Moderate Rep. Chris Pappas (D-NH) remains favored to win the New Hampshire Democratic Senate primary, but the race is shaping up to be more competitive than expected, both in the Democratic primary and in the general election.

In the primary, Pappas’ progressive challenger, Karishma Manzur, has been gaining ground against him, and leveling attacks related to Pappas’ past support from AIPAC and backing of  the U.S.-Israel relationship. Pappas has subtly recalibrated his foreign policy views during the primary.

An Aug. 20-24 poll by the University of New Hampshire showed Pappas’ lead had shrunk to 13 percentage points — though other surveys have shown Pappas with a more significant lead, including a mid-August St. Anselm poll that put him up 31 points and an internal campaign poll that showed him with a 56-point lead.

Pappas has been a pro-Israel moderate in the House, though he voted “present” on the recent amendment by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to cut off U.S. aid to Israel and, with most Democrats, against a college campus anti-Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions bill. He was endorsed by AIPAC in his House races, but the group has not yet made any endorsements in the Senate race.

Manzur, who accuses Israel of genocide, has made attacks on Pappas for past support from AIPAC a central element of her campaign, going after him for “tak[ing] money from corporate PACs, super PACs, AIPAC, foreign lobbyists” (foreign political donations are illegal) while stating she only takes donations from “regular American folks,” a comment that the New Hampshire Jewish Federation has described as offensive.

She has also accused Pappas of taking a “payoff” from AIPAC in exchange for voting “against humanitarian aid to starving children.”

Her campaign has rented a billboard in Pappas’ home city attacking him over his ties to AIPAC.

Manzur, in a statement to Jewish Insider on Friday, said that Pappas was “unwilling to answer a simple question about AIPAC’s endorsement” and accused him of “hypocrisy.”

“Pappas is a shill for AIPAC and corporations supporting the war machine, so it’s no surprise that special interests are pouring in millions to buy this seat,” she said. That’s exactly why I’m surging in the polls: people are sick and tired of business-as-usual politicians like Pappas who serve their wealthy donors instead of the people they represent. Granite Staters deserve leaders with honesty, integrity, and accountability. I am honest, un-bought, and the people’s candidate, fighting every day to improve people’s lives. That’s why I will win this primary.”

Pappas, for his part, has toned down his past support for the Jewish state, saying after the vote on the Massie amendment, “I cannot support this amendment as written, but also cannot support the disproportionate, extreme policies of the Netanyahu government” and calling for a “reset” of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

Despite appearing at an AIPAC summit earlier this year, and recording a video in front of an AIPAC backdrop expressing support for the U.S.-Israel relationship, he has more recently downplayed that appearance as a meeting with local constituents, rather than with AIPAC as an organization.

Asked recently on CNN about his past support from AIPAC, he downplayed his relationship with the group, saying, “I appreciate the support I have from individuals out there” and said he’s working to change campaign finance laws, as well as emphasized his criticisms of the Israeli government and efforts to push for a two-state solution.

Andrew Smith, the director of the University of New Hampshire Survey Center, attributed Manzur’s growing share of the vote to left-wing energy in the party. New Hampshire Democrats, he explained, have traditionally put forward “people who are kind of middle of the road, not flashy, somewhat boring as candidates … who [aren’t] going to be the most dynamic campaigners,” including Pappas.

“That I think is the biggest problem that Pappas has right now. He’s seen as part of that old guard of the Democratic Party here, even though he’s pretty young,” he continued. “He’s not really, I think, reflecting the energy and anger that you’re seeing from the progressive left of the party.”

That said, he predicted that Pappas is still favored to be the nominee, given the strong support he receives from older voters. Younger voters, who are Manzur’s base, are less likely to turn out on Election Day. 

General election polling is also pointing to a competitive race for Pappas in November. A UNH poll in late August showed former Sen. John Sununu (R-NH), the likely GOP nominee, with a narrow lead over Pappas, a result matched by a GOP-sponsored Fabrizio, Lee & Associates poll last week. The nonpartisan elections handicapper Inside Elections shifted the race to a toss-up on Thursday.

A St. Anselm College poll in mid-August had shown Pappas with a seven-point lead over Sununu.

Smith said that Pappas, assuming he’s the nominee, would face a competitive race in the general election, despite the environment otherwise favoring Democrats. Sununu’s family name is well-known throughout the state, he was popular during his time in office and his brother Chris Sununu was a popular recent governor, Smith explained.

“He’s getting more support from more moderate voters and more independent voters who either don’t know Pappas or maybe they are just looking for somebody different,” Smith said. “Sununu is maybe the underdog, but … he knows how to run,” is very sharp and is a strong debater.

Sununu’s biggest challenge will be to distance himself enough from President Donald Trump to win over moderate voters without angering Trump voters in the GOP base.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — whose fierce criticism of Israel helped him prevail over Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in a Democratic primary for Congress in June — dismissed viral footage of demonstrators berating him as a Zionist at a protest as nothing more than run-ins with “a couple of loud numbskulls.”

Video taken at a demonstration against a right-wing Hindu nationalist gathering at Madison Square Garden shows multiple participants screaming at Lander to leave because of his self-described “progressive Zionist” views, as well as one vividly describing his appearance as “like a wilted ballsack.” In his own clip posted to X on Monday, Lander voiced no regrets over attending the protest and praised the gathering’s organizers, as well as those who defended him both at the event and online.

“I was honored to be invited and glad to participate,” said Lander. “Of course, it’s not great when a couple of fringe a**holes with drums and bullhorns take over a rally and try to bully people.”

The candidate, one of several insurgents New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani endorsed for seats in the House, took the occasion to present himself as a defiant and independent thinker “who stood my ground.” He also used it to repeat his critiques of Israel, on which he has tacked hard to the left since aligning with the democratic socialist leader during last year’s mayoral campaign.

“As someone who objects vehemently to what Israel is doing to Palestinians in Gaza, which I do believe meets the definition of genocide — and in the West Bank and in Lebanon — I get criticized frequently by centrist and right-wing Jews,” he said. “And as someone who nonetheless believes in the vision and the possibility of a Jewish and democratic Israel alongside a free Palestine once decades of occupation and apartheid end, I get criticized frequently by left-wingers.”

Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated candidate Angie Nixon, a Florida state representative, won the Democratic primary for Florida’s Senate seat on Tuesday, scoring a major upset over the establishment-backed Alex Vindman.

Vindman, who is Jewish and gained national attention as a whistleblower in President Donald Trump’s first term, brought in $16 million during the campaign while Nixon raised less than $1 million. Her victory is a sign of the shifting political tides in the Sunshine State. . 

Her left-wing affiliations are also likely to concern Democrats in the general election in light of the various immigrant constituencies in the state that have generally been hostile to socialist ideology.

Nixon said recently that she would have supported efforts to cut off all U.S. aid to Israel: “We cannot continue to send money to countries that are violating international law, that are violating human rights, that are actively destroying,” she said on local radio.

Nixon campaigned alongside and was endorsed by a series of anti-Israel figures and groups, including Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN), former Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO), former Ohio state Sen. Nina Turner, the virulently anti-Israel group TrackAIPAC and Jewish Voice for Peace.

A month after Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel, Nixon faced accusations of antisemitism by Jewish Democrats in the Statehouse over a resolution she led calling for a ceasefire “in Israel and occupied Palestine,” with just one other lawmaker joining her in support of it. Most House members turned their backs to Nixon as she spoke on the House floor in support of the resolution.

“To be called a terrorist on the House floor. Ignorant. Antisemitic. That was very hurtful. But I will always fight to stand on the right side of history, and I believe that I was on the right side of history then just like I’m on the right side of history now,” Nixon said recently. 

Rick Stark, chair of the Florida Democratic Jewish Caucus, said that Nixon joined a Zoom meeting with the group to discuss issues including Israel policy. He characterized her as having no clear understanding of the region.

Stark said that Nixon had not offered a clear answer on whether Israel has a right to exist as a Jewish state, and was not interested in traveling to Israel.

He recounted that she was not familiar with the meaning of the slogan “from the river to the sea,” but she said that she had been told by Palestinian friends that it did not constitute a call for the destruction of Israel.

Steve Schale, a Florida Democratic strategist, told JI before the primary that Nixon had “created a bunch of buzz for herself,” and that she would have a strong base in the Jacksonville area and among Black voters statewide — beyond only the progressive and DSA-aligned coalition.

The results indicated that Nixon, indeed, won comfortably in heavily Black counties and precincts, giving her a broader base of support than just far-left voters.

Vindman is also relatively new to Florida, having moved to the state only recently and attracting accusations of carpetbagging.

“Who would’ve ever thought that a Jewish refugee would make it to the U.S. Army, to the White House, and to becoming a candidate for the U.S. Senate. Only in America is that possible,” Vindman said in a statement. 

“I still believe in the American Dream, because I’ve lived it. It’s worth fighting for. Rep. Nixon ran a strong campaign. I will be standing by her side in the fight against Ashley Moody. I hope you’ll join me.”

In Tuesday’s newsletter, we wrote that four major Democratic primary races — in Minnesota, Wisconsin and Connecticut — would be key tests of the depth of the anti-establishment, anti-Israel left’s staying power.

So far, the left of the party won three of the four contests, with the notable exception of Democratic Socialists of America-affiliated Wisconsin gubernatorial candidate Francesca Hong, who fell short against Milwaukee County Executive David Crowley — in the night’s most high-profile race testing whether a socialist can win the Democratic nomination for an executive role in a pivotal battleground state.

Hong, who drew criticism from leading Democrats over her record of comments attacking Thanksgiving, support for defunding the police and overall embrace of the DSA’s radical platform, underperformed the primary polls showing her with a substantial lead in the race. But as Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers and leading Democratic officials warned that her nomination could cost Democrats the governorship, her lead dissipated amid concerns about her electability come November.

Of note: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), the two leading members of the ideological left in Congress, declined to endorse Hong’s campaign. 

The establishment’s unified — and effective — show of force against Hong offered a stark contrast to party leaders’ efforts in Michigan to stop far-left candidate Abdul El-Sayed from winning the nomination. In that race, party leaders were more equivocal in their support of Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), with Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) declining to support Stevens’ candidacy despite their similar political backgrounds. Even Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, who offered a late endorsement to Stevens, didn’t go after El-Sayed’s electability like Evers has in his comments speaking out against Hong.

The socialist speed bump in Wisconsin, however, was seemingly the only exception to an overall dominant showing from progressive candidates, highlighted by the left’s successes in Minnesota. 

In the pivotal Minnesota Senate race, progressive Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan comfortably outdistanced moderate Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) by nearly 20 points. Flanagan is one of Minnesota’s most progressive statewide officials, and campaigned as a strident critic of Israel. Flanagan will be facing former NBC Sports sideline reporter Michele Tafoya, who easily won the Republican nomination. Republican leaders believe Tafoya has broad appeal given her national television work, but winning a blue state like Minnesota given the GOP headwinds will be a very difficult task — even against a less-electable challenger like Flanagan.

The left is also celebrating the results in Craig’s suburban Minneapolis district, where the most anti-Israel and furthest-left candidate, former state Sen. Matt Little, easily outpaced two more-moderate challengers, including pro-Israel state Sen. Matt Klein. Little will be facing GOP state Sen. Eric Pratt in the general election, and will be favored in a district that Kamala Harris carried by six points in 2024.

In Connecticut, Rep. John Larson (D-CT) was handily defeated by a younger political challenger in former Hartford Mayor Luke Bronin, who moved to Larson’s left on Israel during the campaign, but was broadly seen as the more future-oriented candidate. The seat, with the largest Jewish constituency in the Nutmeg State, is a safe Democratic district.

On the Republican side, Sen. Darline Graham (R-SC) will be squaring off against Rep. Ralph Norman (R-SC) in a special election runoff later this month to fill the full term of her late brother Sen. Lindsey Graham’s Senate seat. Graham won 33% of the Republican vote in the crowded race, while Norman won 25%. Norman outpaced Rep. Russell Fry (R-SC) — the other sitting member of Congress in the race — by five points. 

Norman is a hard-line fiscal conservative who was one of former House Speaker Kevin McCarthy’s (R-CA) biggest antagonists in his battle to remain as House leader. He also endorsed Nikki Haley in the 2024 presidential campaign, a factor that could lead President Donald Trump to redouble his backing for Graham’s candidacy.

The outcome of Michigan’s bruising Democratic Senate primary last week, where Abdul El-Sayed claimed a narrow victory over Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in an upset championed by the anti-Israel left, is looming over the next intraparty showdown being held in Minnesota on Tuesday — the latest in a series of proxy battles between the party’s mainstream and left-wing flanks.

In an echo of Michigan, the bitter Democratic primary for an open Senate seat in battleground Minnesota this week is pitting a moderate House member with a long-standing pro-Israel record, Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN), against an outspoken progressive, Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan, whose attack lines have frequently centered on AIPAC, which spent over $30 million in its unsuccessful effort to help Stevens.

The Minnesota primary is, in the closing stretch, likewise revolving around questions of electability for Democrats in the must-win November contest. Craig has pointed to controversies amid Flanagan’s tenure in government as vulnerabilities Republicans are eager to exploit — most notably including the welfare fraud scandal that prompted Democratic Gov. Tim Walz to abandon his reelection campaign for a third term earlier this year.

Flanagan, in addition to her anti-AIPAC messaging, has hammered Craig over what she has described as a “disqualifying” vote approving the Laken Riley Act — legislation requiring the detention of unauthorized migrants charged with certain crimes — the optics of which have been damaging in the wake of President Donald Trump’s protracted immigration crackdown in Minnesota. Craig has expressed regret for her vote.

But unlike Michigan, where El-Sayed claimed the nomination by less than one point after polls had suggested a double-digit blowout, the Minnesota matchup has been seen as neck-and-neck, the outcome of which is hard to predict, experts say. Recent independent surveys have shown a statistical dead heat in the final weeks of the primary, with each candidate garnering around 40% of the vote.

The candidates’ equivocations over AIPAC and individual ties to the group have also emerged as fault lines in recent weeks, complicating the ideological divisions that have shaped other primaries in which Israel and Middle East policy have featured prominently.

In a reflection of the extent to which AIPAC is now viewed as a liability in Democratic primaries, Craig has distanced herself from the group, which has not officially made an endorsement in the race even as its donor network has contributed to her campaign. The congresswoman, who is backed by several pro-Israel lawmakers including Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), has said she is not accepting contributions from AIPAC’s political arm in her current campaign.

During a recent debate, Flanagan said AIPAC had been Craig’s “biggest funder throughout her entire political career,” while claiming her own “values do not align with” the group. Flanagan has cast AIPAC as part of “a band of super villains” in the race now trying to “buy this election,” language some Jewish leaders say they have found unsettling amid rising antisemitism.

Flanagan, however, acknowledged last month she had met privately with AIPAC after The Minnesota Star Tribune obtained a video recording of remarks to Jewish community members — also reviewed by Jewish Insider — in which she said the outreach was “important” for her “to make sure that we’re building that relationship.”

Flanagan claims that AIPAC turned against her and came to regard her as a “threat” when she confirmed her support last year for Senate resolutions to block arms sales to Israel. She has since endorsed a House amendment to end aid to Israel, which Craig rejected, further illustrating her policy disagreements with the group.

Craig, for her part, has sharply dismissed the lieutenant governor as “completely disingenuous about her soliciting support from AIPAC,” claiming that she “has been very hypocritical” because of her efforts to demonize the group.

While Flanagan has insisted she was not seeking an endorsement in her outreach to AIPAC officials, she did write an Israel position paper that she submitted to the group as part of their discussions, according to two people familiar with the matter. 

Manny Houle, a pro-Israel Democratic consultant in Minnesota, confirmed to JI that Flanagan presented a Middle East policy paper to AIPAC and said that he had personally reviewed the document. He said he no longer had a copy, which JI was unable to obtain, but he recalled that she “was open to conditioning aid” to Israel and said she “put a lot of pressure and fault on Israel and occupation,” among other “key factors” he characterized as distinguishing Flanagan from Craig.

Houle, a former director of progressive outreach for AIPAC in the Midwest, said his impression had been that Flanagan wrote the paper and sought the group’s feedback early in her campaign last year because she viewed it as part of a broader process. The lieutenant governor “would have been open to engaging within the network of donors” affiliated with AIPAC, Houle claimed, “but when she realized that wasn’t going to be the case,” she pivoted to a more hostile position.

“Many key advisors to Peggy are anti-AIPAC, so it’s hard for me to think she’d ever honestly in good faith engage with the organization,” Houle explained to JI. “I’ve had conversations with her throughout the race trying to get her to tone down her rhetoric” on Israel issues, he added, “but to no avail.”

A spokesperson for AIPAC did not return a request for comment.

Alexandra Fetisoff, a spokesperson for Flanagan’s campaign, did not directly address the AIPAC paper in a statement responding to a request for comment. “Flanagan disagrees with AIPAC’s deeply unpopular political agenda and the catastrophic actions of” the government led by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, Fetisoff told JI on Friday.

“Flanagan believes what has happened in Gaza is genocide, a position in line with the United Nations,” Fetisoff said. “Flanagan has consistently condemned antisemitism, and will continue standing with Jewish Minnesotans against hate.”

Last week, American Priorities, a new super PAC created to counter AIPAC’s influence in Democratic primaries, began spending in the race to help boost Flanagan, spending over $50,000 on an ad calling her a “fighter” who would “stand up to Trump” while touting her support from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT).

Flanagan also claims backing from the state Democratic Party and retiring Sen. Tina Smith (D-MN), whom she is vying to succeed, along with leading progressive critics of Israel such as Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD).

Doug Rossinow, a professor of history at Metro State University in St. Paul, who has tracked divisions over Israel in the state Democratic Party, said the “AIPAC issue flew under the radar until pretty recently” in the election. “The Flanagan-Craig contest is, compared to Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary race, a classic case of Minnesota understatement and even passive aggression,” he told JI. 

“Flanagan lately has made an issue of Craig’s history of support from AIPAC,” he noted, “but Craig, unlike Haley Stevens, doesn’t want to own that or talk about Israel.” Meanwhile, Flanagan has stated “little about her own position on Israel” and the region, he added, “unlike El-Sayed in Michigan,” a fierce critic of Israel who has refused to acknowledge its right to exist as a Jewish state.

One state party activist described the race as “a little bit less black and white than Michigan,” while noting the contrasts between Craig and Flanagan are not as drastic. “I see it as a toss-up,” he said of the primary.

Joe Radinovich, a Democratic consultant based in Minneapolis, added that while the national political mood has favored populist progressives, he believes there is reason to interpret the closer-than-expected finish in Michigan as a relatively promising omen for Craig, who flipped a GOP-held swing district in 2018.

“The dominant narrative has belonged to the further left wing of the party, populist candidates and people decrying AIPAC and Israel,” Radinovich, who said he is supporting Craig but is not involved in the primary, told JI in an interview on Friday. “But if I’m on the Craig campaign and looking at the results of the election in Michigan, I’m feeling some wind in my sails.”

Mara Kunin, Craig’s campaign manager, projected confidence in a statement on Friday. “National and state Republicans are making a serious play for this Senate seat and primary voters understand that we can’t risk putting up a weak candidate in the general election,” she said, adding Craig “is positioned to win this race on Tuesday and seal the deal in November.”

The Democratic nominee is expected to face Michele Tafoya, a former NFL sideline reporter who is heavily favored to win the Republican primary, in November. The GOP’s Senate campaign arm has indicated that it views Minnesota among four pickup opportunities as the party seeks to retain its majority in the chamber. 

“It is very saturated, very ugly and very negative,” another state party activist said about the primary, which has otherwise seen a flood of outside spending from opposing groups. “I think that AIPAC will have an impact in the race, but social services fraud could be more important,” he told JI. “Whoever wins, it will sort of say which issue” carries the most weight.

Sen. John Fetterman (D-PA) said on Wednesday that he believes Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan has put the state in play for Republicans in November. 

Fetterman made the comments in an interview with Jewish Insider in the hours after Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) conceded to El-Sayed in what was a competitive and contentious primary. The Pennsylvania Democrat said he expects El-Sayed will struggle to reach moderate voters without distancing himself from antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker and his record of extremist comments, including remarks that America deserved 9-11 which Republicans are already revisiting in campaign ads.

“He will quickly discover a primary is a much different situation in this state [than the general election], when you’re accountable for winning the other side. I can’t wait to see him campaign for the general. I have got my popcorn for that,” Fetterman told JI. “Will he denounce Hasan Piker? Because Piker is already calling moderates ‘Islamophobic pieces of s***.’ Will he campaign with him? Will he denounce his views? I am daring him to continue to campaign with Hasan Piker now.”

“Think about how volatile a guy like Piker is,” Fetterman said. “He’s already gone off and exploded because El-Sayed was saying how now we have to mend fences.”

Fetterman called El-Sayed “a dream for a Republican candidate,” adding that he would spend millions on political advertisements highlighting El-Sayed’s relationship with Piker if he were the GOP candidate in the race. 

Fetterman argued that El-Sayed’s close margin of victory over Stevens — less than one point — shows that his win is not indicative of a shift in the state’s overall electorate. 

“I don’t know why El-Sayed described this as a big movement. He thinks that this was an incredible win and that’s just not the case,” he told JI. “Just the opposite — he barely won by 14,000 votes.”

