prudent for us to support moderate Democrats who share our values.”
Ashkenazie, a registered Republican, said that the community is split in its support for Rose, largely because of his vote on impeachment. While the Sephardic Community Federation, based in South Brooklyn, endorsed a number of candidates for state office, it chose not to endorse either Rose or Malliotakis. Similarly, it did not make an endorsement in the presidential race.
But Ashkenazie said he’d vote for Rose as the incumbent, calling him “a staunch leader within his own party on the issues that affect us.”
“I can vote for President Trump, and I can also vote for Max Rose,” Ashkenazie told JI, “because it’s the right thing to do.”
Malliotakis has represented parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island in the New York State Assembly since 2010. She also ran for mayor in the 2017 election, losing to De Blasio by nearly 40 points, but winning her home borough. Malliotakis first visited Israel in 2019 with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.
Former New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind told JI that he chose to endorse Malliotakis to take a stance against the rise in antisemitism, because when it comes to support for Israel, both candidates are on the same page. Hikind — who is not a resident of the district — suggested the incumbent hasn’t been forceful enough, just “fulfilling the most minimum requirements” to challenge the progressive members of his party.
“These days are different from normal days. During a time of unprecedented antisemitism, when people are concerned about their future, we need people who are dedicated and devoted to fight antisemitism and hate,” he explained. “And especially someone like Rose, with his background — he’s no pushover. He has a strong personality, he could have done so much more within the Democratic Party to take a stand against the hate that exists in that party.”
Malliotakis criticized Rose for not condemning Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) comments last year comparing ICE’s detention facilities to concentration camps. “To this day, I have not heard him condemn that,” Malliotakis told JI, adding that last year, Rose called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), whose controversial comments about pro-Israel legislators drew widespread ire and sparked a congressional resolution condemning antisemitism, a “friend” with whom he “shares values.”
“Voters in this district deserve to know what values he’s referring to,” she said.
In a statement to JI, Rose said, “No one should compare anything to the atrocities of the Holocaust,” adding, “Nicole [Malliotakis] lacking the self-awareness to realize how offensive it is to lecture a Jew about the Holocaust demonstrates exactly who she is and why she doesn’t belong anywhere near Congress.”
In a recent letter of support for Rose, more than two dozen prominent members of the Jewish community in Brooklyn — including a number of Republicans — noted that “electing a Republican to Congress will guarantee that our voice remains in the minority for the coming years. Max unequivocally supports every piece of legislation promoting the US-Israel relationship, and we should support those who are fighting to keep the Democrat party firmly pro-Israel.”
But for some, Rose doesn’t deserve credit for the diplomatic successes of the Trump administration when it comes to Israel.
“To give him any credit for anything that happened to Israel in the last two years, while Trump was in office, it would be akin to thanking Pharaoh for letting the Jews out of Egypt,” Morris Benun, a local activist supporting Malliotakis, told JI.
In his interview with JI, Rose maintained that his support for Israel is absolute, regardless of who sits in the White House or has a majority in the House, pointing out that he’s a lead sponsor of a bipartisan House resolution that expresses support for the recently signed Abraham Accords. “It’s got to be ‘country first.’ You cannot be blinded by partisanship,” he explained. “When we change those two things, we will dramatically fix our politics for the better. And I believe with all my heart and soul, that that is the direction we’re gonna take this country.”
“That’s why I’m in Congress to focus on things like this. This is why I’m there,” Rose added.
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Rose has put his bipartisan credentials on display as a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of 50 Republican and Democratic legislators who meet regularly and work to craft legislation that can garner support from both parties.
Asked whether she would join the bipartisan panel if elected to Congress, Malliotakis was noncommittal. “I’ll certainly look into it, but I have to learn more about every caucus and what they stand for” before making a decision, she said.
But she was quick to point out that as a minority member of the New York State Assembly, “I’ve been willing to cross party lines and work with my colleagues to achieve positive things, but at the same time, I’m going to hold anybody who is going to be hurting the people in my district accountable.”
Malliotakis was also reluctant to point to instances where she would stand with a future President Joe Biden if they are both elected next month. “We haven’t really heard much from Joe Biden, other than he is not going to support law and order fully, and that he’s going to raise taxes. But I think one example, both [candidates] said they want to preserve [health care] coverage for pre-existing conditions. That’s something that I agree with,” she said.
Rose told JI he does not regret the positions he’s taken during his first term in office, even if he loses his reelection bid. “You have got to do what’s right for the country, you have to do what’s right for the community, you have to uphold your values, and you have to uphold the Constitution.”
An ad from Sen. Dan Sullivan depicts challenger Al Gross holding a wad of dollar bills
Courtesy
Al Gross
November 2, 2020
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Alaska Senate candidate Al Gross is accusing Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) of antisemitism over a digital attack ad that features a doctored photo of Gross, who is Jewish, fanning out dollar bills — a classic antisemitic stereotype.
“Lower 48 liberals are flooding Alaska with millions,” reads the ad, which also features Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) lurking in the candidate’s shadow.
“This ad has disgusting anti-Semitic tropes but it’s what we should expect from a candidate who has hidden how his family does business with communist China and has voted time and again to benefit their bottom line,” Gross said in a statement, calling on Sullivan to remove the ad.
Gross, an independent allied with Democratic Party leaders, has picked up traction in the state in recent months. Recent polls show Sullivan and Gross — both of whom have raked in millions of dollars in campaign donations — in a statistical tie, with the first-term incumbent leading by 3%.
Israeli Opposition Leader Yair Lapid expressed his “anger” toward the ad on Sunday. “It is a disgrace and a stain on the American democracy we all admire so much,” he tweeted.
The American Jewish Committee tweeted that: “Depicting a Jewish candidate surrounded by dollar bills with a prominent Jewish figure looming behind him conjures up ugly stereotypes,” and called on Sullivan to “pull this disturbing ad immediately.”
The Sullivan campaign told the Anchorage Daily News that the ad “is not about race or religion.”