Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump claimed Thursday that if he loses the November 5 election to Democratic Vice President Kamala Harris, Jewish-American voters will share some of the blame. During his remarks at the Israeli-American Council National Summit in Washington, the former president bemoaned that he trailed Harris among American Jews.

If I don’t win this election – and the Jewish people will have a lot to say about it if that occurs because if 40%, 60% of the people vote for the enemy, Israel, in my opinion, will cease to exist within two years,” Trump told the audience. Trump cited a poll that showed Harris with 60% support among American Jews. He also expressed regret for receiving less than 30% of the vote among American Jews in the 2016 election, which he won, and the 2020 election, which he lost to Democratic President Joe Biden. It was unclear which poll the former president was referring, but a recent Pew Research Survey revealed that American Jews prefer Harris over Trump, 65% to 34%. Trump made similar remarks at a separate gathering earlier in the evening in Washington, which was dedicated to combating antisemitism in America.

The Trump campaign prioritises winning over Jewish voters in critical battleground areas. For decades, Jews in the United States have leant overwhelmingly towards Democrats in federal elections, and this trend continues, but a tiny shift in the Jewish vote could determine the winner in November. Over 400,000 Jews live in Pennsylvania, a key battleground state that Biden won by 81,000 votes in 2020. Before the event, Morgan Finkelstein, a Harris campaign spokesperson, attacked Trump for occasionally engaging with anti-Semites. Trump has denied all allegations of anti-Semitism, mentioning in his comments on Thursday that he has a Jewish son-in-law.

In his remarks, Trump did not mention a CNN article released earlier in the day about Mark Robinson, the Republican gubernatorial candidate in North Carolina. According to the study, Robinson previously referred to himself as a “black NAZI!” in comments on a pornography website and campaigned for the return to slavery.