“He really ran the under-four mile politically, palling around with a dude that loves Hamas and thinks America deserved 9/11,” he added. “I mean, will that stick? We’ll see, but overall, this takes largely what had been a safe seat for Democrats and absolutely puts it in play now. Mike Rogers barely lost to [Sen.] Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) [in 2022].”

Asked if he’ll consider endorsing former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), El-Sayed’s Republican opponent in the contest, Fetterman said, “I’m not making any endorsements in this race.”

The Pennsylvania Democrat expressed skepticism that El-Sayed would be able to win over pro-Israel and Jewish voters in November, specifically pointing to his defense of the perpetrator of the violent attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs earlier this year. “Nothing justifies the heinous attack that we saw on Temple Israel,” Fetterman said.

“Every other word out of his mouth is AIPAC, AIPAC, AIPAC. Imagine what that must look like to a Jewish voter,” Fetterman said of El-Sayed. “Essentially he has defined his race by opposing Jewish money or saying Israel is the aggressor, and he aligns himself with some of the worst people.”

“I’m not a member of the Jewish community, but I can’t imagine how anyone could vote for him in good conscience,” he continued. “How could a Jewish voter in Michigan vote for a guy that refused to condemn a terrorist that crashed his car into a synagogue to kill 150 Jewish children? That’s disqualifying, and it’s appalling.”

Fetterman argued that, “This is a guy that has similar views to Piker. We all know why Abdul El-Sayed was sad after we incinerated Iranian leadership. Remember what Hamas has done to defenseless Israeli and Jewish civilians on 10/7. Piker is the guy that cheers for that organization. I don’t know how you are able to reconcile that.”

Fetterman also took aim at Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) for his endorsements of El-Sayed in Michigan and failed Senate candidate Graham Platner in Maine, who Sanders withdrew his support for after he was accused of sexual assault. The Pennsylvania senator, who has publicly sparred with all three men in recent months, criticized Sanders’ candidate choices as detrimental to Democrats retaking control of the Senate. 

“Bernie Sanders is not flipping seats,” Fetterman said. “He is trying to put volatile and terrible candidates into otherwise more safe kinds of opportunities for Democrats.”

He went on to add that he does not plan to endorse the Democrat in the race, while noting that El-Sayed would likely not want his support. 

“I can’t ever endorse him, not to think he’d even want mine, and not because he’s called me an asshole or because I’m an ogre that belongs on a pike,” Fetterman said, referring to comments El-Sayed made about him earlier this month. “It’s because he’d have to renounce people like Piker and some of those extreme community leaders that were very much involved with standing with Iran and engaged in rhetoric that describes America as evil. They’re just essentially anti-American people, ironically, while they are living in our country.”

Jewish groups expressed concern on Wednesday about the victory of Abdul El-Sayed in the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, highlighting his extreme rhetoric on Israel and the broader rise of the far left.

Jewish Democratic Council of America CEO Halie Soifer said in a statement that the group was “disappointed” by the results of the primary, where the group had endorsed and campaigned strongly for Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI). She congratulated but stopped short of endorsing El-Sayed.

“While we are disappointed in the final result of the Michigan Senate race, the razor-thin margin isn’t the resounding win for the far-left that was predicted,” Soifer said. “We are proud of the race run by Rep. Haley Stevens, and we thank her for her consistent and principled leadership standing with Jewish Americans. We congratulate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed on his victory after a difficult and divisive primary.”

Soifer also highlighted that “mainstream Democrats, including many of the candidates JDCA has endorsed, remain the key to winning back control of Congress” and emphasized that Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO) and Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss “overwhelmingly defeated challengers on the far-left.”

AIPAC, while declining to preview specific plans, indicated it intends to stay engaged in the Michigan race through November.

“Our members remain determined to ensure that voters reject Dr. El-Sayed and his radical anti-Israel agenda in November,” spokesperson Deryn Sousa told Jewish Insider.

In a letter to members, AIPAC President Bernie Kaminetsky said that the group will continue to “stand up for what is right, ensure pro-Israel voices are loudly heard in Congress, and fight even harder to ensure the U.S.-Israel alliance grows stronger.”

“In Abdul El-Sayed, a fiercely anti-Israel candidate has emerged as the Democratic nominee. His statements about Israel, AIPAC, and the Jewish community are outrageous and offensive, and his ascent is part of a much larger, profoundly worrying trend we are closely tracking,” Kaminetsky added, praising Stevens and her support for Israel. “This narrow loss stings, but [Stevens’] defeat doesn’t change our principled opposition to the dangerous policies El-Sayed wants to bring to the U.S. Senate.”

Tacitly acknowledging setbacks across the political map, Kaminetsky emphasized, “Our conviction will not be measured in a single race or a single cycle. This is a generational fight, and we remain undeterred in our mission. Our political fight is not just about strengthening America’s partnership with Israel. It is also about the future of America and our individual rights to engage in our democracy.”

In a rare statement on campaign politics, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt also highlighted the group’s concerns about El-Sayed’s rhetoric.

“Throughout the campaign, ADL has called out nominee Abdul El-Sayed for peddling in antisemitic tropes … or for campaigning with notorious bigot Hasan Piker,” Greenblatt said in a video statement. “Campaign trail rhetoric and actions send clear signals about what a person believes and what a political party thinks is permissible.”

“We are not going to stop, and we will keep calling on political leaders and candidates from both parties to reject antisemitism and to commit to combating it whenever and wherever it occurs,” Greenblatt continued.

ADL Michigan regional director Elyssa Schmier said in her own statement that “Jews across Michigan and the country are alarmed by the rhetoric that defined this race and its implications for the future of political norms in our country.”

Calling out a series of specific comments by El-Sayed, without naming him directly, Schmier said that “anyone seeking public office should know better than to normalize antisemitic tropes” and that “we are calling on political leaders to reject antisemitism outright and demand better.”

The American Jewish Committee, which also rarely comments on electoral politics, likewise issued a statement strongly condemning El-Sayed.

The group called his victory “a deeply troubling reflection of the growing mainstreaming of divisive rhetoric and exclusionary politics in America. At the same time, Congresswoman Stevens’ strong showing demonstrates that there is still a place and support for nuanced, moderate voices,” it continued.

“We are concerned by El-Sayed’s framing of American politics as a zero-sum game that too often casts those who disagree as the enemy,” the statement continued, accusing him of “delegitimiz[ing]” those who disagree with him, an “approach [that] is fundamentally at odds with the principles of civility, pluralism, and robust democratic debate that are central to our democracy.”

The group also condemned El-Sayed’s past comments on Israel and its supporters and said that “most Americans agree that political rhetoric of this nature has gone too far,” calling for voters“to reject extremist rhetoric from all candidates — no matter their party — that perpetuate this divisive approach.”

The group said it would continue efforts to engage leaders around the country “who seek to reclaim American politics from the extremes.”

In a separate statement, AJC CEO Ted Deutch said that he saw during his time as a member of Congress “that when leaders treat those who disagree with them as enemies, the communities they represent feel the consequences” and emphasized “AJC’s work to reject extremist politics.”

Democratic Majority for Israel also criticized El-Sayed after his primary win for calling Israel “bloodthirsty” in a Wednesday morning interview.

“El-Sayed should be working to build a bigger tent and earn the trust of Jewish Michiganders. Instead, this morning he described the government of the world’s only Jewish state as ‘bloodthirsty’ — an age-old antisemitic trope that is especially dangerous amid rising violence against Jews,” the group said. “His language is inflammatory. He should retract it and apologize.”

Appearing on MS NOW’s “Morning Joe” on Wednesday, Abdul El-Sayed, who was about to be declared the winner of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, doubled down on his criticism of Israel, calling the Jewish state “bloodthirsty” and saying his critiques go beyond the government of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.

“I think we’ve seen the worst of what the Israeli government has done [under Netanyahu] but don’t forget that we’ve been talking about an illegal apartheid regime for a very, very long time, and that supersedes Netanyahu himself,” El-Sayed said when asked about the extent of his issues with Israeli policy.

On MS NOW this morning, Abdul El-Sayed, who was about to be declared the winner of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate in Michigan, called Israel “bloodthirsty” and said his critiques go beyond the government of Netanyahu.@DanielleCoh07 reports: https://t.co/KJK1aVqxe8 pic.twitter.com/azCjXPGAUs

— Jewish Insider (@jewishinsider) August 5, 2026

“I understand that Netanyahu is a big reason why they’ve gotten so aggressive and frankly so bloodthirsty under his reign, but I also understand that it’s impossible for us to say we want a two-state solution while we’ve been aiding, arming and abetting the very people who have been trying to foreclose on the possibility of a Palestinian state,” he continued.

He said the U.S. should “hold foreign actors accountable to international law,” claiming Israel has “conducted a genocide, has at baseline done apartheid and has taken us into a war we have no business fighting. So why, of course, are we sending money to that country to fund their military?”

On his position on foreign aid to Israel, El-Sayed said he doesn’t believe in “unconditional foreign military aid” to Israel, nor to other countries including Egypt, where his family emigrated from, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar and the UAE.

The Democratic nominee said his message to Jewish voters who backed his opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) because of his message on Israel, is that his “commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own kids. We have a responsibility to take on antisemitism in all of its forms wherever we see it. It’s the same responsibility we have to take on Islamophobia. … So the things that bring us together are so much bigger than the things that divide us.”

Michigan state Sen. Jeremy Moss has a lot of endorsements in his campaign for Congress in a Detroit-area Democratic primary — Gov. Gretchen Whitmer, Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson and several other state and local officials — but AIPAC is not one of them. 

That has not stopped Don Ufford, one of Moss’ opponents, from trying to tar the Jewish lawmaker as a pawn of the pro-Israel group in the final days of the race. 

A mailer that Ufford’s campaign sent to the homes of voters in the district described Moss as a “career politician who has taken thousands from AIPAC-linked donors.” A website operated by Ufford’s campaign, titled “AIPAC Jeremy Moss,” said that Moss is “for them, not for working Michiganders like you.” 

Ahead of the Aug. 4 primary, it’s a strategy that has raised eyebrows in the 11th District — the seat being vacated by Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) — which includes the heart of metro Detroit’s Jewish community. 

“The language on his mailers was very clear to say AIPAC-linked donors,” Moss told Jewish Insider in an interview on Thursday. “One more dig deeper than that is just — it’s Jews.” Some of Moss’ donors have also supported AIPAC, but he does not think their involvement in the political system should be suspect.

“I went through the donors and I was like, ‘Oh yeah, those people go to synagogue with me. These people are the parents of my childhood friends,’” Moss said. “It does touch many people’s ears as if it’s trafficking [in] antisemitism.” 

Stevens has represented the area since 2019, but her decision to run for Senate created a rare open seat in the Democratic-leaning district. Her Senate opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, has made Stevens’ support from AIPAC a key tenet of his campaign. But where AIPAC — which has become toxic in a wide swath of the Democratic Party this cycle in the wake of the war in Gaza — has spent tens of millions of dollars to boost Stevens, the group is not involved in Moss’ race.

“AIPAC has definitely been more talked about during this election year than I recall in past years,” Adam Duberstein, a clinical psychologist in the district who serves on the city council of Clawson, a small Detroit suburb, told JI. “I’m incredibly surprised by it. I really am, because I don’t think that I even really knew what AIPAC was a couple years ago.”

Ufford, a former Biden administration official who previously served as director of global vehicle engineering at Ford, is not Moss’ only opponent, but he appears to present the biggest threat to the state senator. 

Moss has raised $1.4 million throughout the campaign, compared to Ufford’s $1 million haul. Ufford is making strides to catch up: In the second quarter of this year, Ufford narrowly outraised Moss, $435,000 to $414,000. The two have also received dueling endorsements from Detroit’s hometown papers: The Detroit News endorsed Ufford, while the Detroit Free Press backed Moss. 

Mark Goldenberg, Ufford’s campaign manager, said Moss’ claim that the anti-AIPAC messaging traffics in antisemitism is “an outrageous and dangerous accusation.”

“Don is a longtime friend to Michigan’s Jewish community and will continue to be,” Goldenberg told JI. “Don believes it’s wrong for Jeremy Moss to run for Congress with a campaign funded by large Donald Trump and MAGA donors, and that Moss was wrong to support Trump’s 2025 strikes on Iran.” 

Moss has received $1,000 from Democratic Majority for Israel, and he also earned the endorsement of Jewish Democratic Council of America. 

Gene Farber, a lawyer in West Bloomfield, said he expected the anti-Israel attacks on Moss to “be less resonant in this district than some of the others” because of the large Jewish population. 

“I think Jeremy’s in good shape,” said Farber, “but I’m not in other parts of the district.” 

Even in heavily Jewish West Bloomfield, the intensity of the political moment has caused tensions between neighbors. Zach Nessel, a recent Michigan State graduate who has been knocking on doors with Moss’ campaign, described a “big sign war” — three Jeremy Moss yard signs have been stolen from his front lawn over the past several weeks. 

A third candidate, Aisha Farooqi, is also outspoken in her opposition to AIPAC. She said in a recent interview that she opposed AIPAC “from the very beginning, before it was even popular [to do so]”. She received the endorsement of Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption, a political group affiliated with the X account “Track AIPAC,” which goes after politicians who have received money from pro-Israel groups or aligned donors. Farooqi has also been endorsed by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), one of the most vocal critics of Israel in Congress.

“The problem in the Middle East is decades of western aggression, sanctions, and the US support of Israel to do as it pleases in the region,” Farooqi wrote in a post on X in June. Her profile’s bio has two slogans: “No AIPAC” and “Abolish ICE.” She supports ending all aid to Israel and “holding those responsible for war crimes accountable,” according to her campaign website. A fourth candidate who trails in fundraising, John Paul Torres, has pledged to stand against “the genocide against the Palestinian people.”  

Any whiff of antisemitism in the race is particularly troubling to Jewish voters in a district that includes Temple Israel, the Reform synagogue that experienced a violent antisemitic attack in March. No one was killed besides the assailant, a Hezbollah sympathizer whose brother was a commander in the terror group in Lebanon, according to the IDF.  

“I think there was a very big moment in this district when Temple Israel was attacked, and it very clearly demonstrated where the anti-Israel rhetoric does produce antisemitic hate and harm in our community,” said Moss. “It has been very challenging to grapple with all of the goings-on in the Middle East and ensure we have safety and security for our Jewish community here at home in this district.”

The selection of Michigan as an early Democratic primary state in the 2028 presidential nominating contest, approved on Friday by a panel of the Democratic National Committee, is prompting some concerns among Jewish and pro-Israel activists who fear the party’s sharp divisions over Israel and its recent controversies over antisemitism could create a volatile political landscape during the key contest.

In recent years, Michigan has been at the center of some of the fiercest fights over Israel animating the Democratic Party. In the 2024 presidential race, for instance, the battleground state first laid the ground for the “uncommitted” movement that urged primary voters not to vote for former President Joe Biden as a protest against his support for Israel during the war in Gaza.

At Michigan’s state party convention in April, meanwhile, pro-Israel candidates were heckled by far-left activists, while an attorney with a history of praising Hezbollah was nominated for a position on the University of Michigan Board of Regents, episodes that left Jewish voters questioning if they belonged in a party they had long called home.

The state’s Democratic Senate primary, set for Aug. 4, has emerged as the latest high-profile proxy battle between the party’s mainstream and far-left factions. The most heated clashes have revolved around Israel and AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group that is now spending millions to help Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), a close ally, in a bitter race against Abdul El-Sayed — whose rhetoric targeting Israel and ongoing refusal to recognize its right to exist has alarmed Jewish voters. 

Michigan’s presidential primary will now tentatively go fifth among the six states chosen for early primaries, on Feb. 22 — a week after New Mexico and a week before Virginia. South Carolina will kick off the nominating contest on Jan. 22, followed by Nevada and New Hampshire. The newly proposed calendar will need to be ratified by DNC members at a meeting in Austin next month.

If the schedule is officially locked in, Michigan, which has the most delegates of the states chosen, “figures to be one of the first anti-Israel or antisemitic states that has a vote,” Dennis Bernard, a Jewish leader in Michigan who helps advise members of both parties, said in an interview with Jewish Insider on Sunday.

“I do think we will be very much a bellwether state” that “could be the first true test of the Democratic Party and how big their tent is,” added Bernard, the national chair of government relations for the Jewish Federations of North America. “You will potentially see a continuation of that war going on right now.”

Several Jewish leaders in Michigan said the Senate primary outcome would likely help crystallize their expectations about the degree to which Democratic conflict over Israel, and the state’s role in elevating that battle to the forefront, may end up influencing the presidential election.

“Those results will give us a better indication of 2028,” said Michael Horowitz, one such Jewish leader in Michigan, noting the positions espoused by El-Sayed are not a “national trend yet,” despite a recent series of primary wins by anti-Israel Democrats who ran in progressive House districts. “We’ll see how deep this well is. I’m not naive, but I don’t know.” 

Still, the Democratic Party and pro-Israel community “have to get together and take control of the narrative again, because they’re winning the narrative,” he told JI, referring to the far left. “We have got our work cut out for us. We’ve lost the narrative.”

“If you talk to major Democratic donors, they’re concerned about Michigan because the moderate wing of the party is disappearing,” Ed Sarpolus, a Democratic pollster in the state, told JI. “Democrats could be worse off in 2028 if they don’t get back to the issues.”

By contrast, Asher Lopatin, a rabbi who serves as director of community relations at the Jewish Federation of Greater Ann Arbor, cited Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s endorsement of Stevens last week as a sign that “may indicate the direction Michigan Democrats are going in for 2028,” which he called “not falling into the anti-Israel obsession trap.”

“I realize it’s a rosy scenario, but I am hopeful,” he told JI.

Political strategists who spoke with JI shared mixed predictions about Michigan’s early place on the 2028 primary calendar. Ed Sarpolus, a Democratic pollster in the state, said it could “exacerbate tensions within the Democratic Party” over Israel, disrupting a fragile effort to show unity ahead of what is expected to be a bruising general election to reclaim the White House.

“If you talk to major Democratic donors, they’re concerned about Michigan because the moderate wing of the party is disappearing,” Sarpolus told JI. “Democrats could be worse off in 2028 if they don’t get back to the issues.”

But Adrian Hemond, a Democratic strategist in Michigan, said it “is way too early to predict with confidence” how Israel “will play as an issue” in the 2028 Michigan presidential primary, arguing that “a lot will depend on how hard candidates lean into the issue.”

“If the situation in the Middle East deteriorates further,” he explained to JI, “this issue could look very different.”

Some experts have also speculated that Michigan’s position could lead to uncomfortable confrontations for pro-Israel centrists like Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, a Jewish Democrat who is frequently cited as a prospective presidential candidate and who has faced antisemitism over his views on the Middle East.

Some Jewish leaders, however, said a pro-Israel win in Michigan could help defang the far left at what may be a key inflection point in the race. If an openly pro-Israel candidate emerged in the state, “I think it would be a surprise as to the traction they got,” since it “would stand out as authentic,” said one prominent pro-Israel activist in Michigan, granted anonymity to speak candidly about a sensitive issue.

He was not hopeful that such a candidate would step up. “I don’t see why Michigan is the venue in which someone does a complete paradigm shift” on Israel, he told JI, citing the existing political headwinds. “I think we are kind of a laboratory for the Democratic Party across the nation.”

One pro-Israel strategist in Michigan, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that several potential 2028 contenders have already visited the state and have had private meetings with Jewish donors and groups — including Rahm Emanuel, the Democratic operative and former Chicago mayor, and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore.

“A couple others have had meetings with prominent Jews while in Michigan, but I can’t say for sure if the reason for meetings was to lean into the Jewish vote,” the strategist told JI.

While Michigan also went fifth in 2024 after it had lobbied for an early slot, the state promises to play a more consequential role in the next election because it will be a competitive primary, as opposed to the last cycle in which Biden faced no serious opposition before dropping out of the race.

Anti-Israel activists have insisted that former Vice President Kamala Harris lost Michigan, home to the largest concentration of Arab American voters in Dearborn, due to her alignment with Biden’s support for Israel during the war in Gaza.

But many Jewish Democrats in Michigan, who make up a sizable and politically engaged constituency, say the left’s vilification of Israel as well as AIPAC is not only misguided but also a distraction from more urgent concerns that are much more relevant to swing voters who will ultimately decide the election. Some suggested that Michigan’s status in 2028 as an early nominating state could stoke those tensions and overshadow other issues, in a repeat of the last cycle.

“The antisemitic rhetoric that we have observed on the right and the left, the attacks on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, are, sadly, going to be issues that both parties have to address in 2028,” Robert Zimmerman, a longtime DNC member, told JI while assessing the 2028 primary landscape. “Democrats have to do a much better job of standing up to that hateful rhetoric.”

“It means that the real issues facing Michigan will continue to be less important” than the hostility to Israel now energizing the activist left, Hannan Lis, a Democratic fundraiser and Jewish community leader in the state, told JI. “I cannot tell you I’m optimistic. I’m a realist,” he said.

Even as he acknowledged “two years is a long time,” he voiced anxiety that “support for Israel has become a litmus test for a lot of Democratic candidates,” as it has grown increasingly politicized in party primaries.

