Jewish pro-Trump journalist offers GOP advice on how to court key religious voting bloc
Author and writer Batya Ungar-Sargon says Republicans have to do more to earn the Jewish vote than support Israel
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}Author and journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon offered advice to Republicans on how to make substantial inroads with Jewish voters after the party witnessed underwhelming movement with the key voting bloc in the 2024 presidential election.
Ungar-Sargon, an Orthodox Jewish columnist for The Free Press and a self-described "MAGA leftist" supporter of President Donald Trump, spoke with Fox News Digital about whether Republicans can earn the support of Jewish voters, who historically vote Democrat by high margins.
"First of all, I'm not sure it's possible," Ungar-Sargon began. "The American Jewish community is very highly educated. So 30% of Americans have a college degree, a 4-year degree. 60% of American Jews do. It's very hard to get people who have been through the humanities in the United States in a university and a fancy university, to ever consider voting for a Republican, because the primary thing they're taught at their fancy universities is to have contempt for Republicans and contempt for the working class and contempt for conservative values. So that's going to be a hard sell."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}COLUMNIST WHO CALLS HERSELF A ‘MAGA LEFTIST’ SHARES WHY TRUMP'S SUPPORT GOES BEYOND CONSERVATIVES
Fox News Voter Analysis from the 2024 presidential election showed Trump earning 33% of the Jewish vote, marking a slight 3% increase from 2020.
President Donald Trump earned 33% of the Jewish vote in the 2024 election, according to Fox News Voter Analysis. (Evan Vucci/AP)
Trump heavily leaned on his support for Israel hoping to flip Jewish voters away from Democrats, who remain heavily divided during the Israel-Hamas war following Oct. 7. Notably, Trump won a whopping 74% of the conservative-leaning Orthodox subsection of the Jewish vote, according to the Jewish Electorate Institute. Still, then-Vice President Kamala Harris trounced Trump among Jewish Americans broadly with 66% of the vote, per Fox News Voter Analysis.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}"I think everything President Trump is doing with regards to Israel is big," Ungar-Sargon said while conceding, "I mean, most Americans, Jews, I don't think vote on Israel. I think most people don't vote on foreign policy. They vote on domestic policy."
That said, Ungar-Sargon insisted it is "very important" for Republicans to marginalize the growing "anti-Israel wing of the far right" but earning more support from Jewish voters has to go beyond Israel.
"The Democrats have cast themselves for 100 years, probably more, as the compassionate side. And the Republicans never really rebutted that," Ungar-Sargon said. "It's clear to me now that the Republicans in the MAGA version is a much more compassionate movement because the Democrats' quote unquote ‘compassion’ leads to immense amounts of cruelty."
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}PRO-TRUMP JOURNALIST SOUNDS ALARM ON ‘BIGGEST THREAT’ TO MAGA MOVEMENT
Jewish author and journalist Batya Ungar-Sargon says Republicans have to go beyond supporting Israel in order to court Jewish voters. (Artur Widak/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
She cited the "open border" during the Biden administration that led to the suffering of migrant women and children as well as Democrats' "compassion" for Ukraine and Palestinians she argued only prolonged deadly wars instead of seeking swift ends to them.
Ungar-Sargon suggested Republicans pivot their messaging away from "crime more libs" that gets social media attention to expressing "I get where you're coming from" type of discourse.
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}The Free Press columnist Batya Ungar-Sargon questioned if it was even possible for Republicans to make significant inroads with Jewish voters, pointing to their left-wing education at American universities. (Screenshot/HBO)
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"I understand that you feel sorry about the Palestinians. I do, but the way that you're talking about them, the way that you're enabling them, the way that you're defending their worst behaviors, is only going to lead to more suffering," she said as one example. "Like, ‘Hey, I get that you feel sorry for these immigrants, but do you realize how much cruelty you are enabling to your own working-class neighbors who now, as a result of your open border, will never be able to afford a home in the neighborhood they live in and that you live in when they come to clean your house?’"
{{#rendered}} {{/rendered}}She continued, "I think there's a way to make the conservative case that really stresses, you know, this kind of idea that we owe each other something as humans and as Americans, and I would really like to see us making that case to the left. And I think that there's something really purifying about that. There's this impulse to meet their cruelty towards us, and trust me, I've been on the receiving end of plenty of it, with cruelty. But I think if we can overcome that and meet it with love, I think that will go a long way."