Ed. Note: The Jews for Progress super PAC, a project of the NJDC, launched in late July 2016.  About a million dollars was spent on the effort, which focused on five swing states: FL, OH, PA, AZ and NV.  Over half resources went to Florida (giving rise to the joke that there were seven target states but the first three were Florida).  The typical Jewish voter was already likely to vote for Clinton, and the Clinton campaign had its own Jewish outreach, so Jews for Progress targeted moderate and conservative Jews.  Thus one video featured an endorsement from former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT) and another included clips of half a dozen or so figures including Bibi Netanyahu, Sen. John McCain and even Henry Kissinger praising Clinton.  Jews for Progress utilized a broad palate of vehicles to communicate with voters, including Facebook ads ("phenomenal targeting"), emails, videos, op-eds, robo-calls ("hard to get good lists") and print ads.

Examples of print ads run in Florida Jewish newspapers starting late Sept. 2016.

Jews for Progress
Post-Election Memo

Jewish Voters a Bright Spot for Losing Clinton Campaign

Jews remained disproportionately loyal to the Democratic Party nominee for president this election when compared with other base-party constituency groups. African-Americans, Latinos, union households and young people all voted in lesser numbers November 8 for Democrat Hillary Clinton than they did four years ago for President Barack Obama.
 
But Jews voted in similar or greater numbers for Clinton — 71 percent this year, compared with 69 percent for Obama — while the number of Jews supporting Republican Donald Trump, at 24 percent, was significantly lower than the number who voted for Republican Mitt Romney, who received 31 percent of the Jewish vote in 2012.
 
(This, from exit poll data collected by Edison Research for the National Election Pool, a consortium of all the broadcast television networks and the AP. The Jewish subsample would represent approximately 1,500 self-identified Jewish American voters.)
 
Other base groups, while still voting for Clinton in large numbers, dipped in their support for the Democrat Election Day, with African-Americans giving her 88 percent of their vote compared with the 93 percent that Obama received in 2012. Eight percent of African-Americans voted for Trump, compared with 7 percent for Romney.
 
That trend held true among Hispanics and young people as well. Despite Trump’s promises to build a wall along the Mexican border and deport undocumented immigrants, 29 percent of Hispanics still supported the Republican, two points higher than the 27 percent who backed Romney in 2012. This year’s Democratic vote among Hispanics dropped from the 71 percent Obama had received to 65 percent for Clinton.

Union households – long another stronghold of Democratic Party support – went for Clinton by an eight percentage-point margin. That’s a 10-point drop from Obama’s total four years ago, and the lowest level of union support for a Democrat in the past 20 years. Clinton carried only 51 percent of homes with a member of a labor union, while Trump garnered 43 percent. In 2012, Obama received 58 percent of similar households compared with Romney’s 40 percent.

And young people aged 18-29, who had supported Bernie Sanders in droves and gave 60 percent of their vote to Obama four years ago, came out in smaller numbers this year, with only 54 percent supported Clinton.
 
But Jewish voter loyalty to the Democrats came as Jews for Progress, a political action committee, mounted a nearly million dollar campaign in five battleground states: Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Arizona and Nevada.
 
A project of the National Jewish Democratic Council, Jews for Progress was modeled after NJDC’s successful 2012 campaign called “The Hub.”
 
Headquartered out of a boutique consulting firm based in Washington, D.C., the new 2016 campaign for the Jewish vote was run in a nondescript office in Woodley Park. As the 24/7 cable news cycle obsessed with the latest controversy of the day – from emails to tax returns and debate performances and fact checking – this team of veterans of the Jewish vote wars concentrated on persuading undecided and persuadable Jewish voters, mostly in Florida. Leading the effort were former U.S. Reps. Ron Klein and Robert Wexler, both of Florida; Michael Adler, a Florida developer and a past NJDC chair; Marc Stanley, also a former NJDC chair; Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s top fundraiser and campaign director Steve Paikowsky; and uber fundraiser Fran Katz Watson, while Bluelight Strategies, headed by Jewish political experts Steve Rabinowitz and Aaron Keyak, handled the day-to-day operations.
 
