Antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker defended his comparison of Jewish voters in suburban Detroit to Ku Klux Klan members during a contentious interview with New York Times columnist Ezra Klein published Friday, where he also stood by his attack of Zionism as a fascist and racist ideology.

“I think that there is no difference between a KKK member and what I’m describing in my personal experience,” Piker said, when pressed by Klein about his remarks last month comparing efforts to canvas Jewish voters in West Bloomfield, Mich., for then-Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed to campaigning for a Black candidate in a KKK neighborhood.

Jewish voters remained broadly supportive of Democratic candidates in the 2026 midterms, according to a new comprehensive survey, but also were the only demographic group that swung rightward from 2024, suggesting a notable vulnerability as the party grows increasingly critical toward Israel and accommodating of socialist candidates.

The Mellman Group survey, conducted for the Jewish Electorate Institute from Oct. 29 to Nov. 6, found that 69% of Jewish voters supported Democrats in the midterms, while 25% voted for Republicans. While Jews remained one of the biggest Democratic voting blocs, support for the party slightly declined from the 2024 presidential election, when 72% of Jewish voters backed Democrats for Congress.

Just half of Jewish Michiganders voted for Sen.-elect Abdul El-Sayed (D-MI) in the midterm election, according to a new poll conducted by The Jewish Majority, far below typical voting patterns in the state for a Democratic candidate and badly lagging behind Gov.-elect Jocelyn Benson’s own performance with Jewish voters.

The poll is the clearest picture yet of the Jewish electorate in Michigan, amid conflicting estimates and analyses of how many Jewish voters in the state supported the controversial Democratic nominee. 

A new lawsuit from a group of Jewish civil servants in New York City alleges that the NYC Department of Health and Mental Hygiene has engaged in systemic discrimination against the employees since the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel — a situation the complainants said worsened after Mayor Zohran Mamdani entered office.

Seven employees of the agency, represented by attorney Mark Goldfeder’s National Jewish Advocacy Center, assert their higher-ups barred them from forming an official “Employee Resource Group,” which would have permitted them access to public resources, because agency officials deemed Jewish identity to be a religious rather than ethnic class. This coincided with the department’s leadership enabling other groups to not only obtain the ERG designation and resources but to use city-owned property to delegitimize the State of Israel and Zionism, according to the plaintiffs.

Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), one of the Senate’s leading critics of the U.S.-Israel relationship, announced Thursday that he will challenge Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to become Senate majority leader in the next Congress, hoping to ride a wave of progressive enthusiasm and opposition to Schumer.

Van Hollen, who is also considering a 2028 presidential run and has been encouraged to run for the position for months by far-left activists and media figures attracted partly by his criticism of Israel, described his bid as a response to the midterm elections.

Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang’s abrupt resignation on Thursday — amid revelations of affairs including with a woman suspected by U.S. intelligence officials of spying for China — has raised questions about the potential impact on the technology giant’s extensive footprint in Israel, where it employs roughly 6,000 people and operates its largest research and development hub outside the United States.

Huang, who co-founded Nvidia in 1993 and led the company for 33 years, stepped down as president, CEO and board member effective immediately, the company announced. 

Organizers of a Philadelphia bike ride last weekend that targeted Jewish- and Israeli-owned restaurants canceled a second event planned for Sunday, claiming that last week’s ride had been met with “extremist violence” from Israel supporters.

Last week’s ride targeted businesses including Israeli restaurants Dizengoff, Goldie and K’Far Cafe, sandwich shop Huda as well as Schlessinger’s Deli and Mac Mart. The activist groups’ flyer declared that “these Zionist establishments must go,” prompting condemnation from local Jewish organizations and elected officials, which called the campaign an effort to intimidate and exclude Jews from Philadelphia’s economic and civic life. The rally took place on the eve of the anniversary of Kristallnacht, the 1938 Nazi pogrom against Jews that included the looting and destruction of Jewish businesses. 

Several Senate Republicans on Thursday sounded skeptical of President Donald Trump’s renewed demand for Congress to pass a $350 billion supplemental bill to support the Defense Department and the Iran war in the lame-duck session before the end of the year.

Trump said on Thursday that Congress should “IMMEDIATELY” begin working on a $350 billion party-line funding bill, which many on Capitol Hill have seen for months as infeasible. The House instead advanced legislation earlier this year that would have provided $60 billion in Pentagon funding, primarily to replenish munitions used in the Iran war, but that legislation has not advanced in the Senate.