“The antisemitic rhetoric that we have observed on the right and the left, the attacks on Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, are, sadly, going to be issues that both parties have to address in 2028,” Robert Zimmerman, a longtime DNC member, told JI while assessing the 2028 primary landscape. “Democrats have to do a much better job of standing up to that hateful rhetoric.”

Despite reservations about Michigan’s potentially divisive role in the presidential race, some Jewish leaders in the state and beyond said they were still staying positive.

In a statement to JI, Jessica Alexander, chair of the Michigan Democratic Jewish caucus and a vice chair of the Michigan Democratic Party, said party activists had “worked hard to make the case for Michigan to be an early primary state, because the state reflects the country’s diverse demographics culturally and geographically.”

“Yes, there is a vocal virtual subset of folks who want to make not the Middle East, but Israel and the U.S.’s engagement in and with it the center” or “soul” of the campaign, she said, “but the reality on the ground is that it’s not the most formidable issue no matter how the press skews it.”

Noah Arbit, a Jewish Michigan state representative who has been outspoken against rising antisemitism in his own party, said that the Democratic Socialists of America and other groups “seem to feel that Israel is a galvanizing wedge issue they can employ to take over the Democratic Party” and for now “seem intent on putting it at the forefront of the primary debate in 2028, regardless of Michigan’s place in the calendar.”

“I’m resigned to the issue being at the forefront of the primary conversation,” he told JI last week, “despite the fact that I would argue Americans have far more pressing concerns about the state of and future of our country than an interminable conflict 5,000 miles away.”

The Democratic primary in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District — a Lansing-area swing seat key to Democrats’ hopes for taking back the House — has turned into a three-way battle between two moderate Democrats with national security backgrounds and a far-left activist who has emerged as a contender for the nomination  despite repeated controversies over extremist comments. 

On the campaign trail, Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, has leaned into his background as a veteran and a military aide to former President Barack Obama who carried the nuclear football. Bridget Brink, a career foreign service officer, is highlighting her service as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2022 to 2025. 

William Lawrence, the progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is a former organizer with the Sunrise Movement, which bills itself as leading “the climate revolution” but also embraces other left-wing causes. 

Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political strategist, said he expects the race to be close, predicting that the three candidates could all finish within several points of each other. 

He previously told JI that Lawrence holds the progressive lane to himself, which could be an asset if Maasdam and Brink split the moderate vote — but he could lose out on young, progressive-leaning Michigan State University students who won’t return to campus until after the Aug. 4 primary. Lawrence has also struggled with Black and older voters.

The race initially appeared to be a contest between Maasdam and Brink. Lawrence gained momentum and attention by scoring a series of prominent endorsements from Sanders and other progressive leaders.

But Lawrence’s rise hit a stumbling block with the re-emergence of past comments disparaging Black political leadership, which prompted condemnations from Michigan leaders and the Congressional Black Caucus. After those initial revelations, Lawrence subsequently came under fire for past comments disparaging Obama and his administration.

In past comments on the “Hegemonicon” podcast he hosted, first uncovered by Jewish Insider, Lawrence repeatedly argued, for the sake of climate and economic goals, Americans would have to abandon the idea of the American dream and their way of life.

Discussing whether and how ideas of “abundance” or “degrowth” could or should be part of an agenda to fight climate change, Lawrence said on an episode of the podcast release in January 2024, “we’ve experienced the last several years of how that got filtered through the lens of American global competitiveness and geoeconomic dominance and, some of these questions about the role of the American consumer on a global stage and and whether or not we are proposing the continuation of the American consumer way of life and its translation into China and presumably the rest of the globe, is really viable in a climate-changing world.”

“We made that move, and now we need to reckon with the contradictions inherent even in that move,” Lawrence said. “I’m wondering how we can inspire a sense of abundance for people in the United States while, frankly, destroying the American way of life and the negative connotations, and material realities that has come to mean.”

In a statement, Lawrence defended the comments.

“We’ve been told that we would achieve happiness by buying more TVs and taking on a bigger mortgage,” Lawrence said. “Instead, the cost of housing, healthcare, and education is skyrocketing, while Michigan’s land and water is under threat. We need a new version of the American dream in which we can all have economic security while leaving a healthy environment for our kids and grandkids.”

In another episode, released in December 2023, Lawrence said that “there are certain aspects of the American dream that need to die — but maybe that’s another episode,” arguing that most people would not be able to have “the McMansion in the suburbs.”

A senior political advisor close to the Maasdam team said that the endorsements from Sanders and other top progressives catapulted Lawrence toward the front of the field, but the recent revelations of his past comments have stunted that growth.

The advisor said the endorsements from Sanders and others likely earned Lawrence the votes of around a third of the Democratic electorate who will likely vote for the most-left candidate in the race, leaving around two-thirds up for grabs.

Last week, Maasdam picked up an endorsement from Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), who subsequently filmed an advertisement supporting him. The freshman senator represented the Lansing-area district before being elected to the Senate.

The advisor close to the Maasdam campaign said that they see the race now largely as a contest between Maasdam and Lawrence, but said they believe Maasdam is well-positioned going into the final weeks of the race and peaking at the right time.

He has been the beneficiary of more than $1.6 million in outside spending by VoteVets, with another outside group, Crush MAGA PAC, spending nearly $1 million to attack Lawrence, and a third group, Michigan Values PAC, spending around $1 million to attack Brink. A nursing union group has spent $400,000 boosting Lawrence.

At the same time, they also acknowledged a real concern that Maasdam and Brink could split the moderate vote, allowing Lawrence to win with a plurality. 

Brink has faced criticism from primary rivals for her service under and praise of President Donald Trump — though she ultimately resigned in protest of the administration’s efforts to pressure Ukraine.

The advisor argued that, compared to Brink, Maasdam has a better resume and background as a fighter, and said Maasdam plans to highlight his links to Obama in the wake of the revelation of Lawrence’s comments disparaging the former president.

Maasdam posted an X video on Monday highlighting his support for and ties to Obama, while calling out Lawrence’s criticism of him.

In spite of their moderate and national security focused backgrounds, neither Maasdam nor Brink appears to have spoken much about Israel policy during the campaign, and neither campaign provided comment to JI on their stances. 

Lawrence has attacked the two for declining to describe the war in Gaza as a genocide, and has made cutting off arms sales to Israel a major plank of his campaign.

All three have been critical of the war with Iran.

Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Sunday, narrowing the race to a contest between Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) and Abdul El-Sayed, a former public health official.

McMorrow suspended her campaign without endorsing either of her rivals, saying only that “whoever wins this primary on August 4th will have my full support.” 

Recent polling has shown a relatively close race between the moderate Stevens and far-left El-Sayed, with El-Sayed leading in several surveys. With McMorrow generally claiming around 10% of the vote in polls, her withdrawal could shift dynamics in the race.

At the same time, mail-in ballots in the state have already been dispatched — with McMorrow’s name still on them.

The end of McMorrow’s campaign marks a significant fall for the up-and-coming state senator, who posted strong performances in early polls but has seen flagging support and enthusiasm in recent months.

McMorrow’s voting base will likely end up divided among both candidates, and both are making efforts to attract her supporters.

McMorrow had sought to carve out a middle ground between Stevens and El-Sayed, running as a somewhat progressive anti-establishment candidate but claiming a more pragmatic lane than El-Sayed, who some Democrats worry will not be electable in a general election against former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI), the expected GOP nominee.

That positioning extended to the tightrope she tried to walk on Israel policy issues, criticizing Israel and agreeing with those who characterized the war in Gaza as a genocide while also condemning antisemitism in the anti-Israel movement.

Democrats who backed McMorrow for electability reasons, and some female voters, will likely end up in Stevens’ camp. But others, who were attracted by McMorrow’s anti-establishment message and more progressive posture than Stevens, will likely move toward El-Sayed. El-Sayed is also likely to pick up those voters turned off by Stevens’ staunch support for Israel — to the extent such voters hadn’t already abandoned McMorrow.

In her statement on McMorrow’s withdrawal, Stevens said she plans to continue to make her case that she’s “the strongest Democrat to defeat Mike Rogers.” In his statement, El-Sayed emphasized, “we cannot allow the establishment to decide our nominee for us.”

McMorrow’s withdrawal from the race may give space for Michigan’s political establishment to coalesce behind Stevens to block El-Sayed. Shortly after McMorrow dropped out, Attorney General Dana Nessel endorsed Stevens, saying that the “choice is clear.”

Former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) previously endorsed Stevens, who has also been privately backed by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY).

Also in the wake of McMorrow’s decision, Republicans have continued to work to boost El-Sayed. Sen. Bernie Moreno (R-OH) accused Washington Democrats of “working overtime to stack the deck against” El-Sayed and boost Stevens.

Outside spending will also likely play a significant role in shaping the final month of the campaign. The AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC has already spent more than $10 million in the race, launching its first negative ads attacking El-Sayed late last week.

And after McMorrow withdrew from the field, the anti-Israel American Priorities super PAC told Politico it is “fully committed” to ensuring El-Sayed is the Democratic nominee “and we will do what it takes to get there” — the biggest test yet of the progressive, anti-Israel movement’s ability to win in a critical swing state.

Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow dropped out of the Democratic primary for U.S. Senate on Sunday, without offering her support to either of her opponents in the hotly contested race.

“Here’s what we do next. Every day through November 3rd. We win this Senate seat and send Mike Rogers back to Florida for good,” McMorrow wrote in her announcement on X, referring to the expected GOP nominee.

“Whoever wins this primary on August 4th will have my full support,” she continued, declining to endorse either Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) or Abdul El-Sayed. 

Fundraising figures released at the end of the first quarter of the year showed Stevens trailing El-Sayed in fundraising but having the most cash on hand, at $3.4 million to El-Sayed’s $2.5 million. El-Sayed has held a slight lead in the latest polls. 

Following McMorrow’s announcement, Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel, a Jewish Democrat, said the “choice is clear” and “wholeheartedly” issued her endorsement of Stevens. 

Stevens also has the backing of other Democratic leaders including Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and former Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI). 

El-Sayed, meanwhile, is backed by leading progressives including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Last week, the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC, which has boosted Stevens with more than $10 million, issued its first negative ad against El-Sayed.

When Rep. Yassamin Ansari (D-AZ) narrowly prevailed in the Democratic primary for an open House seat in Phoenix in 2024, winning by just 39 votes in a deep-blue district, the Arizona lawmaker could attribute her success, in part, to strong backing from the local Jewish community as well as a surge of outside spending from a prominent pro-Israel group.

Many Jewish and pro-Israel leaders in the state and beyond were encouraged that Ansari, who identifies as a progressive, staked out what seemed at the time like a moderate approach to Middle East policy issues amid rising Democratic hostility toward Israel over the war in Gaza — particularly in the party’s far-left wing.

Ansari, an Iranian American and former vice mayor of Phoenix, drew a contrast with her top rival, Raquel Terán, a former state lawmaker and party chair who had raised concerns among Jewish activists over her lack of clarity on key issues, such as whether she supported aid to Israel. For her part, Ansari stressed her commitment to U.S. military funding for Israel “without additional conditions,” while saying in a position paper that the United States “must do everything in its power to stop” Iran “from acquiring a nuclear weapon,” which she argued “would pose an existential threat to Israel.”

Now, however, Ansari, 34, has largely turned away from the stances she embraced during her primary, aligning with a range of far-left policy positions that have led several Jewish and pro-Israel leaders to feel they were misled, they told Jewish Insider.

Alma Hernandez, a Democratic state representative in Tucson who had been one of Ansari’s top Jewish campaign surrogates in the 2024 primary, said she “was really excited for the idea of having someone like” Ansari in office, noting that she attended the congresswoman’s swearing-in ceremony in Washington to demonstrate her solidarity. 

“I have not talked to her since,” Hernandez said last week in an interview with JI. “I think a lot of folks in the community feel they were really used in a sense,” she added, alleging that Ansari “was very careful with all her words because she wanted the support and the financial backing” in a closely contested race. 

Hernandez added that she did not think she could reasonably support Ansari’s reelection or ask Jewish community members to get behind her as she had in the primary race two years ago.

In an interview with JI on Wednesday, Ansari said that she has received positive feedback from Jewish voters in her district about her position on Israel. “I do believe I still have significant support from the Jewish community in Arizona,” she added, affirming that her “relationship to Arizona’s Jewish community has always been, and will continue to be, one of deep engagement and mutual respect.”

“I’m sorry that some people may feel misled, but that’s not how I see it at all,” she said, arguing that her views on the Middle East simply underscore the extent to which “the context and the situation on the ground have changed dramatically since a couple of years ago.”

Ansari said her office keeps a log of local outreach that shows most of her constituents, “if not the vast majority, are pretty in line with the American public on this issue,” stressing voters overwhelmingly agree “that what has happened in Gaza has been atrocious, that we need to really consider using U.S. leverage on how to influence Israeli policy and deep opposition to the far-right Netanyahu government.”

Still, her erstwhile Jewish supporters said they felt betrayed by her shift and questioned her sincerity. “I still really can’t believe how she played us,” said one pro-Israel leader in the state who had enthusiastically backed Ansari’s 2024 bid and was granted anonymity to speak freely about frustrations with the freshman lawmaker. “I thought she was somebody different.”

In her first Middle East policy test as a member of Congress in January, Ansari broke with progressives in backing Republican-led legislation to sanction the International Criminal Court for issuing arrest warrants against senior Israeli officials, even as she clarified it “wasn’t an easy vote.”

But since then, Ansari has adopted a more openly hostile approach to Israel that has fueled a mounting sense of disappointment among her Jewish allies who had believed she would strike a balanced tone while in the House. She is a co-sponsor of the Block the Bombs Act, which would impose sweeping new restrictions on weapons sales or transfers to Israel, for instance, and was an early backer of a Lebanon war powers resolution, introduced by Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI), aimed at blocking U.S. support for Israeli military operations against Hezbollah, an Iranian terrorist proxy.

During an interview this week with Mehdi Hasan of the media outlet Zeteo that underscored her growing ties to the far left, Ansari said for the first time she believed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza as well as Lebanon, citing a U.N. report released this month. “I just don’t think we can continue to mince our words or deny what so many credible actors and institutions and doctors are saying,” she said of her thinking.

Ansari told JI she was “deeply sympathetic” to Jewish colleagues and constituents who “find the term genocide to be extremely hurtful,” saying that she did not “believe that a word should be used as a litmus test” in political debates over Israel that have consumed several recent Democratic primary races.

“Ultimately,” she said, “being clear about what has happened in Gaza and what continues to happen is not to minimize the horrors of either the Holocaust or the violence committed on Oct. 7 by Hamas, and I continue to condemn that forcefully and continue to believe Israelis deserve to live in peace and security in the state of Israel, and I believe we need a secure Palestinian state.”

Elsewhere in the Zeteo discussion, Ansari said that she remained uncertain about where she would land on an anticipated House vote over an amendment led by Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) to slash the annual $3.3 billion in military aid the U.S. is set to provide Israel in the 2027 State Department funding bill, a controversial effort that Jewish activists in Arizona have urged her to oppose, according to a recent email shared with JI.

She also vowed to reject financial assistance from pro-Israel groups including AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel, the latter of which endorsed her 2024 campaign and pumped more than $400,000 into the race to boost her bid, hailing her victory as proof “that being pro-Israel is not just wise policy, but also winning politics.” 

“I just don’t want anyone to think that any of my decisions are influenced by any organization,” she explained to Zeteo. “They never, quite frankly, have been or should.”

Speaking with JI, Ansari said she has continued to engage with DMFI and has a “respectful relationship” with the group, even as she now disavows its support. “I really do find the villainization of the members of these organizations to be very problematic,” she said of the pro-Israel community. “That’s why I have very much not been antagonistic, because I don’t want to give in to that.”

DMFI’s super PAC declined to comment on Ansari’s remarks. A spokesperson for AIPAC did not return a request for comment.

Ansari’s lack of interest in backing from AIPAC comes as the group’s brand has become toxic in a number of Democratic primaries, particularly those in progressive-minded districts. And her shift to a more skeptical position on the U.S.-Israel alliance is reflective of broader polling trends that show eroding support for Israel in both parties — especially among younger voters.

But according to a source with first-hand knowledge of the matter who spoke with JI on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive subject, Ansari had “worked tirelessly” in her primary to claim an AIPAC endorsement, crafting a position paper with its policy expectations in mind, meeting with AIPAC’s staff and pledging to visit Israel on an AIPAC-sponsored trip if elected to Congress. 

AIPAC held off on supporting Ansari because it was unconvinced about her views and out of deference to Sen. Mark Kelly (D-AZ), who was backing Terán and asked the group to remain neutral in the primary, the source noted.

Not long after she had entered the House, Ansari privately reiterated her interest in visiting Israel on an AIPAC-led congressional delegation, according to the source. But despite her prior outreach, her team said then that she did not want an AIPAC endorsement — indicating that it was too early in her tenure and she needed more time to acquaint herself with the group.

Ansari did not dispute that account but added there were irreconcilable disagreements with AIPAC that precluded constructive conversation, not to mention an endorsement. “The truth, from my perspective, is that there was never any room for policy differences with AIPAC,” she said, while stressing that the group “continued to provide feedback on” her positions that she was “unwilling to make.”

Despite having voiced interest in visiting Israel with AIPAC, Ansari said she “could not justify taking part” in a trip last year, amid “the continuation of violence in Gaza” and “well into the Trump administration.” Her outspoken opposition to the war in Iran subsequently hardened her resistance to such a trip, she suggested.

One pro-Israel activist in Arizona said that Jewish leaders who got behind Ansari in 2024 and are now stung by her reversals should not necessarily feel surprised, noting she had no demonstrable record as a strong supporter of Israel prior to her campaign for Congress.

In some ways, Ansari’s evolution echoes that of Rep. Maxwell Frost (D-FL), a fellow progressive who was elected in 2022 after making a range of commitments to uphold support for Israel that he has since reneged on in Congress, stoking disenchantment among local Jewish leaders who were initially energized over his campaign.

But while Frost had engaged in private diplomacy with DMFI to preempt attacks as he ran against the group’s preferred candidate, Ansari actively courted and accepted support from the pro-Israel community in her primary, a key distinguishing factor of the race featuring an opponent seen as more critical of Israel. 

Zachary Bell, a Jewish community activist in Phoenix who has spoken to Ansari about Israel and Gaza, said that he was “very happy with how she has responded” to the wars in the Middle East. “I am far from a super far-left, anti-Israel person,” he clarified. “I think there is a wide range of opinions on this issue in the Jewish community,” he added. “She has done a very good job seriously engaging with people across that spectrum.”

Bell volunteers with J Street, the progressive Israel advocacy group, but said he was speaking for himself. J Street endorsed Terán, Ansari’s primary rival, in 2024, and it has not backed Ansari this cycle, as she runs unopposed for a second term in Arizona’s solidly Democratic 3rd Congressional District. 

A Jewish community leader in Arizona said Ansari’s shifting stances on Israel indicate that she no longer feels she needs support from former pro-Israel allies to continue holding her seat. “She’s packing her bags for reelection, and there is a weight limit,” the Jewish leader told JI. “Israel, right now, weighs too much for her.”

Adam Goodman, a Jewish activist in Phoenix who supported Ansari’s campaign in 2024, said he was aligned with the congresswoman “on many issues,” calling her “smart, pragmatic and engaging, with a long political career ahead of her.”

But while he had once praised Ansari as “unequivocal in her support for Israel,” Goodman suggested he has since grown disillusioned about the congresswoman’s current approach. 

“Unfortunately,” he told JI, “she is demagoguing Israel without holding other countries to the same standard.”

Ansari, for her part, said that her views were more carefully considered than her critics speculated and dismissed accusations that she is playing politics on Israel. “I’m not somebody who jumps on any sort of bandwagon,” she insisted to JI. “I think very deeply about foreign policy.”

“We are having quite the reckoning within the Democratic caucus and Congress about all of these issues right now,” she said.

Maryland state Del. Adrian Boafo prevailed on Tuesday in the crowded Democratic primary to replace retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD), who endorsed him, marking a legacy-burnishing victory for the veteran congressman and his pro-Israel allies.

The Associated Press called the race after Boafo had secured 32% of the vote with about one-half of ballots counted Tuesday night. His nearest competitor, businesswoman Quincy Bareebe, lagged well behind with 19% of the vote. 

Boafo’s win came after a forceful push by Hoyer, pro-Israel groups and establishment Democrats to help elevate the congressman’s hand-picked former campaign manager in a race that featured two dozen candidates vying to represent Maryland’s 5th Congressional District. 

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, was the biggest spender in the race, investing more than $5.7 million on ads boosting Boafo, including one featuring Hoyer in a direct-to-camera appeal in the closing stretch of the primary. Boafo was also backed by Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), among others.

UDP’s involvement was a risk for the group, as well as a test of its influence, as it has faced scrutiny from Democrats over its engagement in recent primaries. But the super PAC’s support for Boafo demonstrated that it could still play a significant role in Democratic races, even as its brand has become toxic to a growing number of Democrats.

The group’s spending drew criticism in Maryland, most notably from Sen. Chris Van Hollen (D-MD), who accused AIPAC and crypto-aligned interests in the race of “trying to buy” the seat. But Van Hollen did not make an endorsement in the race as the left failed to unite behind one candidate.

