Orthodox Jews Aim To Juice Turnout In A Make-Or-Break State For 2024 Election

The effort could complicate Harris’ balancing act around the Gaza War as she seeks to keep Jewish votes in the Democratic column.

LOWER MERION, Pennsylvania ― A Jewish group which played a key role in the ouster of progressive Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-N.Y.) earlier this year is now targeting Pennsylvania in the presidential race, aiming to put on a formally nonpartisan show of Jewish voters’ power in the state most likely to decide the 2024 presidential election.

Pennsylvania Unites, as the initiative is known, officially launched its general-election effort on Monday, announcing the opening of its field office in the heavily Jewish Philadelphia suburb of Lower Merion township. The get-out-the-vote program, put on by the Modern Orthodox Jewish umbrella group Orthodox Union will have a budget of $250,000, two dedicated staffers, and an untold number of volunteers.

Politicians are “going to see that this is a community that votes and votes at a super-majority rate, and punches above their weight,” said Maury Litwack, executive director of Teach Coalition, the Orthodox Union’s private education and voter turnout advocacy branch. “They’ll say to themselves, ‘OK, this is a group that I have to pay attention to.’”

Jewish voters are traditionally heavily Democratic, though former GOP President Donald Trump has attempted to woo them with unrelenting support of Israel’s invasion of the Gaza Strip and his record of support for Israel as president. He insists Vice President Kamala Harris will kowtow to the Democratic Party’s left wing, which is increasingly skeptical of a war that has killed over 40,000 Palestinians.

At the very least, the effort aims to prove Jewish votes can be crucial in deciding a presidential contest and force politicians to focus on combating a spike in anti-semitism. In the eyes of some liberal Jews, however, the program seems aimed at moving Jewish voters into the Republican column.