In an unusual move, strategists for Donald Trump have launched a campaign appealing specifically to U.S. voters living in Israel, notably those from swing states.
Under the slogan “The Israeli Interest,” Republicans Overseas Israel launched a website and a Facebook page before heading out with banners to shopping malls across the country, the Times of Israel reported, visiting cities with a high concentration of U.S. voters, including Jerusalem, Modi’in, Ra’anana and Beit Shemesh.
As many as 300,000 Israeli citizens are eligible to vote in the November election, Israel’s Channel 10 reported. The Trump strategists will target Americans from swing states such as Florida and Pennsylvania. According to the Republicans, there are approximately 30,000 eligible voters in Israel from such states.
The manager of the Trump campaign in Israel, Zvika Brot, told Army Radio on Aug. 15 that while “Israeli voters don’t agree with some of Trump’s statements, just like Hillary Clinton voters don’t agree with some of her statements, they agree 100 percent on the subject they care most about, which is Israel.”
Brot said “there is no more pro-Israel candidate in these elections” than Trump.
A March poll by the Israel Democracy Institute think tank found that “from the standpoint of Israeli interests,” most Israelis prefer Clinton to Trump, 38 percent to 28 percent. According to an exit poll conducted by another get-out-the-vote group, iVote Israel, 85 percent of American voters in Israel cast their ballots for former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, in the 2012 election.
Trump’s campaign this week also launched a Twitter feed in Hebrew, “Campaign Trump b’Yisrael,” with the generic handle @USAISRAEL2016. One of the first tweets was a graph showing that searches for “Trump” in Hebrew outpaced searches for “Clinton.” Trump’s Israel campaign focuses primarily on his ostensibly pro-Israel platform. It also mentions his Jewish daughter, Ivanka, and Jewish grandchildren. — jta