In the final days of the race, three other Democratic contenders — Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker and Bareebe — teamed up to decry the flood of outside spending that shaped the race. Barebee came in second on Tuesday, while Dunn came in third. 

Their pushback was not enough to thwart Hoyer’s choice for the nomination in a moderate district that has been amenable to the congressman’s close ties to AIPAC. Boafo, 32, was also endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel’s super PAC, which is led by Brian Romick, a former senior aide to Hoyer, who is retiring after 45 years in the House.

In a statement to social media, AIPAC said that Boafo’s victory had “made clear his vision to carry forward the strong pro-Israel legacy of Rep. Steny Hoyer, one of Congress’s most steadfast champions of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

“United Democracy Project was proud to support Boafo and help ensure this seat remains represented by pro-Israel leadership,” AIPAC added.

With Janeese Lewis George’s victory in last week’s Democratic primary, Washington, D.C., is expected to become the third major city in the country, after Seattle and New York, with a democratic socialist serving as mayor. 

Now, Jewish Washingtonians who were unsettled by Lewis George’s stance on Zionism, as articulated in a Democratic Socialists of America endorsement questionnaire in which she said she would reject the “Zionist lobby,” are grappling with how to approach her tenure as mayor. 

Mainstream Jewish organizations tasked with local lobbying and advocacy efforts appear to be taking a wait-and-see approach, while cautioning Lewis George that they will be monitoring her tenure in office to make sure she does not assume positions that exclude segments of the city — including Jewish supporters of Israel.

“We hope to work with her, and we will work with her,” Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, told Jewish Insider on Friday. “But at the same time we’re also going to be watching to make sure that she lives up to her promises to make this an inclusive city, where all feel they can participate equally, and that all people, regardless of their backgrounds, are welcomed — Zionists as well.” (In February, Halber called DSA’s requirements for backing local candidates “an antisemitic manifesto.”) 

Anti-Defamation League Washington regional director Tali Cohen expressed a similar sentiment.

“We look forward to continuing our work with local leaders,” Cohen said in a post on X, “while also holding them accountable to combat antisemitism and ensure Jewish voices are included in our nation’s capital.” 

Lewis George, who has served on the D.C. Council since 2020, defeated Kenyan McDuffie by a double-digit margin, 54%-36%, in last week’s primary. During the campaign, she presented a proudly progressive vision for the city, leaning into an affordability message and offering proposals for universal childcare and housing construction that were described as unrealistic by her opponent. 

Lewis George’s campaign was powered largely by labor unions, but also by activists with DSA, of which Lewis George has been a member for years. The group’s endorsement questionnaire included a lengthy section on Israel. “I will refrain from going on any political junkets to Israel. I will also not attend events focused on obfuscating the realities of occupation or promoting Zionism and apartheid,” Lewis George wrote. In a candidate forum hosted by the JCRC in May, she declined to answer when asked to clarify her views on Zionism. 

McDuffie’s strategy included campaigning within the Jewish community and contrasting himself to Lewis George by saying he would have shunned an endorsement from DSA and that he would be a mayor “for all D.C.” The issue of Israel never rose to a major focus for the campaign, and instead the candidates’ approaches to the city’s economic challenges — and its complicated relationship with President Donald Trump and federal oversight — proved to be driving factors in the race. 

Rabbi Shmuel Herzfeld served for nearly 20 years as the rabbi at Ohev Sholom Congregation, an Orthodox synagogue in Lewis George’s ward. He now runs a small yeshiva in the area, and told JI he is concerned about her election as mayor.

“We need to be on guard. We need to be ready to challenge her, and [these are] concerning times,” said Herzfeld, who told JI he never heard back from her office when he reached out after she was elected to the D.C. Council in 2020. “She’s clearly surrounded herself with people who are anti-Zionists.”

After the Associated Press called the race for her on Thursday, Lewis George hosted a press conference at Busboys and Poets, a Washington bookstore and restaurant that regularly hosts speakers with an anti-Israel bent. (Its 14th Street location, where Lewis George spoke, has a mural painted on the wall showing a group of left-wing leaders and activists sitting at a table together; one of the legs of the table has the words “Long Live the Intifada” painted on top of it, and another says “From the River to the Sea, free Palestine.”)

Lewis George touted “the broad coalition I was able to build,” and specifically mentioned Jews United for Justice, a left-wing Jewish group that supported her campaign. 

“So many different people came into the JUFJ campaign fund because they were excited about Janeese, and I think that really speaks to something special about this election,” JUFJ’s D.C. director, Yael Shafritz, told JI. Shafritz said JUFJ does not take foreign policy issues such as the Israeli-Palestinian conflict into account when supporting candidates, but that its members felt Lewis George had taken a strong position on antisemitism.

“All the candidates we endorsed actually gave incredible answers about how they would support the Jewish community around fighting antisemitism,” Shafritz said. After Lewis George met with Washington rabbis in March following the release of the DSA endorsement questionnaire, she released a statement saying it is not a conflict to support “Palestinian human rights” and to “stand firm in my commitment against antisemitism.” 

Lewis George represents Ward Four, which encompasses several neighborhoods in the northernmost part of Washington, including Petworth, Brightwood, Fort Totten, Sixteenth Street Heights and Shepherd Park. The district includes two synagogues — the Orthodox Ohev Sholom and the Conservative Tifereth Israel Congregation — and Milton Gottesman Jewish Day school, a pluralistic pre-K-8 school. 

“There’s a lot of very progressive Jews in Ward Four, and they seem to support her and not have antisemitism as a central campaign issue,” said one of Lewis George’s Ward Four constituents, who requested anonymity because her job does not allow her to speak to the media. “I think there’s an equal amount of Jews like me who want to support her on social policies because we think they’ll make D.C. better, but antisemitism was my number one campaign issue, and how you handle antisemitism. I don’t feel confident that she’ll do much to battle it.” 

With the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District coming down to a two-person race between veteran and former national security official Cait Conley and Rockland County Legislator Beth Davidson, an alleged Republican-linked group is spending big in an effort to block Conley from the nomination.

The district, currently represented by Rep. Mike Lawler (R-NY), has one of the largest Jewish populations in the country and could be one of the Democrats’ best pickup opportunities come November. The primary is set for June 23.

The most recent public polling in the race conducted by a pro-Conley group, more than a month ago, showed Conley up seven points over Davidson, 29-22%, with other candidates in the mid-to-low single digits and 38% of voters undecided.

A previous poll conducted in late April on behalf of another candidate put Davidson in first with 26%, and Conley in second with 15%.

Conley is backed by various national Democratic groups including Democratic Majority for Israel and the New Dems, as well as Reps. Pat Ryan (D-NY) and Jason Crow (D-CO), while Davidson has been leaning into her support among local Democratic officials. 

Effie Phillips-Staley, a progressive Democratic candidate lagging behind in the race, also received a $3500 direct donation from the PAC affiliated with the anti-Israel, antisemitic group TrackAIPAC, which has endorsed her campaign. Phillips-Staley is one of the first candidates to directly receive funds from the group.

But a shadowy group that has been tenuously linked to GOP operatives recently announced plans to spend at least $1.5 million in the race against Conley, running ads echoing Davidson’s own messaging against Conley. The campaign suggests Republicans see Conley as the more competitive general election candidate.

The spending campaign has even caught the eye of former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who lives in the district and has not endorsed any candidate.

Clinton, in a post on X, called the field “talented” while sharing a story about the anti-Conley effort, warning that a “dark money Republican group is trying to manipulate the outcome of this and other key primaries.”

Jake Dilemani, a Democratic strategist who lives in the district, said that Davidson has “done a good job of defining herself and also defining Conley,” explaining that he’s seen a significant amount of negative Davidson ads targeting Conley, but little from Conley’s camp going after Davidson.

He said that none of the other candidates have been able to keep pace in their advertising with Conley or Davidson, making the two the frontrunners.

Davidson, Dilemani said, has been highlighting her work as a legislator and experience in public office, while she’s been aggressively targeting Conley for working for defense and intelligence firms, which Davidson has claimed were involved in Immigration and Customs Enforcement activities. Conley’s opponents have also sought to frame her as a carpetbagger.

“It all forms one big boogeyman that is unpopular writ large, but certainly [among] the Democratic primary electorate,” Dilemani said.

He said both candidates would be strong in the general election though, at this point, Davidson might leave the primary race with less baggage.

At the same time, Dilemani said, the GOP-linked ad campaign against Conley indicates that Republicans do not want to run against a Democrat with national security experience, like Conley.

“A dark money Republican super PAC just dropped $1 million in attack ads targeting me and lying about my record and who I am,” Conley said in a video on X on Monday. “That’s how scared Mike Lawler, Donald Trump, and MAGA Republicans are of facing me in November, because they know I’m the only Democrat that’s going to beat Lawler.”

United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with AIPAC, is spending $2 million on an initial ad buy this week to boost Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) in the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, a UDP spokesperson confirmed to Jewish Insider on Tuesday.

The new TV ad, which calls Stevens “a proven fighter for Michigan,” touts her past role as chief of staff to President Barack Obama’s auto task force, support for capping insulin prices and efforts “fighting back against” President Donald Trump’s “Medicare cuts.”

“She’s a fighter for Michigan families on affordability and jobs,” Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, said of Stevens, a moderate pro-Israel Democrat. “We are going to show that on these ads,” he said in a statement to JI.

UDP is also spending $300,000 on radio and mail ads, Dorton said of the group’s first investment in the race. He was unable to share how much UDP intends to spend in the primary, which takes place on Aug. 4.

The spending comes as AIPAC is viewed as a lightning rod in Michigan’s closely contested Democratic Senate primary, where one of Stevens’ top rivals, Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal far-left critic of Israel, has accused her of being beholden to donors from the pro-Israel group. Mallory McMorrow, a state senator, has also vowed to reject campaign contributions from AIPAC.

In contrast with other races where UDP has relied on shell PACs that allow it to shield its involvement until after a primary has concluded, the group is spending under its own name in Michigan, which is home to a sizable Jewish community.

Good Thursday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we talk to local Jewish leaders in New Jersey about the decision by pro-Israel PACs to sit out the Democratic primary in NJ-12, in which a candidate with past terror ties eked out a small plurality that sets him on a glide path to Washington, and talk to Sens. Dave McCormick and John Fetterman about their concerns over rising antisemitism. We cover comments made by a senior State Department official blaming the Oslo Accords for the rise in global Islamist terrorism, and have the exclusive on a new Senate bill that would coordinate Middle East air-defense acquisitions. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Ambassador Charles Kushner, Nirel Zini and Argentine President Javier Milei.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with assists from Danielle Cohen-Kanik and Marc Rod. Have a tip? Email us here.

What We’re Watching

• President Donald Trump is slated to meet today at the White House with Theophilos III, the Greek Orthodox patriarchate of Jerusalem, who will present the president with the Great Bearer of the Cross of the Order of Cross-Bearers of the Holy Sepulchre, one of the church’s top honors.
• The Senate will begin a series of votes this morning on a range of issues — known on the Hill as a “vote-a-rama” — that is expected to last for hours.
• The House Armed Services Committee is holding its markup of the 2027 NDAA this morning. 
• The House Ways and Means Committee will hear from Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent this morning, a day after Bessent appeared before the Senate Finance Committee. (Of note: Bessent clarified an exchange that occurred last summer between himself and acting Director of National Intelligence Bill Pulte in which Bessent said he told Pulte that he “was going to kick his a**.”)
• New York’s PIX11 will host a debate for candidates in the NY-12 Democratic primary, a day after candidates Alex Bores, Laura Dunn, Micah Lasher, Jack Schlossberg and Nina Schwalbe participated in a debate hosted last night by the Jewish Democratic Council of America. Bores, Lasher and Schlossberg will be joined by George Conway at tonight’s debate.
• New York City Council Speaker Julie Menin is slated to mark Holocaust Survivor Day at the headquarters of UJA-Federation of New York, where she’ll meet with survivors and their families.
• Elsewhere in New York, Tech Tribe is hosting a dinner tonight with Yossi Farro and Rabbi Mordechai Lightstone on the sidelines of NYC Tech Week.
• In Geneva, Switzerland, UN Watch is holding its annual gala dinner. This year’s dinner will feature French journalist Abnousse Shalmani and activist Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

What You Should Know

A QUICK WORD WITH JI’S MELISSA WEISS

It’s a strange moment when the leader of the free world explains to a reporter why he cursed out the prime minister of a major ally.

But we live in an increasingly strange moment, one in which President Donald Trump confirmed to the New York Post this week that he had indeed called Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu “f***ing crazy” during a discussion about Israel’s plans to expand operations in Lebanon, even as he stressed that he and the Israeli leader have “worked very well together.” (Trump’s confirmation came after Netanyahu’s office denied the remarks.)

The tense nature of the Trump-Netanyahu call this week underscores the increasingly divergent tactics the two are taking to ongoing conflicts in the Middle East as Trump leans into diplomacy while Netanyahu pushes for intensified military action — and as questions loom over the future of U.S. aid to Israel.

With the House’s passage of a war powers resolution yesterday (with four Republicans breaking with House GOP leadership), and a Senate vote on the issue still pending, the Trump administration’s appetite for a resumption of hostilities is even smaller than it was last month (when, as we reported, it was already quite low, owing to rising gas prices and the approaching midterms). 

On paper, Washington and Jerusalem do appear in lockstep — alongside Beirut — on deepening relations between Israel and Lebanon and rooting out Hezbollah. To that effect, the White House announced in a joint statement with Lebanese and Israeli officials on Wednesday that the parties had agreed to a renewed ceasefire — though it is contingent on the cooperation of Hezbollah, which did not take part in the talks and continues to launch drones and missiles at northern Israel.

But even as officials in Washington reach an accord on Lebanon, the challenges on the ground remain much the same. It was, after all, the issue of Lebanon — and Netanyahu’s announcement that the IDF would attack Hezbollah strongholds in Beirut — that triggered Trump’s expletive-laden outburst on Monday, causing Netanyahu to walk back Israel’s military plans in Lebanon.

And while Netanyahu needs to stay in Trump’s good graces, it is voters in Israel — including those in the country’s north who are living under daily Hezbollah fire — whom Netanyahu will need to sway ahead of the fall elections. 

Read the rest of ‘What You Should Know’ here.

SITTING IT OUT

UDP faces questions from N.J. Jewish leaders why it stayed on sidelines against Hamawy

Adam Hamawy’s victory on Tuesday in a closely watched congressional primary in New Jersey, which elevated an outspoken critic of Israel whose past ties to a convicted terrorist had drawn scrutiny during the campaign, is raising questions over why the far-left Democrat did not face outside opposition from the pro-Israel group AIPAC or its well-funded super PAC,Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kassel reports. Hamawy, who won 28% of the vote in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District, prevailed with a modest plurality over the multi-candidate primary field competing to succeed Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).

Sitting it out: With 93% of the vote counted on Wednesday, Brad Cohen, the mayor of East Brunswick and a Jewish Democrat who touted his support for Israel while identifying as an AIPAC member, placed second with 15%. Despite a double-digit deficit, Cohen’s performance exceeded many expectations, indicating that he likely could have finished in a stronger position with help from AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, some local Jewish leaders suggested in interviews on Wednesday.

Read the full story here.

Capitol concerns: Some lawmakers are warning that Hamawy’s past terrorist ties could pose a national security risk and that he should be barred from serving on sensitive committees working on national security issues, JI’s Marc Rod reports.

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KEEPING IT GOING

Israel and Lebanon agree to extend ceasefire, establish joint security zones

Israel and Lebanon agreed on Wednesday to extend their ceasefire — which in practice has been tenuous — on the condition that Hezbollah disarms and withdraws from Israel’s northern border, and to jointly establish “pilot zones” where the Lebanese Armed Forces “will take exclusive control of the territory,” Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Pushing forward: The parties, together with the U.S., announced the developments in a joint statement at the conclusion of the second and final day of the fourth round of peace talks between Israeli and Lebanese officials at the State Department. The group will reconvene for the next round of talks the week of June 22 “with a view toward reaching a comprehensive agreement,” the statement said. A State Department official told JI that the exact time and venue for the upcoming discussions have not yet been decided. 

Read the full story here.

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SUPPORTIVE VOICE

Stutzman introduces resolution backing Netanyahu’s call to wind down U.S. aid

Rep. Marlin Stutzman (R-IN) introduced a resolution on Wednesday endorsing and praising Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s call to wind down U.S. aid to Israel over the next decade, the latest twist in the rapidly evolving U.S. conversation over the future of the U.S.-Israel relationship and U.S. aid to Israel, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Major moves: Few Republicans, at this point, have publicly endorsed Netanyahu’s effort, which comes amid talks between the U.S. and Israel over the next memorandum of understanding on military aid. Top U.S. officials have confirmed in recent days that ending U.S. aid to Israel is part of those discussions. Netanyahu himself offered a letter of support for the resolution, which Stutzman publicized alongside the resolution.

Read the full story here.

Setting a timeline: Netanyahu said in an interview with CNBC’s Sara Eisen on Wednesday that he wants to start the process of winding down U.S. aid to Israel in the final two years of the Trump administration, JI’s Emily Jacobs reports.

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PEACE PARADOX

At AMIA commemoration, State Department official blames Oslo Accords for wave of terrorism

The State Department’s top legal advisor on Wednesday drew a direct connection between the signing of the Oslo Accords in 1993 — which sought to bring peace between the Israelis and Palestinians — and the global rise in Islamist terrorism, in remarks delivered at an event in Washington marking the anniversary of the deadly 1994 terror attacks on the AMIA Jewish Center in Buenos Aires, Jewish Insider’s Gabby Deutch reports.

What he said: Reed Rubinstein, the State Department legal advisor, used his remarks to herald President Donald Trump’s efforts to fight terrorism, which he described as a course correction from decades of failed leadership. “The fruit of those accords paradoxically included a massive increase in brutal terrorism,” Rubinstein said, referring to the Oslo Accords. “Oslo led to an unprecedented wave of suicide bombing and death.”

Read the full story here.

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SHARED ASSESSMENT

Fetterman, McCormick say Democrats have worse antisemitism problem than GOP

Sens. John Fetterman (D-PA) and Dave McCormick (R-PA) told Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs and Marc Rod on Tuesday that they believe antisemitism is worse on the left than on the right, arguing that the electoral success of far-left candidates with antisemitic records in Democratic primaries distinguished the left from the right, as similarly controversial candidates have struggled in GOP primary contests.

A pox on both houses: The Pennsylvania senators spoke to JI on the sidelines of the American Jewish Committee’s Global Forum. While both men acknowledged onstage and to JI that antisemitism exists within the conservative movement, they rejected the notion that it had taken hold of the GOP, arguing that the rise of Graham Platner’s Senate campaign in Maine and Pennsylvania state Rep. Chris Rabb’s nomination for a Philadelphia-area House seat showed that the Democratic Party had already normalized antisemitism within their party. 

Read the full interview here.

Tehran talk: Fetterman also told JI’s Emily Jacobs that he is growing increasingly concerned that President Donald Trump may agree to a deal with Iran that does not ensure the retrieval of Tehran’s stockpile of enriched uranium or that the regime will never acquire a nuclear weapon.

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EXCLUSIVE

Senate lawmakers introduce bill to establish coordinated Middle East air-defense acquisitions

Sens. Jacky Rosen (D-NV), Joni Ernst (R-IA) and James Lankford (R-OK) are set to introduce a bill on Thursday directing the Pentagon to develop a coordinated air- and missile-defense acquisition strategy with Israel, Abraham Accords members and other Middle East allies, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Details: The Optimizing Acquisition Strategies for Integrated Security (OASIS) in the Middle East Act, which expands on existing legislative and administrative efforts to establish a coordinated air- and missile-defense system throughout the Middle East to protect the U.S. and its partners, would aim to ensure that the necessary resources are in place to protect the U.S. and its allies in future conflicts, sponsors said.

Read the full story here.

