
Daily Kickoff: Chicago’s Jewish vote + Boy Meets Congress
👋 Good Thursday morning!
In today’s Daily Kickoff, we take a deep dive into the politics of Tuesday’s Chicago mayoral election, and interview actor Ben Savage about his California congressional run. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Nikki Haley, Tova Friedman and Evan Gershkovich.
The Future Investment Initiative Institute’s Priority conference kicks off today in Miami Beach. Among the featured speakers at the two-day confab are Goldman Sachs executive Dina Powell McCormick, former Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, former Iran envoy Brian Hook, Affinity Partners founder Jared Kushner, Richard Attias, executive chairman of Richard Attias and Associates; Saudi Ambassador to the U.S. Reema Bandar Al Saud, Starwood Capital’s Barry Sternlicht, WeWork and Flow founder Adam Neumann, cofounder of VC firm Andreessen Horowitz Ben Horowitz, Trian’s Nelson Peltz, governor of Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund Yasir Al-Rumayyan, Mayor of Miami Francis X. Suarez, founder and CEO of Gro Intelligence Sara Menker and co-founder and managing partner of Manna Tree Gabrielle Rubenstein.
The election for the U.S. Senate seat in Michigan being vacated by Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) is more than a year and a half away, but a string of Republican missteps — including a tweet by the Michigan GOP comparing efforts to reform gun laws to the Nazi theft of Holocaust victims’ belongings — and Democratic wins at the state level have Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who announced her intention to seek the seat earlier this year, poised as a favorite candidate. Former Rep. Dave Trott, who served in Congress as a Republican but now considers himself an independent, told The New York Times’ Katie Glueck, “If I’m Elissa Slotkin, I’m already trying to figure out which Senate building I want my office in.”
The Michigan Democrat got another boost this week with an endorsement from Emily’s List, Punchbowl News reports.
A group of far-left lawmakers is collecting signatures on a letter urging President Joe Biden and Secretary of State Tony Blinken to take “immediate action” and calling for a “shift in U.S. policy” in response to what the lawmakers describe as “worsening violence, further annexation of land, and denial of Palestinian rights.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) are leading the letter, and have thus far been joined by Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO), Andre Carson (D-IN), Summer Lee (D-PA), Betty McCollum (D-MN), Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Rashida Tlaib (D-MI). The letter and an accompanying Dear Colleague letter to lawmakers were independently obtained and verified by Jewish Insider yesterday. The letter remains open for additional signatures until Friday.
It represents a further move to the left on Middle East policy for Bowman, who received significant criticism from the Democratic Socialists of America for voting in favor of supplemental funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system and traveling to Israel last year, and subsequently removed himself as a sponsor of legislation supporting the Abraham Accords. It’s also Rep. Summer Lee’s first move on Israel policy as a freshman lawmaker. She was opposed by several pro-Israel groups in her election campaign, and faced questions about her views on Israel.
Omar’s support for the letter comes after she joined a resolution “recognizing Israel as America’s legitimate and democratic ally” and that described Israel as a “trusted partner.” Her sponsorship of that resolution, alongside some pro-Israel Democrats, came just before Democrats voted unanimously against removing her from the House Foreign Affairs Committee over past anti-Israel and antisemitic comments.
Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), the lead sponsor of that resolution, secured Omar’s support and described it at the time as “an enormous step forward.” He told JI on Wednesday that the letter represented “another biased, one-sided attack targeting our key ally, Israel,” which would “undermine efforts toward a two-state solution.” Gottheimer argued, “we must put to rest the splinter view of adding conditions on aid to Israel” and emphasized, “the United States already has critical measures in place to properly vet foreign aid, and this group ignores the worst human rights offenders in the world.”
Elsewhere on the Hill, Attorney General Merrick Garland warned yesterday that budget cuts along the lines of those floated by some House Republicans could lead to the loss of 11,000 FBI personnel, as well as cuts to funding for the Jabara-Heyer NO HATE Act, which provides grants to incentivize local law enforcement to report hate crimes. The Department of Justice saw a significant drop-off in hate crimes reporting for 2021.
key vote
Chicago Jewish community could swing mayoral race

As Chicago’s mayoral campaign approaches its end with next Tuesday’s election, the two candidates, Paul Vallas and Brandon Johnson, have stepped up their efforts to win support from the Jewish community, a politically active voting bloc that could be pivotal in the highly competitive contest. In just the past week or so, the rival Democrats have each sat for private listening sessions with Orthodox Jewish leaders, appeared in dual forums hosted by the local Jewish federation and made separate arrangements to address congregants at one of the city’s oldest synagogues. The 11th-hour overtures to a range of key Jewish groups and activists in metropolitan Chicago, home to the third-largest Jewish population in the United States, have come as polls show a tightening race between Vallas and Johnson, who advanced from a crowded election in late February that knocked the incumbent, Mayor Lori Lightfoot, out of contention, Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports.
Crucial demographic: The Orthodox Jewish community — a crucial demographic that traditionally votes as a bloc — is likely to coalesce behind Vallas, a moderate Democrat and former chief executive of Chicago Public Schools who has vowed to expand the city’s police force and promote school choice. In February’s nine-way mayoral election, Vallas, 69, performed best in some of the city’s most heavily Orthodox areas, winning two precincts in the 50th Ward with more than 80% of the vote. Across the entire ward, where the majority of Chicago’s Orthodox community is concentrated, he claimed 50% of the vote, defeating Johnson, a Cook County commissioner and outspoken union organizer who has embraced a progressive platform, by more than 30 points.
Crime and education: The lopsided ratio might be interpreted as a highly localized response to their opposing approaches on crime and education, which polls show are the top two issues in the race. “I’m hearing from a lot of my constituents that public safety is probably the top concern,” Avroham Kagan, a Chabad rabbi in downtown Chicago who met with Vallas and Johnson during the first round of voting, said in an interview with JI on Tuesday. “That’s been the most common thread.”
Different approaches: The candidates are divided on how to handle the city’s rising crime epidemic. Johnson, 47, has advocated for more accountability from Chicago’s police department while emphasizing community-based partnerships with law enforcement. During the campaign, he has backtracked on recent comments in which he described the movement to defund the police as a “political goal.” Vallas, by contrast, rose to prominence by channeling fears over violent crime rates that increased during the pandemic. His tough-on-crime message, including a vow to fill nearly 2,000 police vacancies and aggressively prosecute misdemeanors, won him an endorsement from the Fraternal Order of Police, which Johnson has seized on to suggest that Vallas secretly harbors Republican views.
Antisemitism concerns: The Orthodox community is particularly exposed to antisemitism because its members are “visibly Jewish,” Shlomo Soroka, the director of government affairs for Agudath Israel Illinois, told JI, and therefore easily targeted. He said the community “needs to see the issue being addressed effectively,” citing hopes for an increased police presence during Shabbat as well as Jewish holidays when community members are also forbidden from working. He raised those issues, among others, in recent meetings with Vallas and Johnson, he said. “They were receptive to our concerns,” Soroka told JI, acknowledging that both candidates “obviously have different styles and different ideas about different things.”