Wednesday, October 30, 2024
The high-stakes battle for the Skver vote
The battle for a key endorsement from a sizable Hasidic voting bloc in New York's Hudson Valley is reaching a crucial moment in the final days of a closely contested congressional race that could determine the balance of power in the House.
In an 11th-hour effort to court the Orthodox vote on Monday, the two top Democrats in Congress — House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) and Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) — paid a visit to the Hasidic village of New Square, where they met privately with Rabbi David Twersky, known as the Skverer rebbe, to boost the candidacy of former Rep. Mondaire Jones (D-NY) as he fights to reclaim his old House seat.
Meanwhile, House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA) is expected to make a similar trek on Thursday, according to sources familiar with the situation. The visit would be his second trip to New Square in four months as he has sought to assist Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), a vulnerable incumbent facing Jones in New York's 17th Congressional District, which is home to one of the largest Jewish constituencies in the country.
A spokesperson for Johnson said he has "several meetings with the Jewish community" on Thursday on Lawler's turf as well as a neighboring swing district where Alison Esposito, a Republican, is challenging Rep. Pat Ryan (D-NY), who claimed a major endorsement from the local Satmar Hasidic sect on Monday.
The focus on New Square, in particular, underscores the importance both parties place on securing an endorsement from the politically powerful Hasidic community in Rockland County, which includes some 3,000 votes that typically support candidates as a bloc and could make the difference in a tight race.
It also represents what may be the only major Hasidic enclave that could go either way in the election. During his first bid for Congress in 2020, Jones won a key endorsement from New Square — even as former President Donald Trump carried the village with nearly unanimous support from voters. President Joe Biden won the district by 10 points the same year.
Last cycle, Jewish leaders in New Square endorsed former Rep. Sean Patrick Maloney (D-NY) thanks to behind-the-scenes advocacy from former President Bill Clinton and Biden — the latter of whom placed a personal call to Twersky in the final leg of the race.
Representatives for Biden and Clinton did not respond to requests for comment regarding the matchup between Jones and Lawler, which has grown increasingly acrimonious in recent weeks.
During his tenure, Lawler has actively engaged in outreach to New Square, as Republican leaders have made continued overtures to the village, including a March 2023 visit by former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy (R-CA).
Following McCarthy's ouster last October, Jones, who lost his seat when he chose to run in a separate district in New York City, faced scrutiny for calling the meeting "a waste of everyone's time" in a social media comment that was deemed offensive to many Orthodox Jews in the district. In response, Jones said the post had been misinterpreted, and that he meant "to communicate that Kevin McCarthy, and by extension Mike Lawler, cannot possibly deliver for communities in Rockland because he's no longer Speaker."
In a statement shared with Jewish Insider on Tuesday, Jones said he had also met on Monday with Jewish leaders in Kaser, another Hasidic village in the district, "to discuss the issues important to our ultra-Orthodox communities."
"I was proud to represent our growing Hasidic communities in Congress, and to have delivered resources and services in a way Mike Lawler has not due to the chaos and dysfunction of his failed Republican majority," Jones added, noting he is "going everywhere in the district to make my case to voters."
But this cycle, Lawler, whose narrow upset over Maloney in 2022 was attributed largely to strong backing from Orthodox voters in Rockland County, is expected to lock up an endorsement from New Square that had remained elusive in his first race, according to Jewish leaders in the district familiar with the matter.
"I would be totally shocked if they went the other way," said one of the Jewish leaders, who asked to remain anonymous to discuss the race with JI on Tuesday. "Lawler has worked very diligently to woo the community and has been directly responsible for bringing substantial funding back into the community."
A spokesperson for Lawler did not respond to a request for comment from JI on Tuesday, nor did a political adviser to Twersky, whose community has long typically issued its endorsements near the end of the general election.
In a recent interview with JI, meanwhile, Lawler predicted that he would once again win strong backing from the Orthodox community, whose support he is depending on in a district where Democrats outnumber Republicans by 80,000 voters.
"The issues that people are focused on, from the affordability crisis to the migrant crisis to the crises around the globe — including the conflict in the Middle East — are issues that I've been heavily focused on and done a lot of work on in Congress," he said.
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