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Worthy Reads

War Gains: In The Wall Street Journal, former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice considers the accomplishments of the U.S. and Israeli war against Iran. “The three-month military campaign degraded Iran’s ability to project power by significantly damaging its conventional forces, missile stockpiles and proxies. It drew America, Israel and the Arab states closer together through defense cooperation and intelligence sharing. In this regard, Israel has never been more secure. … The war demonstrated that the Iranian regime’s leaders were physically vulnerable to U.S. military power and allied intelligence.” [WSJ]

Hands Off AI: In the Financial Times, Argentine President Javier Milei argues in favor of unregulated AI. “At the beginning of the industrial revolution, Adam Smith illustrated the potential of technology and economies of scale in his celebrated recollection of the pin factory. And, as much as the industrial revolution freed us from the constraints of the human muscle, AI will free us from the constraints of the human brain, pushing productivity beyond our wildest dreams.”  [FT]

The Center Holds: Puck’s Peter Hamby suggests that the results of California’s primaries this week underscore the degree to which many voters prefer moderate Democrats over candidates from the more extreme wing of the party. “As with other elections around the country dating back to last year, Democrats won or advanced by focusing on the basics. Yes, there were promises to stand up to Trump — table stakes for any Democratic messaging. (‘California is bigger than Trump,’ [former HHS Secretary Xavier] Becerra said in his primary night speech. ‘Our values are undeniable — and undeportable.’) But Tuesday’s winners, generally, ran on the cost of living, safe streets and playgrounds, good schools, and healthcare costs. Not exactly peak woke.” [Puck]

No Strait Jacket: In The New York Times, Christopher Smart, who served as a Treasury Department official during the Obama administration, posits that the closure of the Strait of Hormuz is prompting a readjustment of global supply chains less dependent on the waterway. “The longer the Strait remains blocked, however, the less important oil from the Strait becomes. The S&P 500 is setting records not because investors believe peace is at hand, but because corporate earnings continue to grow and American consumers, particularly wealthier ones, are still buying. … The winners of this adjustment include U.S. oil and natural gas producers that can fill the Strait’s shortfall, as well as nuclear and renewable energy providers. ” [NYTimes]

Word on the Street

Federal officials announced charges against a resident of Newport Beach, Calif., alleging that the man, the CEO of an Iran-based tech company, provided “computer technology to Iranian companies and Iran’s government — including technology to help with Iran’s military and nuclear program”…

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY) became the first Republican to co-sponsor the Block the Bombs Act, arguing the U.S. is “morally obligated to end support of Israel’s devastation of Gaza and its people” — going beyond his usual arguments against foreign aid generally. The bill now has 71 co-sponsors…

Rep. Max Miller (R-OH) on the House floor accused Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) of “advocat[ing] for terrorists on a daily basis” and of “hang[ing] out with” with Hezbollah “butchers”; Miller’s remarks were ultimately struck from the record with Tlaib’s objection, but he said in a statement read on the House floor by a colleague that he stood by his comments…

California Democrat Ammar Campa-Najjar, who has made several failed runs for Southern California-area congressional seats, said that after falling short in his latest bid, in the state’s 48th District, his “political career is permanently over”…

The NYPD arrested an NYU student Wednesday for raising a flag that displayed swastikas and a Star of David atop a university building last month, JI’s Haley Cohen reports…

Former President Joe Biden, making a surprise appearance at his wife’s debut book event at the 92nd Street Y, told attendees he has a book coming out in September…

Bill Ackman’s Pershing Square is set to sell its remaining stake in Universal Music Group — amounting to approximately 80.6 million shares — in a deal that will garner Pershing Square at least $600 million, following failed attempts to take over the company…

The Qatar Foundation announced the launch of new study abroad partnerships for students at Hampton University, Xavier University and Prairie View A&M University — all HBCUs — to study at the Gulf state’s Education City…

Former Columbia University President Katrina Armstrong will step down as the CEO of the Columbia University Irving Medical Center to launch the Vagelos Institute for Basic Biomedical Research within the medical school… 

The U.K.’s National Health Service will implement a series of measures designed to address what a new government-authorized report calls “routine ostracism” faced by Jewish patients and staff in the British healthcare system, including limiting the political symbols that staff can wear on their uniforms and requiring antisemitism training for the heads of the country’s health trusts…

Companies operating under Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund are seeing the departures of foreign CEOs and being replaced by locals as the fund focuses on domestic financial priorities ahead of the Gulf state’s hosting of the World Cup in 2034…

Israel’s High Court ruled against a government policy banning Red Cross officials from visiting Palestinian security prisoners, citing violations of both Israeli and international law… 

Israeli forensic specialists are conducting DNA testing on bones found in Kfar Aza by relatives of Nirel Zini, who was killed during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks; Zini, whose girlfriend, Niv Raviv, was also killed, was decapitated during the attack, and his family buried his partial remains…

Kuwaiti officials said that one person was killed and more than 60 injured in an Iranian drone attack early Wednesday that caused significant damage to parts of the passenger terminal of the Gulf nation’s main airport; the airport reopened Wednesday evening…

Miami-based LGBTQ activist Ruth Shack died at 94…

Pic of the Day

U.S. Ambassador to France Charles Kushner participated in a ceremony earlier this week organized by Operation Benjamin at the Meuse-Argonne American Military Cemetery in Romagne-sous-Montfaucon, France, to replace the headstones of five fallen Jewish servicemembers with Stars of David.

Birthdays

Lineman for the Miami Dolphins for 12 seasons, which included three Super Bowl appearances and four Pro Bowls, then a judge on the Miami-Dade County Court, Ed Newman turns 75… 

Co-founder of Boston Properties and owner of U.S. News & World Report, Mort Zuckerman turns 89… Professor emeritus of organic chemistry at the Weizmann Institute of Science and winner of the 2012 Israel Prize, David Milstein turns 79… Retired chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court, Stephen J. Markman turns 77… Former judge on the Court of Common Pleas in Philadelphia, he was the longest tenured member of the Pennsylvania House of Representatives, Mark B. Cohen turns 77… British journalist, author of 11 books and socially conservative columnist for The Times of London, The Jerusalem Post and The Jewish Chronicle, Melanie Phillips turns 75… First-ever Jewish governor of Hawaii and then COO of Illinois, she serves on the board of directors of the Republican Jewish Coalition, Linda Lingle turns 73… President and CEO of the Metropolitan Museum of Art in NYC until 2023, now president and CEO of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, Daniel H. Weiss turns 69… Co-founder of Ripco Real Estate, Todd Cooper… Artist and art educator, she was born in Kibbutz Beeri, where she currently resides, Ziva Jelin turns 64… Chair in human cancer genetics at the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute, Dr. Matthew Langer Meyerson turns 63… Law professor at the University of California, Berkeley, Ayelet Shachar turns 60… U.S. Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) turns 55… French-Israeli entrepreneur, angel investor in over 360 startups, Jeremie Berrebi turns 48… Party photographer in Washington for the Washingtonian, Daniel Swartz… National politics reporter at The Washington Post, Colby Itkowitz… Israeli supermodel, Bar Refaeli turns 41… Clean energy portfolio planning program manager at Orange and Rockland Utilities, Adam E. Soclof… Director at Dentons Global Advisors, Jason Hillel Attermann… Managing editor at eJewishPhilanthropy, Judah Ari Gross turns 37… Gena Wolfson… Coordinating producer at MS NOW, Emily Gold… VP of government relations at UJA-Federation of New York and former Member of the New York state Assembly, Daniel Rosenthal turns 35… Ken Moss… 

In one of its largest independent expenditures of the campaign cycle, the super PAC affiliated with AIPAC spent nearly $1.2 million this weekend to help boost Adrian Boafo, a Maryland state delegate running in a packed Democratic primary to succeed longtime Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-MD).

While the super PAC, United Democracy Project, has invested heavily in several House primaries this year, its latest salvo is particularly notable because AIPAC has frequently avoided engaging openly in contested races — instead using several cutouts — as a growing number of Democratic candidates have disavowed accepting funds from the pro-Israel group.

In Maryland’s 5th Congressional District, which spans southward from the eastern Washington suburbs of Prince George’s County, UDP’s aggressive play suggests that it is comfortable openly courting a more moderate constituency that Hoyer has represented as a prominent supporter of Israel and close AIPAC ally. 

The primary, where Boafo is well-poised to prevail later this month thanks to his institutional support from prominent state party leaders, could deliver a major victory for AIPAC after its negative publicity over a series of recent Democratic contests in which its involvement or potential engagement was a lightning rod for progressive voters. 

UDP began spending in the race in mid-May with a modest direct mail investment of $50,000 to bolster Boafo, who has consolidated endorsements from the state’s Democratic leadership. In addition to Hoyer, for whom Boafo served as a campaign manager, the 32-year-old claims backing from Gov. Wes Moore as well as Sen. Angela Alsobrooks (D-MD), among other establishment officials.

The super PAC significantly added to its investment over the weekend with a new television ad buy exceeding $1 million. The ads cite Boafo’s legislative efforts to counter federal immigration and customs agents while promoting support from Hoyer, Moore and Alsobrooks.

“We’re proud to be working alongside Gov. Wes Moore, Sen. Angela Alsobrook and Congressman Steny Hoyer to help elect Adrian Boafo,” Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for UDP, said in a briefly worded statement to Jewish Insider on Tuesday.

AIPAC, whose affiliated political action committee has not officially backed Boafo, declined to comment on the June 23 primary election.

Prior to Maryland, UDP had most recently devoted its considerable resources to unseating Rep. Thomas Massie (R-KY), an anti-Israel Republican who lost to a Trump-backed primary challenger in Kentucky last month. UDP and affiliated shell PACs ended up winning two of the four congressional races in Illinois they engaged in, helping nominate former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller but falling short in a high-profile and expensive contest to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL).

Earlier this year, UDP faced Democratic blowback for opposing a moderate former congressman running in New Jersey who entertained conditioning U.S. aid for Israel — in a failed foray that inadvertently elevated a far-left candidate holding far more antagonistic views on Israel.

With nearly $95 million on hand heading into May, according to the latest federal campaign filings, UDP has a massive war chest at its disposal, but the group has been reticent about discussing how it plans to use its reserves in the remaining months of the campaign season. 

While Boafo has drawn scrutiny from some rivals who have questioned his support from UDP, most experts who spoke with JI said they did not believe those investments alone would prompt major voter backlash of the sort that has driven other primaries in Illinois and New Jersey, where AIPAC found itself on the defensive.

“In contrast to some other races,” UDP’s spending “won’t be as much of a tension except from the other candidates who are going to blast it,” Susan Turnbull, a Jewish Democratic leader in Maryland, told JI in an interview. “I wouldn’t be surprised,” she added, “if AIPAC feels that it could be out front in the district because Steny always was.”

Still, she suggested that Boafo’s ties to the tech industry as a former lobbyist for Oracle, owned by the billionaire Republican donor Larry Ellison, and support from crypto-linked spending could stoke suspicion if voters draw a connection to AIPAC’s outside investment. “It could be a problem,” she predicted.

Turnbull said, however, that AIPAC likely did not need to engage in the multi-candidate race, given what Boafo’s supporters interpret as his favorable position just under three weeks before the election. There is no public polling available on the primary.

A prominent Jewish leader in Maryland, who was granted anonymity to speak candidly, likewise said that AIPAC’s “money likely isn’t needed to put Boafo in first place” in what is expected to be a “low-turnout election,” citing Hoyer’s ability to call in “well-earned chits” with high-profile Democrats who followed his lead in backing the retiring congressman’s preferred candidate. “I don’t know of bad candidates who could win the seat now.”

“AIPAC would be better off spending money to back good candidates in races where bad candidates could win,” the Jewish leader told JI this week, referring to Michigan’s Senate race as well as a House primary in New York City where a pro-Israel Democrat is facing a formidable challenger from the left.

In other races, though, where candidates backed by AIPAC are running, the group is viewed negatively by Democrats, raising questions about whether it would hurt their prospects if it engaged openly or even with a shell PAC. UDP is not expected to spend in support of Reps. Dan Goldman (D-NY) and Adriano Espaillat (D-NY), two Democrats endorsed by AIPAC who are facing anti-Israel challengers in progressive districts.

Boafo, for his part, has been more openly supportive of Israel, vowing on his campaign site to “strengthen the U.S.–Israel alliance and ensure” the country “has the security assistance it needs to defend itself.”

A spokesperson for Boafo’s campaign did not return a request for comment regarding UDP’s support for his bid. He is also endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel, whose CEO, Brian Romick, is a former chief of staff to Hoyer.

More than 20 candidates are now running in the Democratic primary, including Rushern Baker, a former Prince George’s County executive; state Sen. Arthur Ellis; Quincy Bareebe, who challenged Hoyer in 2024; and Harry Dunn, the former Capitol police officer who ran for a separate House seat in Maryland last cycle and drew outside attacks from UDP that are now inflecting his criticism of Boafo’s support.

Echoing his past complaints about UDP’s spending, Dunn, who also maintains his support for Israel on his campaign site, denounced the group in a recent statement that accuses Boafo of “benefiting from the MAGA donors who fund AIPAC.” 

In a possible reflection of voter sentiment in the district, however, Dunn said in an interview with JI on Tuesday that he did not mean to single out AIPAC for its involvement in the race. 

“This isn’t just about AIPAC,” he explained. “I feel the same way about Coca-Cola or Walmart,” he said. “This is about special interests” influencing elections.

“I just wanted to make that clear,” he added, because “AIPAC gets a bad rap sometimes.”

Israel was on the menu — in more ways than one — in former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander’s televised clash with Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) Monday night as Lander seeks to oust the incumbent congressman in this month’s Democratic primary.

The Jewish state was the centerpiece over which the two congressional contenders clashed for much of the hour-long debate on Spectrum News NY1, as Lander ripped Goldman’s support for former President Joe Biden’s policy toward the conflict in Gaza, touted his own pledge to deny further military aid to Israel and voiced sympathy for the successful push to ban Israeli products from the Park Slope Food Coop, though the self-described progressive Zionist maintained he still opposed the effort. So intensely did the two chew over the issue that Goldman at one point burst out, “Israel is not the most important issue in this district!”

But when asked for the best place in the Brooklyn-Manhattan district to break bread, Lander returned to the Holy Land once more: or rather, to its cuisine.

“I love Masalawala on Fifth Avenue, I love Miriam — I’ll go with those two,” the candidate answered.

The first is a popular Bengali spot in Park Slope, but Miriam is an Israeli restaurant a short walk away that has become a target of anti-Israel protesters’ rage. In early 2025, vandals struck the eatery with a splattering of red paint and and the words “Genocide Cuisine” and Israel Steals Culture.” 

At the time, Lander was among the local officials who decried the attack, offering support to the Petah Tikva-born owner, and declaring the incident “a clear example of when anti-Zionism becomes antisemitism.” At the time, Lander was a contender for Gracie Mansion and had not yet embraced the politics of now-Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

Lander had to defend his political evolution onstage, when Goldman pivoted back to the subject of Israel himself later in the evening and pressed the former comptroller on his announcement as a mayoral candidate that he had left the Democratic Socialists of America after 30 years as a member following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel. Lander stood by his decision to exit the group after it held an anti-Israel demonstration one day after the bloody assault.

“On October 8 they advertised a rally that I thought was heinous, that spoke about Hamas in ways that I just thought were vile, and I could not continue to be a member,” he said, even as he defended his cross-endorsement late in the race with Mamdani, the DSA’s standard-bearer. “The choice was between him and Andrew Cuomo.”

Mamdani has since returned the favor and backed Lander’s bid to oust Goldman.

Among the district’s leading Jewish constituents is Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), who both men declined to endorse for another term in 2028: Lander declared it “time for new leadership in the Democratic Party,” while Goldman questioned whether the lawmaker would run again.

Several of Adam Hamawy’s opponents in the Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District are challenging the candidate to explain his ties to Omar Abdel-Rahman, the convicted terrorist known as the Blind Sheikh, as well as his service with a charity later shuttered as a front for al-Qaida years after he volunteered. 

Rep. Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ) is now also joining them in seeking more clarity on the first-time congressional candidate’s background. 

Many of Hamawy’s other Democratic rivals appeared hesitant to address the military veteran and physician’s past ties to Islamist extremists, with only Mayor Adrian Mapp of Plainfield publicly addressing the weeks-old reporting about Hamawy testifying in defense of Abdel-Rahman.

Mapp told JI he was “shocked” at the news of Hamawy’s time in Bosnia with the Benevolence International Foundation, an al-Qaida-tied group — and disturbed at what he described as the plastic surgeon’s “refusal to be forthcoming” about his involvement with either Benevolence International or his testimony on behalf of the Blind Sheikh.

“Can you explain why you were in Bosnia in association with an entity that was raided, and believed to be a front for al-Qaida? Can you explain that to the American people and especially to the people in the 12th Congressional District?” Mapp posed to his opponent. “The lack of transparency calls into question who he really is, and whether or not he’s the right person for the 12th Congressional District.”

Hamawy has so far dismissed questions about his associations in the 1990s as Islamophobia, but Mapp maintained he had no objection to a Muslim serving in the seat. He added that the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, that Abdel-Rahman was convicted for inspiring, was personal to him, as he said his brother worked as a security guard in the complex at the time. 

Brad Cohen, the mayor of East Brunswick, N.J., likewise said Hamawy’s past ties require further explanation.

“Adam Hamawy has never denounced his association with the terrorist responsible for murdering six Americans and injuring more than 1,000. He stuck by a terrorist who called for death to Jews and Christians and to Muslims whom he did not consider radical enough,” Cohen told JI. “Adam has never explained why he traveled to Bosnia with an al-Qaida-linked organization just a year after his mentor tried to bring down the World Trade Center. These are questions that demand urgent answers and it is deeply troubling that Dr. Hamawy has refused to provide them.”

Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson, another candidate in the race, called on Hamawy to explain his relationship with the Blind Sheikh further, while also praising his military service.

“As a fellow veteran I truly appreciate Adam’s service to his country, and know that it speaks to his patriotism. Adam’s relationship with Sheikh Abdel Rahman was thirty years ago, but Adam and I are both asking the people of New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District to select us for positions of authority in the federal government,” Robinson said. “The voters will judge us on our entire adult lives, the choices we have made, and the people we associate with regardless of whether it was 30 days or 30 years ago. Therefore, the voters deserve to hear directly from Adam about this. In the end, it will be up to them to decide.”

Gottheimer emphasized the connections between the Blind Sheikh, al-Qaida and the 9/11 attacks.

“This hits close to home. I represent a lot of families who lost loved ones on 9/11. I also co-chair the Intelligence Committee’s Review of the 9/11 Commission Report,” Gottheimer said. “Based on what I’ve read, I have serious questions and deep concerns about his associations with terrorist organizations and leaders who have attacked America, from the ‘Blind Sheik’ to Al Qaeda. He needs to answer these questions and explain himself to New Jersey voters.”

Rep. Donald Norcross (D-NJ) did not address the substance of the issue, but told JI, “It’s going to be up to the voters in New Jersey’s 12^th District to consider these allegations.”

Sam Wang, a Princeton University professor, offered a defense of Hamawy, the only one of his opponents reached by JI to do so.

“At the time that Adam Hamawy was in Bosnia, Muslims were under attack. I take him at his word that he was performing a humanitarian mission. It is consistent with his character,” Wang said.

In a statement, a Hamawy campaign spokesperson said that “these questions have been asked and answered” and said that his “entire career and life have been defined by his patriotism and deep love of this country,” noting his military career and work at Ground Zero after 9/11.

The spokesperson noted that Hamawy was and remained in the military during the time of the Blind Sheikh trial.

“As a witness, he performed his civic and legal duty to testify truthfully under oath and contribute to the system of laws and justice he defended while serving our country in the Army,” the spokesperson said. “At the time, the man in question was one of very few religious figures in what was then a very small Muslim community in New Jersey – he saw him speak in religious settings in his early 20s. Dr. Hamawy condemns that man’s violent rhetoric and actions, and all violence, hatred, and terrorism — and he will always. Dr. Hamawy had no contact with this person after they were arrested.”

The spokesperson also called attacks on his work with Benevolence International in Bosnia, “desperate,” “absurd,” and “gross and bigoted.”

“Dr. Adam Hamawy, as a young medical student and member of the US military, volunteered to provide medical assistance to victims of the Bosnian genocide, per the suggestion the Bosnian mission made to him on how to help via a United Nations approved route,” the spokesperson said.

Several other competitive candidates in the race contacted by JI about Hamawy’s past ties did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment. No other Democratic members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation — including Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) — responded to requests for comments.

Hamawy, boosted by $1.5 million in spending from the anti-Israel American Priorities super PAC, his own strong internal fundraising and unified support from national progressives, has emerged as the apparent front-runner ahead of Tuesday’s primary race.

More moderate candidates have divided the vote, with their support mainly concentrated in their local communities. But a last-minute infusion of nearly $400,000 by a largely unknown super PAC, Project 218, is set to boost Sue Altman, a former progressive organizer and staffer for Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), ahead of the primary election on Tuesday. Altman has faced more than $250,000 in attack ads from the Florence Avenue Initiative, a super PAC whose backers are unknown.

In the contentious Democratic primary in Montana’s 1st Congressional District, Israel and antisemitism have become flashpoints in ways that members of the local Jewish community say they find concerning and potentially dangerous.

Rep. Ryan Zinke (R-MT), who currently represents the seat, is retiring at the end of his current term, and Democrats view it as a potential pickup opportunity in a favorable midterm climate. Former Sen. Jon Tester (D-MT) narrowly won the district in 2024, despite losing statewide. However, the Cook Political Report rates the district as “Likely Republican,” and the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee hasn’t put the district on its target list at this point.

Though the district leans Republican, that hasn’t stopped a majority of Democrats in the field from racing to the left on Israel policy, a dynamic that was on clear display at a recent debate. 

Ryan Busse, a businessman and author who is the top fundraiser among the Democratic candidates, declared that the U.S. has been “forced into a war by another country,” alleging that Israel dragged the U.S. in its military campaign against Iran.

“This war that we’re fighting, that you’re funding, that your tax dollars are funding, is largely a war propagated by Israel,” Busse said. “I’m not taking any AIPAC dollars, wouldn’t dream of it. I think we should be really wide-eyed about the degree to which Israel has too much influence over our foreign policy. “

He also declared that Israel is not a “functioning democracy” and said that Israel is committing war crimes with American tax dollars and that he would fight to stop that aid in Congress.