Among the campaigns for the Jewish vote were opinion articles, ads, rapid response and videos, one video campaign featuring former Senator and vice presidential candidate Joe Lieberman and titled “What would Joe (Lieberman) Do?” In addition to being shared online, via social media and in an email from Lieberman himself, the video was formatted into an audio-version auto call to more than 100,000 Florida households.
 
Another video first went out via email from Yuval Rabin, son of the late Israeli prime minister, and was also widely advertised online and on Facebook, and also featuring praise of Hillary Clinton but from Shimon Peres z”l, Bibi Netanyahu, Ehud Barak, Tzipi Livni, John McCain and Henry Kissinger.
 
And a third video, with five current and former south Florida Jewish Congress members reading from the same script and endorsing Clinton was advertised online, on Facebook and on auto calls across Florida.

In addition, NJDC and the super PAC wrote, recruited and placed dozens of op-eds in support of Clinton in the Jewish community – and did constant, daily rapid response, crisis management and fact checking with countless reporters throughout the campaign.
 
Other ad campaigns from NJDC and Jews for Progress included a Hillary/Trump contrast ad on Israel, “Trump on Israel and the Jews,” and “Unfit as Commander in Chief” that also saw print advertising in all six Florida Jewish newspapers, as well as very substantial online ad buys.

The combined ad campaigns of NJDC and Jews for Progress reached well in excess of 60 million impressions and individual contacts.
 
A GBS Strategies poll on Election Day found that of the one-third of Jewish voters surveyed who said they had seen pro-Clinton advertising on Israel or Iran, 22 percent reported the advertising had made them more likely to support Clinton.


See also Jewish Insider: Jews Outperform Others in Democratic Party’s Base
http://jewishinsider.com/9745/jews-outperform-others-in-democratic-partys-base/

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July 28, 2016

Jewish Dems Launch Super PAC for Presidential Election

Jews for Progress, a Super PAC founded to boost support for Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine among Jews in swing states, officially launched today. The new Super PAC, a project of the National Jewish Democratic Council, will run a highly targeted campaign in key battleground states, where a shift in the Jewish vote could turn the tide in the presidential election.

Ron Klein, a former congressman from Florida, will serve as chairman, and Michael Adler, a past chair of NJDC, will serve as treasurer. The remaining board is in formation.

"We have one of the most qualified presidential candidates in our nation's history going against one of the worst candidates ever to be a major party nominee," said Klein. "The prospect of the presidency of Donald Trump would be dangerous, not only to Jewish Americans, but to all Americans. Trump and his supporters have shown that they will stop at nothing in their campaign to support their candidate. Our side will ensure that come 2017, we'll have Hillary Clinton and Tim Kaine in the White House."

Jews for Progress' founders, in addition to Klein and Adler, are Fran Katz Watson, a former Democratic National Committee finance director, who also previously worked for AIPAC and as the President of the Katz Watson Group has worked in numerous fundraising positions; Steve Paikowsky, a top Democratic Party fundraiser; and Steve Rabinowitz and Aaron Keyak of Bluelight Strategies, who will run the PAC's day-to-day operations.

Jews for Progress will be modeled, in part, after "The Hub," a nearly half-million dollar enterprise which Rabinowitz and Keyak ran in the runup to the 2012 presidential election. The Hub developed lightning fast responses to nearly every serious news item that had to do with President Barack Obama, Israel and/or the Jewish vote. The team drafted and placed op-eds, created a website tying Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney to investments in Iran, launched a new Jewish Voter Test site and messaged directly to hundreds of thousands of target Jewish voters.

The Hub had an impact on the vast majority of research, positive stories and opinion articles about President Obama and issues important to the Jewish community, totaling hundreds of pieces.

Katz Watson and Rabinowitz in 2014 founded Jewish Americans Ready for Hillary, an outreach group connected to Ready for Hillary, a PAC created to marshal support for and urge Clinton to run for president in 2016.

"It is crucial that we elect Hillary Clinton as president. Jews for Progress will make a concerted effort to get out the Jewish vote for Hillary, particularly in the key battleground states of Florida and Ohio, where the Jewish vote could tip the scales,” said Klein.

Jews for Progress seeks to raise millions of dollars and plans to span the vast majority of its money on direct voter contact of target Jewish Americans, primarily in eight swing states, using both old and new media. They already have commitments in excess of $1 million dollars.