MIAMI – Miami Beach Mayor David Dermer (search) comes from a long line of hard-core Democratic Jewish voters but he says come November, he's casting his ballot for President Bush.
"I believe very much in the core values of the Democratic Party but at this time I think President Bush should be our president," said Dermer, who took office shortly after the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks.
And with eight months to go before the 2004 election, Republicans are urging Democratic Jews in battleground states to give the sitting president a second look.
"We have believed from the beginning that there are legions of Republicans everywhere and they just don't know it yet," said Mark Racicot, Bush's campaign chairman. "We need to give them a chance to become part of the process."
A poll taken in November by the American Jewish Committee (search) shows that Bush's support among Jews is at 31 percent — up from 24 percent in 2000.
Democrats say most of the Jewish voting bloc will remain solidly in their column, but many acknowledge that in a tight race, every vote will count.
"If the race is razor tight the way we now imagine it to be then this kind of shift, if it happens, could have profound consequences," said David Twersky of the nonpartisan American Jewish Congress (search).
Click here for a report by Fox News' Orlando Salinas.
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