Russell Cleveland, a Navy veteran and entrepreneur, said that Israel “has a right to exist without fear, but that doesn’t mean that those rights can infringe on other countries’ rights or other people’s rights to exist without fear as well” and said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza.

He asserted that Israel is being held to a different standard than other countries and is effectively controlling U.S. policy.

“We have hitched our wagon so hard to Israel in turning a blind eye to their actions on a national stage that we’re willing to disregard what we would hold to account any other country for the same exact violence and war crimes and violations of international law,” Cleveland said. “We cannot allow another country to have that type of control on not only what we’re doing in terms of sending armaments and money, but also that’s an ally to the United States, so everything that they do, we too are responsible for.”

Sam Forstag, a wildland firefighter and union leader with the backing of prominent national progressives and D.C.-based groups, said that he agreed with Busse and Cleveland, also disavowing AIPAC support while blaming U.S. support for Israel for a lack of services and government assistance at home.

“We need to have strict enforced humanitarian requirements on any aid that we are providing countries overseas,” Forstag said. “That needs to apply to Israel, that needs to apply to any country, because if we cannot afford to feed our hunger, if we cannot afford to make sure that the elderly in this country are not living on the streets, we sure as hell cannot afford to rain cruelty in chaos overseas, Israel or Iran.”

Matt Rains, an Army veteran, rancher and photographer, was the only one of the four Democratic candidates to stake out an opposing view and offer a defense of the U.S.-Israel relationship.

He emphasized that he has spent time in the region, and that he understands “we need to value our alliance with Israel, and I am in support of that because I am against hatred, I’m against racism, I’m against antisemitism, I’m against terrorism.”

Rains said that actually working toward a two-state solution requires people who have firsthand experience and understand the situation on the ground, arguing that many draw incorrect conclusions from news reports.

Busse has been the top fundraiser in the field, pulling in $529,000, followed by Forstag with $448,000, Cleveland with $325,000 and Rains with $125,000. Cleveland, however, trails the rest of the field in cash-on-hand.

Antisemitic activity online has also cast a cloud over two of the candidates in the race.

Cleveland liked an antisemitic Instagram comment that read, “I wouldn’t vote for anybody who takes money from those stinking Jews,” on a post endorsing him.

Cleveland denied any knowledge of the post and disavowed it. He told the Bozeman Daily Chronicle that his campaign “incidentally liked [this] comment” and that “My team and I do not condone these types of antisemitic comments, nor support them. … This is antisemitic. I don’t approve of that comment. I wouldn’t have liked it intentionally.”

Busse’s son Lander has also landed in hot water over a series of controversial social media posts which included a spat with a local rabbi.

The younger Busse responded to a statement from Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu declaring that “Free Palestine is today’s version of Heil Hitler” with a gif of a “Breaking Bad” character saying, “Well, Heil Hitler b****.”

He also demanded that a local Chabad rabbi, Chaim Bruk, acknowledge that Israel is an apartheid state and conducting a genocide. When Bruk declined to do so, the younger Busse responded “aight then f*** you.”

He also said in another post “F*** ISRAEL.”

The elder Busse told the New York Post, “I don’t condone any language or actions that minimize the very real tragedy of the Holocaust, and I don’t condone any antisemitic behavior or language.”

He said he opposes antisemitism and that his son is “definitely not antisemitic in any way shape or form,” but denied having seen his son’s social media posts, which were subsequently deleted.

Bruk, the longest-serving rabbi in Montana, told Jewish Insider that he felt it was necessary to engage with Lander Busse as the son of a person running for office, when the younger Busse was spreading comments that could prompt hate against the Jewish community.

Bruk said that he also wanted to give the elder Busse “an opportunity to reach out and see if he has a very different opinion than his son — which he has not done as of today.”

Bruk argued that he’s seen little evidence that Busse’s own opinions differ from those of his son, noting that, while they haven’t engaged in the same sort of vulgarity, Busse, Cleveland and Forstag had all made concerning comments about Israel and Jews.

“I have always strongly opposed antisemitism and will continue to do so unequivocally. I am deeply troubled by the rise in antisemitic activity and rhetoric across our country, and I stand firmly with Jewish communities,” Busse said in a statement to JI. “At the same time, I am troubled by the current Israeli government’s policies and leadership. In my view, criticism of a government’s actions and policies should not be conflated with prejudice against an entire people or faith. We should be able to reject antisemitism in all forms while also engaging in honest and thoughtful discussion about the actions of governments, including Israel’s.”

But Bruk said he takes Cleveland at his word that he did not personally or intentionally like the antisemitic Instagram post.

Cora Neumann, a Jewish state senator who was a previous Democratic nominee for the 1st District seat, said she feels that many of the candidates for the seat are “getting pulled into national issues that don’t impact us, just to posture and play political games,” particularly when it comes to Israel.

She said she has found the attacks on AIPAC, which come despite the fact it hasn’t been involved in the race, “very problematic,” and has been concerned by candidates blaming Israel for the war in Iran. She said she has reached out to several of the candidates to share her perspective.

But she said she hasn’t seen many of the candidates in the race “take pause and think twice about the way you speak” about Israel, even after being warned that their rhetoric might fuel antisemitism, “which shows a disregard for a vulnerable population in the U.S. and around the world.”

“I think this is a poison that has taken hold in our party and it has made my family less safe, and there has been little to no action taken to combat it, locally or nationally,” Neumann told JI. “Democrats need to reflect on our values and who we are and if we really feel that this is acceptable. … Democrats need to seriously reflect on why they’ve let it get so out of hand.”

Asked about concerns from members of the local Jewish community about the way Israel and AIPAC have been invoked in the race, Cleveland said in a statement to JI that, “Being critical of the actions of Israel with regard to its military aggression and violation of international law is not antisemitic.”

“We cannot simply label criticism of any one country as prejudice just because many of us oppose more war, death and destruction. The best possible outcome in the region is one where all people, no matter whether they are from Israel, Palestine, or Lebanon, are treated equally and without prejudice,” Cleveland said. “I want peace for the people of Israel, just as I do for those in any other country or territory. I believe this can be achieved through application of freedom of religion, coexistence, and seeking strength through diversity. This, however, can only be achieved through strict adherence to international law and practice of equal rights of all people.” 

In an interview with JI, Rains, an Army captain who served in Iraq and traveled throughout the world in that role and a subsequent one as a photojournalist, said that he has a “vital perspective” of understanding the dynamics in the region firsthand, rather than being “told by other people how to think and believe” on the internet.

His travels took him throughout Israel and the West Bank, and he said that he found many of the media narratives that people in the United States hear about Israel and the conflict to be exaggerated.

He said he feels that the other candidates in the race are “jumping on [the anti-Israel] bandwagon” without a proper understanding of the situation. “You just want to scream because it’s truly a lack of understanding and knowing what is reality and what you’re just being fed through the internet and buying into.”

He said that growing animosity toward Israel and calls to cut off aid are jeopardizing a critical alliance, which will ultimately make the United States less safe and lead to more regional instability and more wars.

He said that he’s also been stunned by what he has seen as an embrace of antisemitism in the United States, pointing significant blame toward the Trump administration for spreading and normalizing “comments that are there to rile up people.” He said that he would be vocal as a member of Congress in emphasizing that antisemitism is not acceptable.

He called the spread of antisemitic rhetoric in the primary race “one of the most shocking things of this campaign.” He said he didn’t anticipate that the issue would be one that he would campaign on, but said he felt a responsibility to not “let hatred creep in” in his own party.

Rains’ photojournalism work also brought him to Myanmar, where he said he was the first photojournalist on the ground documenting the Rohingya genocide in the early 2010s. Having seen such atrocities firsthand — and encountering fierce police resistance to documenting them — he called the accusations of genocide against Israel “absolutely frustrating,” and criticized those in his party who have spread that narrative.

Having worked on strategic planning matters in Iraq, Rains said that he’s been frustrated by what he saw as a failure of proper planning in the U.S. operations in Iran. “The threat of the regime [was] horrific,” Rains said, but he doesn’t have faith in the Trump administration to ensure that Iran is more stable and has better governance at the end of war.

“My biggest frustration is there’s a risk — kind of what happened in Afghanistan when we left there — for a worse government to backfill and make it more hostile than it was,” Rains said.

Bruk and Neumann both spoke positively of Rains’ stance on issues of concern to and of his engagement with the Jewish community.

Bruk said Rains is the only one of the four Democratic candidates who has visited the local synagogue and Chabad center and “made it clear that he stands with the Jewish people and he stands with the people of Israel and their right to their own nation.” He said Rains and his campaign had reached out to visit the synagogue of his own initiative.

Bruk said it’s important to him that the growing Montana Jewish community has a representative who cares about them and who “isn’t ready to throw them locally under the bus because of some international issue with which they agree or disagree” — regardless of potential policy differences on Israel.

Neumann said that she’s also been impressed by the “moral clarity” Rains has shown on the issue and others.

“I think to be able to stand up against the intense headwinds and national pressure to speak on Israel, even if it’s not relevant to your constituents, to be able to stand up against that pressure shows incredible moral character, and that’s what I look for in candidates,” Neumann said.

Bruk said he’d also had a conversation with Forstag and was optimistic that his rhetoric would change going forward. “I think he genuinely didn’t realize that it’s not just about some lobbying PAC that gives, you know, very little money to Montana at all, but it ends up creating an environment in which Jews become fair game,” Bruk said.

He said that he felt from their conversation that Forstag didn’t realize that AIPAC had had little to no involvement in politics in the state. Bruk said he emphasized to Forstag that invoking AIPAC on the campaign trail can increase the dangers to the Jewish community.

“I don’t think he realized the practical ramifications,” Bruk said, and said he was comforted to see Forstag’s rhetoric seemingly shift since then.

Neumann said she also found Forstag to be “receptive and sensitive to feedback on how problematic this disproportionate focus on Israel is.”

House Speaker Mike Johnson’s (R-LA) political spokesperson denied on Wednesday allegations that Johnson was involved in boosting Maureen Galindo, an antisemitic Democratic candidate in Texas’ 35th Congressional District.

The spokesperson said that Johnson had no involvement in the district’s Democratic primary, which Galindo lost on Tuesday.

The statement came after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee blasted Johnson in response to an article in the newsletter Popular Information that linked Lead Left PAC, the shadowy super PAC that supported Galindo, to a prominent GOP compliance consulting firm. One of the founders of that group, Caleb Crosby, has served as the treasurer for the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund, the primary super PAC arms of House and Senate leadership.

The origins of the pro-Galindo effort have been heavily shrouded in mystery, but national Republicans would have had an interest in boosting the less-electable Galindo in a swing-district race that Democrats hope to win. It’s unclear the extent to which Crosby or his firm, which advertises compliance reporting, budgetary and fiscal management and other similar services, would have been involved in any strategic decision-making for the Lead Left PAC.

“Mike Johnson’s political operation boosted a dangerous antisemite in the TX-35 Democratic primary runoff in an attempt to gain political power,” DCCC spokesperson Courtney Rice said in a statement. “This should shock the core of the Republican Party, and every single Republican needs to stand and speak out against this cynical political move.”

CLF and Crosby’s consulting firm, Crosby Ottenhoff Group, did not respond to a request for comment.

Michael Blake, the anti-Israel candidate challenging Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) in a Democratic primary in the Bronx, accepted an endorsement on Wednesday from a small progressive group that, in its announcement, attacked Torres for his relationship with “Jewish donors.”

The group, Progressive Voters Network, also maintains an active endorsement of Maureen Galindo, the antisemitic Texas Democratic primary candidate who faced condemnation from across the party and was repudiated even by other far-left groups.

Blake’s campaign shared the Progressive Voters Network endorsement announcement attacking Torres on Blake’s Instagram account.

“This AIPAC puppet has raked in millions from the zionist lobby while our people struggle with rent, groceries, and crumbling NYCHA buildings,” the announcement reads. “Torres prioritizes his Jewish donors over his own Black and Brown constituents, cheerleading genocide and shielding war criminals instead of fighting for affordability and justice.”

The group said Torres “must be crushed” and the Democratic Party must be “purge[d] … of these corporate zionists who value zionist interests and fat checks over our community’s survival.”

In its endorsement of Galindo, posted in February, long before Galindo gained nationwide attention, the group obliquely acknowledged her long-standing controversial rhetoric, saying “her calls for systemic overhaul may scare the faint-hearted, but they rally the bold to action.” 

After Galindo, who lost the Tuesday primary, made further extreme comments, including calling for the imprisonment and castration of American Zionists, other groups like TrackAIPAC pulled their endorsements.

The Progressive Voter Network has endorsed a slew of challengers to incumbent Democrats and Republicans, as well as a handful of sitting progressive Democratic lawmakers.

Blake’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — favored to defeat Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in next month’s Democratic primary — broadened his already sweeping criticism of Israel in a speech to a Queens mosque earlier this month, suggesting the country’s actions against Hezbollah in Lebanon could constitute genocide.

As shown in a video of May 15 services posted to the Al-Khoei Islamic Center’s YouTube page, Lander told worshippers that he is “a very proud Jewish New Yorker,” quoted a Quranic verse on unity and recalled his cross-endorsement in the 2025 election with now-New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani.

He drew a parallel with the Jewish concept of B’tzelem Elohim, or the creation of humanity in the divine image — and pivoted then to a topic that has animated his campaign: what he called “Israel’s genocide in Gaza,” which Lander described as “a Jewish requirement” to denounce.

He also repeated a pledge to vote against further military aid to Israel in Congress, but went even farther in his criticism of the country than he has in the past.

“I will not vote for any more U.S. military aid to Israel, not the bombs that are destroying the hospitals and schools in Gaza, not the occupation in Lebanon which is now I believe on its way potentially to being a genocide as well,” he said from the pulpit. “I pray for the day when Palestinians and Lebanese and Israelis can come to know one another, recognize each other’s equal humanity, the spark of divine image, the need for safety and peace and not for occupation and apartheid and genocide and oppression and war.”

He further vowed to work closely with anti-Israel Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) if elected to Congress.

The comments mark an even further swing leftward for Lander, who has long identified as a “progressive Zionist” and once drew fire from now-allies like Jewish Voice for Peace for participating in a City Council delegation to Israel. 

Goldman, who has been a reliable supporter of Israel in Congress, has also grown increasingly critical of the Jewish state but remains supportive of continued U.S. military aid.

Al Khoei, a Shi’ite mosque named for a rival to late Iranian Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, sits well outside the Brooklyn-Manhattan House district Lander hopes to represent but has been a common stop for politicians, including former Mayor Michael Bloomberg.

Trayon White, a member of the Washington, D.C. Council with a history of promoting antisemitic conspiracy theories, was expelled from the Council last year as he faced federal bribery charges before being voted back in months later. 

Now, weeks before a heavily contested mayoral election in Washington, White is hitting the campaign trail with Councilmember Janeese Lewis George, a leading Democratic mayoral candidate who voted with the rest of her colleagues on the Council to expel White.

“We don’t agree on everything, but we agree on most things,” White said at a weekend event with Lewis George, video of which was shared on social media. He encouraged his supporters to vote for her in the Democratic primary on June 16, which will all but decide the election in the heavily blue city.

Lewis George spoke highly of White in her speech, saying that when she first joined the Council in 2021, White offered to mentor her.

“You’re somebody who deserves to be shown love for the love that you give to everybody else,” Lewis George said at a weekend event with White. “D.C. loves you. I love you.” 

White posted a video on his Facebook page in 2018 attributing a recent snowstorm to “the Rothschilds controlling the climate to create natural disasters” and made similar comments at a municipal planning meeting, prompting an uproar from fellow councilmembers and the local Jewish community.

He said that he did not know that such language about the Rothschilds was an antisemitic conspiracy theory, and he attempted to make amends with the Jewish community by attending a Passover Seder, meeting with community leaders for bagels and going on a tour of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum. But White left the museum tour early, without explanation, driving further criticism. 

Soon after, it also came to light that White donated $500 from a local fund, earmarked for Ward 8 constituents, to an event in Illinois featuring the antisemitic Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan. 

White was arrested in 2024 for allegedly taking more than $150,000 in bribes in order to boost certain companies in their bid for city contracts. On Monday, a federal judge denied his request to dismiss the case, which is set to go to trial in September. 

A spokesperson for Lewis George did not respond to a request for comment.

Lewis George has had her own dust-ups with the Washington Jewish community in the course of the mayoral race this year. She responded in the affirmative to an endorsement questionnaire from the Democratic Socialists of America’s Metro DC chapter that asked local candidates to reject the “Zionist lobby,” and vowed to avoid events that “promote Zionism.” Lewis George, herself a DSA member, earned the group’s backing. 

In a meeting with local rabbis, Lewis George privately apologized for her answers to the questionnaire, but did not say the same publicly. 

With seven weeks remaining until the Democratic primary for an open House seat in Manhattan, the crowded race is beginning to show emerging signs of division over Israel and rising antisemitism, key issues in the heavily Jewish district where many voters closely identify with liberal Zionist sentiments.

The last week — which included two candidate forums focused on Jewish community issues and was punctuated by an anti-Israel protest near a synagogue in the district hosting an Israeli real estate event — highlighted some of the subtle ideological fault lines inflecting the June 23 race to succeed retiring Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY).

From recent efforts to block U.S. weapons sales to Israel to the intersection between anti-Zionism and antisemitism, the four top candidates in the closely contested race — state Assemblymembers Alex Bores and Micah Lasher, Kennedy scion Jack Schlossberg and former Republican attorney George Conway — are by varying degrees staking out differing views on Middle East policy as well as domestic concerns affecting the Jewish community, while continuing to reaffirm their support for the Jewish state.

Meanwhile, some recent endorsements that Bores received from left-wing advocacy groups hostile toward Israel have fueled skepticism of that support among Jewish leaders, along with speculation he is seeking to carve out a progressive lane for himself that has been largely unoccupied for most of the campaign.

The starkest disagreements were on display last Wednesday during a candidate forum at the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue on the Upper West Side, where Schlossberg, a social media influencer with a narrow lead in most private polls, notably said he would have joined most Senate Democrats who voted last month to restrict arms sales to Israel — even as he continues to back defensive aid to help boost Israel’s Iron Dome system.

For their parts, Conway and Lasher both confirmed they would have opposed the legislation introduced by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). “I don’t support the withholding of aid from Israel,” Conway explained, drawing applause from the audience, while Lasher said he did not believe the bill “would have actually improved the lives of people on the ground,” echoing comments he had made in a candidate questionnaire opposing House legislation to block weapons sales to Israel. 

Bores, who had previously committed to the event, pulled out the day before, citing a scheduling conflict in Washington.

The forum, which took place a day after anti-Israel demonstrators had chanted antisemitic slogans near Park East Synagogue to oppose an Israeli real estate event featuring some advertising for settlements in the West Bank, drew other distinct contrasts among the candidates.

Schlossberg, for instance, condemned what he called the “antisemitic rhetoric” used by demonstrators who had shouted slogans such as, “We don’t want no Zionists here,” “Death to the IDF” and “We don’t want no two-state, we want ‘48.” 

Still, he added, “I don’t think that a land sale for real estate that is in violation of international law should be happening in a house of worship.”

In comparison, Lasher, a Jewish protégé of Nadler’s, questioned the protesters’ aims. The demonstration was more broadly about “framing Israel, and the idea of making aliyah to Israel, as illegitimate,” he argued. Earlier, he said the protest was “intended to create fear in the hearts of Jewish New Yorkers and stigmatize our community.”

“I think it’s important to speak with clarity,” added Lasher, who has touted his state legislation to ban protests directly outside houses of worship, which has been opposed by anti-Israel activists in the city. “When people are outside a synagogue shouting, ‘We don’t want two states, we want ‘48’ — that’s not about the question of West Bank settlements. That is about the legitimacy of Israel.”

Bores, whose state Assembly district includes Park East Synagogue, said in a joint statement with City Councilmember Virginia Maloney before the protest on Tuesday that the demonstration evoked “painful memories of times when people have been harassed while entering houses of worship.” He did not appear to have commented on the protest after it occurred.

While Bores has recently accepted support from some groups opposed to U.S. funding for Israel, he has indicated that he does not share such positions. He has rejected legislative efforts to condition aid — stating in one candidate questionnaire, for example, that “determining foreign policy through legislation that targets individual countries has overall not been beneficial for achieving universal rights.”

He reiterated that view last Monday during a separate forum at The Jewish Center, a Modern Orthodox synagogue on the Upper West Side, where he appeared with Lasher. “I support the consistent application of Leahy Laws across all countries,” he said, referring to U.S. laws banning security funding to foreign military units that engage in human rights violations. 

Lasher also agreed with that position. “It should be a universal standard,” he said.

“We should be able to stand up to people in our party,” Bores added at the forum last week, “and say how important our relationship is with the State of Israel and how important it is to ensure the rights of everyone in the region, including the Palestinians.”

Still, his recent endorsement from Our Revolution, a Sanders-aligned group that has advocated for cutting military funding to Israel, has fueled questions about the sincerity of his positions. His decision to pull out of the Stephen Wise candidate forum on short notice last week also raised eyebrows, particularly as he had done so after winning support from a City University of New York union that has called for divesting from Israel. 

