Since 1980, the Republican National Committee has worked with news media outlets to conduct debates among contenders for the GOP’s presidential nomination.
Now, the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) is making history with its connection to the third and final Republican debate of the 2024 season, RJC Chair Norm Coleman said.
The conference drew an unprecedented level of attention because it began three weeks after the start of the Israel–Hamas war. On Oct. 7, Hamas terrorists targeted and killed more than 1,400 people, mostly Jews, in Israel. Thousands more people have died in more attacks and counterattacks.
“This is our time. The RJC was created for a moment like this, to ensure that America has Israel’s back, to do whatever it takes to wipe Hamas off the face of the earth,” Mr. Coleman said as the RJC audience whistled, applauded, and cheered.
The group is working “to elect a Republican president, a Republican House, a Republican Senate, which we know will stand with Israel without qualification to ensure the survival of the Jewish state,” Mr. Coleman said.
By inviting the RJC to cosponsor the Nov. 8 presidential nominee debate in Miami, the Republican Party showed how much it values “the Jewish community and its strong support for the GOP and the impact that the Republican Jewish Coalition has as an organization,” Mr. Coleman said.
Although Jews traditionally have voted for Democrats, RJC officials say that more Jewish people are beginning to see that their values are better aligned with Republicans. RJC leaders note that Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis drew 45 percent of Jewish voters when he was reelected to his post last year, before his presidential run.
In 2020, 68 percent of the Jewish vote went to the Democratic presidential candidate, Joe Biden. Only 30 percent of U.S. Jews voted for the then-incumbent Republican president, Donald Trump.
Still, President Trump’s share of the Jewish vote was 6 percent more than he received in 2016. His 2020 total was nearly triple the percentage of Jews who voted for Republican George H.W. Bush in 1992.
President Trump is the current frontrunner to become the Republican Party’s nominee for the 2024 presidential election. He far outpaces his two nearest contenders, Mr. DeSantis and former South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley.
They were among eight GOP presidential hopefuls who addressed the RJC this past week. Mike Pence, who was vice president under President Trump, used the opportunity to announce that he was dropping out of the race.
President Trump has said repeatedly that he doesn’t know why other challengers have remained in the race while he far outdistances them in opinion polls. The former chief executive leads Mr.DeSantis, his nearest challenger, by about 46 points, according to the RealClear Politics average on Nov. 1.
President Trump, citing his significant lead, has declined to participate in any GOP-sponsored debates. Each time, he has scheduled a competing event.
As the third and final Republican debate plays out in Miami on Nov. 8, President Trump is scheduled to speak at a stadium rally in nearby Hialeah.
Mr. DeSantis doggedly continues to attack President Trump’s refusal to debate and, alluding to his multiple criminal and civil trials, his ability to focus and provide leadership. He also questions his ability to win and deliver policy victories for the GOP.
“We are not going to win as Republicans, Joe, by adopting the strategy that Biden did, being in the basement during the 2020 campaign,” he said on Nov. 2 to Joe Scarborough on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe.”
“That’s effectively what Donald Trump’s doing. He is refusing to debate. We’ve got a lot of issues that this country is facing right now [that] require steady focus, strong leadership. You got to be able to defend your record.
“And you got to be able to articulate how you’re going to take the country in a better direction. And so my view about why you should debate—I mean, look, I want to fight for people, you know, and Donald Trump is perceived by Republicans as a fighter, but I also want to win for people.”
Mr. DeSantis has repeatedly mentioned Republican setbacks in the 2018, 2020 and 2022 elections. The last one came nowhere near delivering the predicted “red wave.”
Republicans barely regained control of the House and lost the Senate, with crucial races lost by Trump allies like Kari Lake in Arizona, Herschel Walker in Georgia, and Mehmet Oz in Pennsylvania.
“That means winning elections,” Mr DeSantis continued to Mr. Scarborough, “but it also means winning on these policy fights.
A 2-Person Race?
Ms. Haley, meanwhile, seeks to reframe the contest as now down to her versus President Trump.“Nikki has gone into every debate telling voters exactly where she stands on important issues like supporting Israel and standing up to China,” her spokeswoman, Olivia Perez-Cubas, told The Epoch Times in an email.
“She is authentic and unapologetic. That’s why she’s now second in Iowa, New Hampshire, and South Carolina. Time to start talking about a two-person race, one man and one woman.”
Regardless of which candidate becomes the Republican nominee, Mr. Coleman, a former U.S. senator from Minnesota, declared: “Each of them will make a better president than Joe Biden.”
She also told the group: “Please resolve to unite around our eventual nominee.”
“United, we will be able to say ‘never again,’” Ms. McDaniel said, invoking a phrase often used to refer to the Holocaust, when millions of Jews were slain by Nazi Germany.
“The Republican Party will stand strong with Israel,” she vowed.
The situation in Israel boils down to “good versus evil,” Ms. McDaniel said. “You either stand with Israel, or you stand with the people who went and massacred women and children and elderly and kidnapped them.
“And I want to make it abundantly clear: The Republican Party stands with Israel.”
That is why, after the Oct. 7 Hamas invasion of Israel, the Republican Party made a “historic decision” to ask the RJC to sponsor the final GOP presidential debate of this election cycle, she said.
That decision demonstrates that “there is no daylight between us and the Republican Jewish Coalition,” and the two groups are intertwined, she said.
