I went to Pittsburgh to find out whether the rise in antisemitism post–October 7 will sway voters to back Kamala Harris—or Donald Trump.
The eruption of antisemitism on the American left since October 7, 2023, is bound to have an effect in the voting booth. For all the anxiety over who the Muslims of Michigan will back come November, it could be the Jews of Pennsylvania who help swing the election. Which candidate this cohort will support—Kamala Harris or Donald Trump—is the question of my next episode of Swing State Debates.
While most American Jews are still nearly 2-to-1 Team Kamala, the rise in left-wing anti-Zionism over the past year has left many formerly reliable Jewish liberals with lukewarm feelings toward the Democratic Party. The disappointment in Democrats is particularly acute in Pittsburgh, where we shot this episode. The city’s Congressional representative, Summer Lee, is so progressive she can’t bring herself to pick a side between Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Our participants were no strangers to right-wing antisemitism either: Pittsburgh is home to the Tree of Life synagogue, where in 2018 eleven Jews were murdered by a white nationalist. That attack, of course, elicited unqualified sympathy from across the political spectrum, whereas Hamas’s October 7 massacre in Israel was met with leftist calls for “jihad.”
During my discussion with six Jewish voters, anti-Israel protests at American universities loomed large. “The antisemitic poison that we are watching spread across campus, it was born on campus,” said one voter, who is voting for Trump. But another panelist challenged the idea that Harris is unconcerned with the campus vitriol. “Her office made clear that we’re seeing anti-Semitism on college campuses.”
Trump’s support of Israel—and his hard-line stance on Iran—is what fuels his appeal among the pro-GOP panelists I spoke to. It’s a stance that some debaters found surprising even to themselves, given the media’s portrayal of the former president as the second coming of Adolf Hitler. “The idea that I’m somehow defending Trump in this moment feels insane,” marveled our formerly staunch Democrat.
It went the other way as well, with one lifelong Republican unable to get past Trump’s vulgarity, and unconvinced by his supposed Zionism. Untrustworthy was the word that came to mind when she heard the name Donald Trump. Not everyone was so restrained: “I think he’s a piece of shit,” said another participant.
I am not sure this conversation changed her mind, but that same Harris voter gave me an almost too-perfect sound bite about her opponents at the end of our debate: “It helps me understand their perspective,” she said. “Most of the time, I only want to speak to people who agree with me.”
This series is presented with support from the David Merage Foundation and Evoke Media. For more information, please visit weareevokemedia.com. Click here to watch Episode One of the series, a debate on education in Florida.
As well as hosting Swing State Debates, Ben Kawaller is the host of The Free Press series Ben Meets America! To learn more about that series, click here.
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