Bores has otherwise claimed backing from New York Progressive Action Network, which likewise supports efforts to withhold U.S. military aid to Israel.

“There’s a lot of skepticism now,” said one Jewish community leader who is closely following the race, speaking on the condition of anonymity to address a sensitive issue. “You don’t get the endorsements of Our Revolution and PSC CUNY,” which represents faculty and staff in the university system, “without saying something differently privately than you do publicly.”

“There’s concern now that there wasn’t a few weeks ago,” the Jewish leader said, noting Bores had been calling community members to do “damage control” after receiving the Our Revolution endorsement. He has explained that the nod extends from their shared goal of regulating the AI industry, which is targeting the former Palantir employee aggressively in the race, according to the Jewish leader.

A spokesperson for Bores’ campaign did not respond to a request for comment about the endorsement last week.

While some Jewish voters in the district feel that Lasher’s views on Israel are to the left of their own, his outspoken opposition to rising antisemitism and commitment to Israel’s security are now appealing to a segment of the community that is questioning the apparent dissonance between Bores’ publicly stated positions and his endorsements from organizations with which he is not aligned on Middle East policy. 

A graphic circulating in local Jewish WhatsApp groups on Friday, which was shared with Jewish Insider, warned that “a Bernie Sanders PAC just endorsed Alex Bores” and that “Jack Schlossberg wants to cut arms sales to Israel,” highlighting the names in red.

“Micah Lasher is the clear choice. The community and rabbis are rallying behind him,” the message continued. “It’s time to unite to win this seat.” 

Garth Symonds, who chairs The Jewish Center’s committee to get out the vote, said in a statement to JI on Friday that Bores “has proven his toughness in the face of well-funded attacks by those resistant to AI regulation” and that he “appears to have a strong legislative record, but so does Lasher.”

“On Israel, Lasher has a supportive track record, whereas Bores appears close to some people in the Working Families Party, which is anti-Israel, and has been endorsed by One Revolution,” he said, claiming Lasher, a veteran Democratic operative, “has deeper political experience.”

The Working Families Party, which supports conditioning aid to Israel, chose not to issue an endorsement after soliciting questionnaires from Bores, Lasher and Schlossberg. But the group has recently indicated it could rethink that decision as Schlossberg has gained traction, saying “we can do better than that.” It is most likely to support Bores if it does weigh on the primary, City & State New York has reported.  

Maine Gov. Janet Mills said on Thursday that she was suspending her primary campaign to challenge Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME), clearing the path for her Democratic primary rival, Graham Platner, to secure the party’s nomination.

“While I have the drive and passion, commitment and experience, and above all else — the fight — to continue on, I very simply do not have the one thing that political campaigns unfortunately require today: the financial resources,” she said in a statement.

Her sudden exit, with just over a month until the June primary, marks a stunning development in the closely watched race that Democratic leadership has regarded as one of its best pick-up opportunities this cycle as the party seeks to reclaim the majority in the upper chamber. 

Mills, a moderate two-term governor who had been favored by the Democratic establishment, struggled to gain traction in the race against Platner, a far-left political newcomer who had continued to maintain a commanding polling and fundraising lead, even as he has faced ongoing scrutiny for his extensive record of incendiary statements and personal controversies.

Since he entered the primary last year, Platner, a 41-year-old oyster farmer and former Marine, has weathered criticism over a now-covered Nazi tattoo whose imagery he claims not to have recognized until recently as well as a series of past online comments in which he praised Hamas’ tactics during a violent raid into Israel in 2014, among other posts that have been surfaced amid his campaign. 

He has otherwise drawn blowback for boosting extremists — telling a podcast host who has spread antisemitic conspiracy theories, for instance, that he was a “longtime fan” of his show.  

In a statement, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-NY), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee chair, called Mills “a formidable governor who has broken barriers and never hesitates to stand up to bullies to fight for Maine,” adding that they “will work with the presumptive Democratic nominee Graham Platner to defeat” Collins, viewed as among the most vulnerable Senate Republicans up for reelection.

The statement, hardly a ringing endorsement of the now-presumptive nominee in a crucial battleground state, underscored the uncomfortable nature of their relationship with Platner, who has been a vocal critic of the Democratic establishment and its support for Israel.

Platner, casting himself as a populist, had won an early endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) that helped him rise to prominence at the beginning of his campaign, and has continued to claim backing from a handful of other national progressive leaders such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA).

Nirav Shah, a Democrat running for governor of Maine, also announced he was endorsing Platner on Thursday after Mills had bowed out of the primary.  

Mills, whose comments did not mention Platner, has not indicated if she will back her now-former rival.

In a statement, Platner voiced gratitude for Mills’ “service to Maine” and said he looked “forward to working with her between now and November” to defeat Collins.  

Republicans, for their part, have seemed particularly eager to go up against Platner, whose vulnerabilities the Senate GOP campaign arm had been aggressively highlighting even before Mills ended her campaign.

“Chuck Schumer and Senate Democrats just coronated a phony who is too extreme for Maine,” Sen. Tim Scott (R-SC), the National Republican Senatorial Committee chair, said in a statement on Thursday. “Susan Collins has always put in the work for her constituents and delivered. Washington Democrats always fall short in Maine and will again, because they just nominated a dishonest radical.”

Collins, in comments to a CNN reporter on Thursday, praised Mills but would not weigh in on Platner as she prepares for what is now expected to be a bitterly contested general election.    

The wide open Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District could pose a difficult dilemma for local Jewish voters and national pro-Israel groups, given the candidacy of Adam Hamawy, a physician who served in Gaza and has made criticism of Israel a centerpiece of his campaign.

With a crowded field of candidates staking out a range of views on the U.S.-Israel relationship, the race poses tough strategic questions for the pro-Israel community — if it wants to block Hamawy from becoming the Democratic nominee. With such a divided field, a candidate could win the nomination in the June 2 primary with a small plurality. 

The seat is currently held by the retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ).

Hamawy, who posted strong first-quarter fundraising and is winning support from national progressive groups and leaders, is now being championed by American Priorities, an anti-Israel group that aims to counter AIPAC. American Priorities has indicated it’s prepared to spend $2 million supporting Hamawy. 

Pro-Israel groups are thus far uninvolved in the race and aren’t indicating  any plans to engage.

But a Hamawy victory would create red flags in the Jewish community, given his outspoken anti-Israel stance. Despite his extreme views on Israel, he has a compelling personal biography — he is a veteran combat physician credited with saving Sen. Tammy Duckworth’s (D-IL) life. 

A New Jersey Jewish leader told JI that the race presents tough choices for the Jewish community, predicting that Jewish voters are likely to be split among several of the candidates, including Sue Altman, a former state director for Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), and East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen.

Other candidates, including state Rep. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson, could also prove to be viable challengers, with the support of local political machines.

In addition to recent comments on far-left streamer Hasan Piker’s show in which he said he does not support Israel’s Iron Dome missile-defense system because it insulates Israel from the consequences of war, Hamawy is now also facing scrutiny for comments he made in 2024 after volunteering at the European Gaza Hospital in the enclave during Israel’s war with Hamas.

The Washington Free Beacon resurfaced past comments by Hamawy saying definitively that Gaza’s hospitals were not being used as bases or hideouts for Hamas terrorists, saying that he saw “no fighters at all,” no guns, no combatants and “definitely no tunnels underground.”

A year later, Hamas leader Mohammed Sinwar was killed in a strike on a tunnel that ran directly under the European Hospital’s emergency department during a meeting with other top Hamas leaders. Israel has said that the hospital served as a command center during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attacks on Israel and that it found evidence that Hamas hostages were held under it.

Altman ran on a pro-Israel platform in 2024 in a neighboring district but now says she opposes U.S. financial aid for Israel and wants to restrict and condition weapons sales, while arguing strongly in defense of the Iron Dome system and stridently criticizing Hamawy for opposing it. The former progressive organizer is trying to stake out a middle ground to attract both progressives critical of Israel  and more pro-Israel Jewish voters. 

Cohen is Jewish and has been the strongest supporter of Israel in the field, facing criticism and, in some cases, antisemitic attacks for that position. He once described himself as a member of AIPAC and faced criticism from Watson Coleman over his stance on Israel — she called him a “hard-line supporter of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu” and specifically urged voters to reject him.

Both candidates, the Jewish leader said, are “reasonable people” who are willing and able to have nuanced conversations about Israel and the Jewish community — though they hold differing views on Israel. Jewish voters, they said, could play a significant role in the election, particularly in Cohen’s home area of East Brunswick.

“They both have their followings, and they’re both, I would argue, relatively well-liked both in and out of the Jewish community,” the leader said, highlighting that both also have experience in government.

The leader predicted that Cohen, given his strong and clear support for Israel and his positive reputation in the Jewish community statewide, is likely to be able to unify much of the Jewish vote.

Though he has the support of the local Democratic county organization, whether Cohen can win district-wide remains a question.

A Sunday night debate highlighted the range of views among the candidates on Israel, and the specific nuances that some candidates are trying to capture.

Hamawy, asked about potential conditions on U.S. aid globally, said that “this isn’t about defense.”

“Every country has a right to defend itself, but what we have from the International Criminal Court, what we have from Human Rights Watch, from Amnesty International and what I have seen and experienced in my own eyes isn’t self-defense,” Hamawy said. “It’s a country that is committing genocide and continues to bomb innocent people every day.”

He suggested that, in addition to cutting off aid to Israel, the U.S. should also cut off aid to the United Arab Emirates over its alleged support of a faction in the Sudanese civil war that the U.S. has determined is committing genocide.

Hamawy, who largely agreed with Piker’s positions on various issues when he appeared on his stream, distanced himself from Piker’s recent comments in a New York Times interview advocating for shoplifting.

“We have to abide by the laws. There’s no room for crime. We have to be able to make food affordable for people when they need it,” Hamawy said, “but crime is not the way to go about it, and so I disagree with that.”

Altman emphasized that she was “the only candidate in this race that AIPAC has actually endorsed against” — when she ran against incumbent Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ) in 2024. 

She said that she believes Israel should exist and that Netanyahu is a war criminal.

“I believe that we should not be sending our taxpayer money to Israel to kill civilians. But I also think the Iron Dome should exist,” Altman said. “Israel’s a prosperous country, however, it doesn’t need our money to support the Iron Dome. It can pay for it on its own.”

She condemned the “atrocities” in Gaza and the war in Lebanon, but she also emphasized that Hamas, Hezbollah and the Houthis “are terrorist organizations, and Israel should be allowed to defend itself against those organizations.”

Altman also emphasized that antisemitism and Islamophobia at home are not an acceptable reaction to the conflict in the Middle East.

Reynolds-Jackson took criticism from a fellow candidate over past affiliations with AIPAC, and for a trip she took to Israel in 2018.

She said that the “world is a different place” than it was at the time, and emphasized that she visited both Israel and the “Muslim side,” describing them both as “beautiful.” But she also emphasized that a kibbutz she visited in 2018 had been destroyed.

“When we talk about protecting the right for Israel to defend itself, when we talk about the innocent lives that [have] been lost, I am not afraid to say that I am pro-Israel and I am pro-Muslim. These are people that deserve to live in peace,” she said.

Asked earlier in the event about whether she would support suspending any U.S. aid to Israel, Reynolds-Jackson said, “I support Israel, I support the two-state solution,” before criticizing the amount the U.S. spends on military aid in Israel and elsewhere, and emphasizing her opposition to the war in Iran.

Cohen took the most unequivocally pro-Israel stance of the group.

“I believe very strongly in Israel’s right to exist, and not only exist, but to thrive in the Middle East, along with its neighbors. Everybody in that region of the world deserves to live in peace,” Cohen said. “The U.S. has always been an ally of Israel, and we have allies throughout the world that we support with military aid. That aid should not only be for defense, which Israel uses to defend its citizens, 20% of which are Muslim, it also must be able to fight back when attacked, just like we do for every other U.S. ally that we have around the world.”

He emphasized that Israel is a democracy facing threats from terrorists that want to destroy both it and the United States, even as he said he strongly disagrees with Israel’s current leadership.

Cohen also said that his disagreements with Watson Coleman, in spite of her criticism, are “really very few compared to the multiple things which we’ve agreed upon.” He praised her record and legacy in Congress.

Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp, also running for the seat, said he firmly believes that U.S. aid to Israel should be conditioned, while also calling Israel “a very important ally of the United States” with “the right to defend itself against terrorism.”

“I believe that Israel should exist within secure borders and should continue to be a very important ally and partner of the United States,” Mapp said. “On the other hand, I do believe that Palestinian people have a right to exist and a right to defend [themselves] within secure borders, and so we must make sure that we negotiate a peace agreement that will bring the Palestinians and the Israelis together, existing in borders of their own.”

Jay Vaingankar, a 28-year-old former Department of Energy official, also struck out a strongly anti-Israel stance and went on the attack against several other candidates on the stage over their alleged views on the issue or ties to the pro-Israel community.

Cait Conley and Beth Davidson, two of the leading candidates in the Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District — among the most Jewish districts in the country — distanced themselves in a Thursday candidate forum from efforts by 40 Senate Democrats last week to block certain military sales to Israel.

Conley, a veteran who has worked in a variety of national security roles, said that she doesn’t believe that lawmakers should be trying to determine which specific systems should be provided to allies, but she also argued that the U.S. must continue to enforce global standards to ensure that all aid recipients are meeting U.S. standards.

“What I’m concerned about is what we are seeing is politicians now trying to make calls on what assistance should or should not go, whether this system or that, whether this thing or that, instead of actually relying upon the process that was designed where informed professionals are shaping what those packages are. There is a politicization of security that I do not believe is good for America’s national security or global stability,” Conley said during the Jewish Democratic Council of America forum.

She said that interference by lawmakers in determining what systems should be provided to Ukraine ultimately hurt the country’s ability to defend itself.

“I think we need to take politicians out of that equation and have a discussion on are the standards being met or not, and that is neutral to whatever ally we’re talking about,” she continued.

Conley also said she continues to believe in the importance of a strong U.S.-Israel relationship, but also wants to see long-term peace, guaranteed by a trusted third-party peacekeeping force in Gaza supported by U.S. reconstruction aid.

Davidson, a Rockland County legislator, said that she wants to see the U.S. use diplomatic tools and oversight to help bring about peace, rather than threatening aid to Israel. “I never want to have to be in a position where we are not in a position to provide Israel the aid it needs to fully defend itself and keep not only Israelis but Americans safe,” she said.

But she added that, “before voting for more funding, I would want to see a plan of how we bring this [Iran] conflict to a close, especially with a second conflict going on right next door,” and said that the “illegal war in Iran is actually making it more difficult to implement the [Gaza] peace plan.”

“It’s more important than ever that we understand what is happening with our tax dollars, what aid is being used for, and ensuring that it’s truly making Americans, Israelis, Palestinians and everyone in the region more safe.”

Davidson, who is Jewish, emphasized that the challenges the Jewish community are facing are personal to her and her family, and that her involvement in her synagogue leadership was what led her to public service.

She said that it’s “no secret” that Jewish support has been key to Rep. Mike Lawler’s (R-NY) past victories in the district because Jewish voters “felt homeless in the Democratic Party.”

“I’m the strongest candidate in this primary, because with me, Democrats and Jewish Democrats in particular don’t have to choose,” Davidson said. “I bring a strong voice against antisemitism, but also in favor of clean water, gun safety, hunger relief, lowering costs for working families, fighting for affordable health care, a proven record that I bring on so many of the issues that we all care about. So if you felt homeless, you have a home in my campaign.”

Davidson accused Lawler of politicizing the fight against antisemitism, and of turning a blind eye to President Donald Trump’s decision to cut funding for the Department of Education’s Office for Civil Rights.

She also highlighted her work to organize a solidarity event following the antisemitic stabbing attack in the predominantly Orthodox village of Monsey, N.Y., and to improve Holocaust education as a school board member.

Conley emphasized that she has past experience fighting antisemitism as an official at the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, which sent teams to faith-based institutions to help them improve their security. She said that the administration should be increasing funding and support for such programs, alongside the Department of Education, instead of slashing them.

Effie Phillips-Staley, who is staking out the progressive lane in the race and has adopted an increasingly anti-Israel platform, did not attend the forum.

As Washington, D.C., voters get ready to elect their first new mayor in more than a decade, the two leading candidates — former colleagues on the Council of the District of Columbia — are proposing drastically different visions for the city’s future: political moderation or democratic socialism.

In an interview with Jewish Insider this week at his campaign headquarters in Northeast Washington, former Councilmember Kenyan McDuffie drew a direct contrast between his campaign and that of his Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed rival, Janeese Lewis George. 

“I didn’t seek, nor would I accept, the endorsement of Democratic Socialists of America, or any organization, for that matter, that requires some sort of divisive pledge to exclude people that are a part of the fabric of the community of the District of Columbia,” McDuffie said.

He was referring to a DSA endorsement questionnaire that asked candidates not to engage with “the Israeli government or Zionist lobby groups.” Lewis George, a longtime DSA member, vowed not to attend events that promote Zionism when she filled out the questionnaire, which earned her the DSA endorsement. 

Lewis George’s responses sparked concern among many in the Jewish community, and she apologized in a closed-door meeting with rabbis in March. But she has not offered any public remorse. 

“I think it’s important for elected officials to have the courage to say in public things that they say in private,” McDuffie said. “Any message that depends on taking a pledge to exclude entire communities as a condition of a political endorsement is extraordinarily divisive and disturbing.” 

Amid the controversy surrounding her DSA questionnaire and the meeting with rabbis, Lewis George released a statement last month pledging to stand firm in both her opposition to antisemitism and her support for “Palestinian human rights.” McDuffie told JI that he did not see the mayoral race as a place to litigate debates about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“I think a mayor’s responsibility is to look out for all of its residents, particularly our most vulnerable residents,” said McDuffie. “At a time where the Jewish community is seeing rising antisemitism worldwide, and even the District of Columbia, it’s important that they understand that their elected officials are going to use every tool possible to protect them.” 

“I didn’t bring those issues into this race. My opponent did it when she sought the endorsement of Democratic Socialists of America,” McDuffie said. “I’m not running for Congress. I’m not engaging in the crafting of foreign policy. I’m running for mayor of Washington, D.C., the most beautifully diverse city in America, and I’m running to fight and deliver for all D.C.”

McDuffie is actively courting votes in the Jewish community. He will appear next week at a meet-and-greet with Jewish young professionals in the District. 

“I think a mayor’s responsibility is to look out for all of its residents, particularly our most vulnerable residents,” said McDuffie. “At a time where the Jewish community is seeing rising antisemitism worldwide, and even the District of Columbia, it’s important that they understand that their elected officials are going to use every tool possible to protect them.” 

McDuffie pledged to speak out against antisemitic violence and rhetoric so that the District’s Jewish residents “understand that they have a mayor and elected leadership who’s going to strongly oppose those kinds of activities and threats and do everything humanly possible to protect them.” He called the city’s nonprofit security grant program, which provides funding to several local synagogues to pay for security expenses, a “nonnegotiable,” even if the city faces other budget challenges. 

Born and raised in Northeast Washington, McDuffie entered politics circuitously. He worked as a mail carrier for the USPS before ultimately going to college and law school, in a career pivot he said was inspired by witnessing the death of two friends to the crack cocaine epidemic of the 1980s and 1990s. He spent a few years as a prosecutor, in Maryland and at the Justice Department, before running for Council in 2013. McDuffie represented Ward 5, which includes the neighborhoods Bloomingdale, Eckington, Brookland and Fort Totten, until being elected to a citywide at-large position in 2022 where he served until January.

His message now is about affordability, a buzzword brought into style last year by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, a DSA member like Lewis George. The way to make the city more affordable, according to McDuffie, is “economic growth with guardrails” — a contrast to the sweeping changes promised by Lewis George, the viability of which McDuffie has questioned.

“They want experience. They want vision. They want bold. They want change. What they don’t want is more empty promises,” said McDuffie. “What they don’t want is rhetoric that isn’t supported by an actual plan. What they don’t want is somebody who engages with organizations seeking to divide residents, and what we think we have as an advantage is both a vision that is about building a big tent and inviting people in and a record.” 

“We’re the nation’s capital. We can walk and chew gum,” McDuffie said. “I think that’s important for people to understand, that we can have innovative, transformational policies at the same time that we’re delivering core services on time and within a budget that doesn’t default to raising taxes on hard-working residents.” 

McDuffie seemed to recognize that pushing a vision of pragmatism may not be as seductive as promises powered by major spending increases. For instance, both Lewis George and McDuffie want to build new housing in the city, but Lewis George has promised to build 72,000 new units compared to 12,000 suggested by McDuffie, The Washington Post reported. But McDuffie argued that voters want honesty.

“They want experience. They want vision. They want bold. They want change. What they don’t want is more empty promises,” said McDuffie. “What they don’t want is rhetoric that isn’t supported by an actual plan. What they don’t want is somebody who engages with organizations seeking to divide residents, and what we think we have as an advantage is both a vision that is about building a big tent and inviting people in and a record.” 

Though McDuffie and Lewis George are widely viewed as the frontrunners in the race, they are not the only candidates running in the Democratic primary which, in deep blue Washington, will almost certainly decide the eventual victor. Other candidates in the June 16 primary include real estate developer Gary Goodweather and former Councilmember Vincent Orange.

A constellation of anti-Israel groups is coalescing behind Adam Hamawy, a doctor who served as a trauma surgeon in Gaza during Israel’s war against Hamas and has been an outspoken critic of Israel, in the competitive Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th Congressional District. He also recently reported raising $550,000 in the first quarter of 2026, a sizable sum.

Justice Democrats and PAL PAC, a new group affiliated with the Institute for Middle East Understanding that aims to counter AIPAC, both offered their endorsements of Hamawy last month, moves that could bring more national attention and backing to the candidate.

“From war zones to the operating room, Dr. Hamawy has seen firsthand how our government’s misplaced priorities mean life and death for millions of people in America and across the world,” Justice Democrats executive director Alexandra Rojas said in a statement.

“As a physician, he has witnessed the destruction wrought by our tax dollars abroad, while seeing his own patients struggle to afford the healthcare they need at home,” PAL PAC executive director Margaret DeReus said in a statement. “He is a witness with a mandate to ensure our resources fund healthcare at home, not Israel’s war crimes abroad.”

Hamawy had previously been endorsed by the Council on American-Islamic Relations and TrackAIPAC, as well as by former Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who was also an outspoken critic of Israel. Hamawy was also endorsed by the more moderate Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), who credits Hamawy for saving her life after her helicopter was shot down in Iraq.

Sue Altman, a progressive organizer and former senior staffer for Sen. Andy Kim (D-NJ), is viewed as a highly competitive challenger, alongside a handful of local officials who are likely to have support in their own communities, including East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, Plainfield Mayor Adrian Mapp and state Rep. Verlina Reynolds-Jackson.

Altman advanced to the June ballot despite a slew of challenges to petition signatures she collected.

Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said that Hamawy’s $550,000 first quarter fundraising haul and the recent endorsements show momentum for his campaign, but “what remains to be seen is whether this translates into forcing Altman to split the outside lane with him.  In order for that to happen, he will need to invest his money effectively — presumably in sharing his personal story, which is how he differentiates himself.”

Dan Cassino, the executive director of the Fairleigh Dickinson University poll, said he sees Altman as the frontrunner, “but Hamawy’s fundraising numbers certainly put him in the top tier along with [former Department of Energy official Jay] Vaingankar and a host of local candidates who could win on the strength of name recognition and strong ties to the district. “

Cassino said that, if voters focus on national issues in the election, as they did in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, that would be a poor sign for Reynolds-Jackson, Cohen and Mapp. 

“The endorsements matter, because they serve as a signal to voters in a race where partisanship can’t be used as a heuristic, but anyone who’s closely following the endorsements probably already has a favorite candidate,” Cassino added. “The more important signal is about who is, and is not, a serious candidate: voters are very concerned about tossing their ballots away on a candidate who doesn’t have much of a chance, and endorsements can be used as a signal that a candidate should be taken seriously.”

Rasmussen said that Cohen, who is Jewish, remains one of the stronger candidates in the “establishment lane,” having picked up the endorsement of the Middlesex County Democrats, which have a strong vote-by-mail turnout operation. Middlesex has also made up the largest turnout bloc in the district.

“But … he’s still sharing that crowded establishment lane with candidates from every other county,” Rasmussen said.

Hamawy’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.

Former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander, who is challenging Rep. Dan Goldman (D-NY) in one of the marquee Democratic primary contests of the midterms, is declining to clarify his position on U.S. funding for Israel’s Iron Dome missile defense system, even as he expressed his support for the aid last year during an unsuccessful mayoral campaign.

His reticence comes as some leading progressive lawmakers, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA), have said they will oppose further funding for Iron Dome and other defensive systems used to intercept incoming attacks against Israel. New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, who is Lander’s top ally in the June House race to unseat Goldman, a pro-Israel stalwart, confirmed last week that he agreed with Ocasio-Cortez’s commitment to oppose defensive aid to Israel.

Asked to clarify his position on Iron Dome funding, Lauren Hitt, a spokesperson for Lander, told Jewish Insider on Wednesday he would not be commenting and did not return follow-up emails. Lander did not respond to a text message from JI seeking comment on Thursday.

Lander, an outspoken Jewish Democrat who has long identified as a progressive Zionist critical of Israeli policies, confirmed to the New York Post last spring while mounting his mayoral campaign that he believed the United States should continue to provide funding for Iron Dome and other related defensive systems to help repel missiles launched by Iran and its regional proxy groups including Hamas and Hezbollah.

He and his campaign would not disclose whether he still holds that position. 

Despite a lack of clarity on defensive aid, Lander has otherwise made clear that he favors conditions on broader military assistance to Israel, vowing in February to support the Block the Bombs Act — legislation that seeks to impose sweeping new restrictions on offensive weapons transfers to Israel.

Lander’s apparent reluctance to specifically weigh in on Iron Dome, support for which has long drawn widespread bipartisan support, underscores how he is now cautiously navigating a sensitive issue that is emerging as a sort of electoral litmus test within the far-left activist base he is courting while building his congressional campaign. On Thursday, Lander won backing from a new MoveOn.org campaign called “Stop the War Hawks,” described as a counter to spending from AI, defense contractors and AIPAC, which has endorsed Goldman.

In his bid to represent a heavily Jewish House district covering Lower Manhattan and parts of Brooklyn, Lander has sought to cast himself as an anti-AIPAC foe, accusing Goldman, a fellow Jewish Democrat, of being beholden to pro-Israel interests.

But in contrast to Mamdani and his allies in the Democratic Socialists of America, Lander, a former DSA member, has been less willing to fully endorse a maximalist approach to opposing Israel — even as he has forcefully escalated his rhetoric in the wake of its war in Gaza, which he has called a genocide.

Still, he has rejected the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel and insists he believes in Israel as a Jewish state, illustrating some possible points of tension with the activist left as the competitive June 23 primary approaches.

For his part, Goldman voiced his strong support for Iron Dome funding in a statement to JI this week — raising further questions over where Lander will fall on the issue.

“Our number one goal must always be to keep innocent people safe. The Iron Dome provides critical protection to millions of civilians and saves hundreds of innocent lives every day. I will always support defensive systems that keep civilians out of harm’s way,” Goldman said.

The two-term congressman, who significantly outraised Lander in the most recent quarter, argued in a recent interview that “Israel’s security is a much more complicated question than so-called offensive or defensive weapons.”

“I do not believe that Israel should be left to defend itself based on the Iron Dome itself,” he explained, “without the opportunity to have a deterrent effect of being able to either preemptively or reactively respond to attacks.”

Jewish Insider’s Washington reporter Matthew Shea contributed to this report.

Tina Shah is hoping she might have the cure to Democrats’ struggles in New Jersey’s 7th Congressional District.

Shah, an emergency room physician and former government official, is running in the Democratic primary to face off against Rep. Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ), who has proven resilient against repeated Democratic challenges in the purple district.

Shah noted in an interview with Jewish Insider last month that the district is home to a substantial Jewish community, and said that she’s had many conversations with community members about the situation in the Middle East and the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, conversations she said have fostered her support for continued, unconditional aid for the Jewish state.

“Where I am right now is unequivocally that Israel is our most important ally in the Middle East,” Shah said. “They had a right to defend themselves then, [and] they continue to. I will be the strongest ally to make sure that we continue to build this relationship and support Israel with aid.”

In a position paper shared with JI, Shah emphasized her support for ongoing security aid to Israel, and said that the Oct. 7 attacks and their lasting impacts show the need for a continued U.S.-Israel alliance.

“Allyship with Israel is a bedrock principle of US foreign policy in the Middle East,” she wrote. “Our shared security interests and democratic principles have built a resilient foundation that I will support in Congress.”

She also emphasized the two countries’ shared values and democracies. Shah said she supports a two-state solution and said that she favors a “diplomacy-first approach” like that which led to the Abraham Accords. Shah argued that the U.S. needs stronger advocates for a comprehensive peace deal, and said she would be such an advocate.

“The US should remain a partner in Israel’s long-term security, and the long-term security of the Palestinians, to ensure the realization of a two-state solution achieved through a political and diplomatic process,” Shah said in the paper. “As many members of Israel’s security establishment have acknowledged, failing to reach such a resolution represents an existential threat to Israel.” 

She went on to argue that a diplomatic agreement, rather than unilateral action or annexation, will ultimately better serve Israel’s security interests.

She said that she mourns the loss of any innocent life, emphasizing Palestinians’ right to their own state as well, calling for an end to “illegal settlement activity” and said that the “international community must do more to de-escalate violence and provide pathways toward lasting peace.”

Working in the medical technology field, Shah said in her position paper she’s seen firsthand the benefits that the Israeli economy and tech sector has brought to her state and the country.

“I am proud that Israel is one of New Jersey’s largest trading partners,” Shah said. “Continuing this incredible partnership will only make New Jersey more attractive and competitive for employers, it will also increase employment opportunities for New Jersey families and workers.”

Shah told JI she is concerned by the rise of antisemitism in her home state, in part blaming President Donald Trump, who she said is “stoking … he’s feeding the fire and allowing antisemitic acts to go unchecked.”

She pledged her support for the Antisemitism Awareness Act, which is stalled in Congress, and the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism. She said she’d also listen to members of the Jewish community in her district to “make sure that I can advocate in the strongest possible way in Congress.”

Shah said in her position paper she “would continue to be an advocate against the weaponization of conflict in the Middle East against American Jews” and that she would oppose the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement targeting Israel, which she said ultimately does not help Israelis, Palestinians or the U.S.’ own interests.

Shah also blasted the Trump administration’s moves to cut the Department of Education, the Civil Rights Division at the Department of Justice and parts of the intelligence community, saying that those moves only hamper efforts to protect the Jewish community.

Shah told JI that Jews in her community are also worried that the war in Iran is going to make them less safe at home, a concern she said she shared, speaking to JI a day after the attempted attack on Temple Israel in the Detroit suburbs.

Shah said that Trump did not have the constitutional authority to start the war, and vowed that she would “hold our president accountable.”

“Let me be clear, the Iranian regime is brutal, repressive and destabilizing, but there’s a safeguard that was built in with the Constitution to prevent any president, especially Donald Trump, from unilaterally dragging the nation into war,” Shah said, describing the war as directionless.

She said she supports stronger sanctions on the Iranian regime, while lamenting the first Trump administration’s decision to withdraw from the Iran nuclear deal in 2018, a decision she said led the administration to the war today.

In her position paper, Shah said that Israel’s strikes on Iran in the summer of 2025 were a necessary action, in light of Iran’s violations of its nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty obligations, which “created a situation in which Israel could not delay action,” 

But she said that she did not agree with the U.S.’ own involvement in the conflict without congressional authorization or, in her view, proper consideration and consultation.

Shah is a practicing intensive care unit doctor in the district, and said that she was inspired to run for office by her experiences seeing patients unable to afford the medicine they need. America, she argues, is in “critical condition.”

“We live in the greatest country in the world,” Shah said. “How is it that people get so sick that they need the ICU because they can’t afford basic medical care?”

But Shah is also hardly new to government or the political scene. She served in three administrations, in the Department of Veterans Affairs and under the U.S. Surgeon General. She also advocated in her home state to prevent insurance companies from denying patients essential care.

And she’s also been involved in the business world, as the chief medical officer of a health care AI startup.

Asked what positions her to win the primary, and to defeat Kean, Shah again pointed to her medical background. “People trust their doctor,” Shah said. “I’m a doctor running in an election cycle where the No. 1  economic issue is health care.”

She said that her time in the exam room gives her experience getting to know and understand people and build trust quickly, regardless of political affiliation.

“I have the ability to raise enough money to combat what Tom Kean Jr. is going to do. But I am the only candidate who has worked across the aisle in D.C., who has worked to pass a bipartisan bill into law here in New Jersey, and that is how I’m going to flip NJ-07,” she said.

Shah faces a series of other candidates in the primary including Rebecca Bennett, a former Navy pilot who is leaning into her national security experience and whom many Democrats see as a top contender for the seat, and Brian Varela, a businessman who is leaning into a progressive lane after initially vying for the centrist vote.

Bennett leads the field in fundraising with nearly $2 million, followed by Varela with $1.76 million and Shah with $1 million.

ROYAL OAK, Mich. — Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who is running in a tight three-way Democratic primary for U.S. Senate, slammed one of her opponents, Abdul El-Sayed, for his decision to campaign with the far-left political streamer Hasan Piker. 

Piker, who has a history of antisemitic and pro-Hamas remarks, is slated to appear at two campaign rallies with El-Sayed and Rep. Summer Lee (D-PA) in April. 

“It is somebody who says extremely offensive things in order to generate clicks and views and followers, which is not entirely different from somebody like Nick Fuentes,” McMorrow told Jewish Insider in an interview Thursday, referring to the neo-Nazi podcaster. “[Piker] is a provocateur, to put it lightly, who says things that are misogynistic and antisemitic, and said that the United States deserved 9/11.” 

McMorrow’s comments come as El-Sayed has doubled down on his decision to campaign with Piker. The third major candidate in the Democratic primary, Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI), said on Wednesday that Piker is “the exact opposite of someone I’d be campaigning with,” a sentiment McMorrow echoed.

“That is not somebody that you should be campaigning with at a moment when there is clearly a lot of pain and trauma across our state,” said McMorrow. “How do you bring everybody together, especially when there are difficult conversations, where there aren’t easy answers? You don’t fan the flames and stoke division just to get attention.” 

Earlier this month, a heavily armed man drove a car into Temple Israel, a Reform synagogue with an early childcare center in West Bloomfield Township, Mich., before he died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound. The assailant’s brother, a Hezbollah commander in Lebanon, was killed by Israeli forces not long before the Michigan attack.

“I had made a statement back in 2023 after the Oct. 7 attacks that my biggest fear was that events in the Middle East tear us apart at home, and this was an example of that coming to life in a really visceral and terrifying way,” McMorrow said. 

“However you feel about what is happening in the Middle East, the response is never to take it out on people at home. The 140 kids who were at preschool that day bear no responsibility at all for anything that’s happening in the Middle East. And the rhetoric [is] being ratcheted up.”

Washington, D.C., mayoral candidate Kenyan McDuffie criticized his Democratic primary opponents for pledging to avoid campaigning with elements of the Jewish community — an apparent jab at Democratic Socialists of America-endorsed rival Janeese Lewis George, who is facing backlash from Jewish leaders over her pledge to boycott events she described as promoting Zionism.

“Recent reporting has raised serious concerns about how some candidates for office in DC have pledged not to engage with the majority of Jewish organizations in exchange for political support,” McDuffie wrote in a campaign email on Tuesday. “That is wrong. Full stop.”

McDuffie did not mention Lewis George or any specific candidates in his email. 

Lewis George, who earned the endorsement of the Metro D.C. chapter of Democratic Socialists of America, wrote in a DSA questionnaire that she would not attend events focused on “promoting Zionism and apartheid.” She met last week with rabbis and local Jewish leaders who were concerned about her posture toward the Jewish community, Jewish Insider reported on Monday. 

She privately apologized for her responses and blamed them on a staff member, but has not expressed that sentiment publicly. 

“There is no place in this city for shutting out any community — especially in pursuit of political gain,” McDuffie wrote. “Not antisemitism. Not Islamophobia. Not racism. Not sexism.” 

The DSA questionnaire also asked candidates to refrain from affiliating with the Israeli government and “Zionist lobby groups.” In her responses, Lewis George defended her appearance at a Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington meeting in December, but said she was there to talk about immigration enforcement. 

She said she did not align with JCRC’s stance on Israel and Zionism, and that she disagrees with the organization’s “definition of anti-semitism that criminalizes dissent, and their attacks on activists.” 

“Leadership matters in moments like this,” wrote McDuffie. “As your next mayor, I will bring people together across lines of difference. I will engage every community in this city, especially when it is not easy or politically convenient.” 

Washington, McDuffie said, “must be a city where every resident — regardless of faith, race, gender, or identity — feels safe, respected and heard.” 

Analilia Mejia, a progressive activist and organizer who won a surprise victory in the special election primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, looks to be on track to win the district’s regular election Democratic primary after several of her potential opponents declined to run.

In the days after Mejia’s surprise victory over former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ) and other more moderate candidates, there was speculation over whether she might be vulnerable to a one-on-one challenge in the regular primary on June 2. United Democracy Project, the AIPAC-linked super PAC that inadvertently helped boost Mejia, teased the possibility of  further involvement in the subsequent primary.

But former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way announced Sunday that she wouldn’t run against Mejia for the seat, leaving Mejia with no major Democratic competition; other moderate candidates in the special election primary also declined to run again, and Assemblywoman Rosaura Bagolie briefly considered a run, but decided not to pursue a bid as elected Democrats in the state quickly coalesced behind Mejia.

Several of the other Democratic special election candidates pledged not to run for the full term if they lost the special election — but Way had not made such a promise.

“Since the special primary, I have been deeply humbled by the outreach of so many who encouraged me to run in the June primary for Congress in NJ-11,” Way said in a statement. “The confidence and belief so many friends and neighbors have placed in me means more than I can say. After many conversations with my family, who are my greatest calling, and a lot of prayer, I have decided that this is not the right moment for another campaign. But make no mistake: I am not going anywhere.”

Even as the Democratic field has cleared for Mejia, her campaign has in recent days found itself at odds with the League of Women Voters.

The nonpartisan organization canceled its scheduled district-wide candidate forum — set to feature Mejia and Republican nominee Joe Hathaway, the former mayor of Randolph, N.J. — because the LWV and Mejia “could not reach an agreement with Mejia’s campaign and still maintain the League’s nonpartisan debate policy,” according to an LWV statement.

Mejia asserted that the LWV had refused to commit to diversity among the debate moderators; the LWV refuted her claim, stating its moderator is indeed a person of color but Mejia wanted to personally approve of them, which it would not allow. Hathaway accused Mejia of trying to “mislead voters and frame it as a diversity issue.”

Mejia’s stance has elicited criticism even from some fellow Democrats, including Bagolie, who criticized her comments about the LWV.

“If someone believes a debate is not worth their time, say that, it’s honest. But throwing the League under the bus is not okay,” Bagolie said. “I understand the instinct to rally behind a Democrat at all costs. I do. But we cannot excuse behavior that mirrors what we say we are fighting against.”

Hathaway, in a long-shot bid for the blue seat, has leaned into efforts to attract Jewish and pro-Israel voters in the district, and is pitching himself as a moderate with cross-party appeal.

With one week to go until the hotly contested Democratic primary in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, a new, well-funded super PAC is spending big on an ad campaign against Kat Abughazaleh, a far-left social media influencer who has staked out strong anti-Israel stances.

The group, Chicago Progressive Partnership, has reportedly spent around $1 million since its campaign against Abughazaleh began last week. A new television ad appears designed to sow doubt about her progressive credentials, referencing her writings from high school, when she backed Marco Rubio, then a senator, in the 2016 presidential primary and expressed conservative views on Social Security.

Other ads from the group accused her of taking donations from billionaires, Republicans and Trump supporters, an issue that has become a major point of attack in the race, primarily targeting moderate state Sen. Laura Fine.

“Who is the real Kat Abughazaleh? We don’t really know,” one ad states.

Abughazaleh has largely brushed off the attacks in a pair of mocking YouTube videos.

“AIPAC is so scared I’m going to beat them next week, and they should be,” she said in one of the videos.

Recent reporting from the district suggests that Chicago Progressive Partnership is tied to Elect Chicago Women, another new super PAC rumored to be backed by Israel supporters, which has spent millions supporting Fine and attacking Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, also an Israel critic.

All told, the focus on attacking Abughazaleh — who would likely be the most hostile of the three candidates toward Israel — suggests a shift in tactics from reportedly pro-Israel groups, which until this week have mainly focused on hitting Biss while boosting Fine.

A new public poll of the primary shows Biss narrowly leading Abughazaleh, 24-20%, with Fine lagging behind in third place with 14% support. The poll also showed Abughazaleh gaining support and Fine losing support over the last several weeks. 

Last month, the AIPAC-affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC inadvertently helped boost the far-left Analilia Mejia in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District as it focused its spending against former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), and the new spending against Abughazaleh may be aimed at preventing a repeat of such an outcome.

Elect Chicago Women filed with the Federal Election Commission notice of its most recent pro-Fine expenditures on March 6, and its last anti-Biss expenditures on March 3. The group has spent more than $1 million opposing Biss.

Some in the area had warned that focusing attacks on Biss could replicate a similar outcome as in New Jersey, pushing progressive voters away from him and toward Abughazaleh, though the Elect Chicago Women spending initially focused on boosting Fine, something UDP never did for its favored candidate in New Jersey.

Abughazaleh herself has attributed the influx of spending against her to such concerns, saying in a YouTube video, “I think they’re realizing that they might get another NJ-11 here.”

Meanwhile, in other Chicago-area districts, anti-Israel groups are going on the offensive.

The Justice Democrats and IMEU Policy Project, an anti-Israel group that has been increasingly active politically this cycle, are spending at least $100,000 to attack former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) in Illinois’ 8th Congressional District. Bean is a pro-Israel moderate, and favored to win the race.

And in Chicago’s 2nd District, County Commissioner Donna Miller is facing attacks from the Working Families Party in ad accusing Miller of taking “MAGA billionaires’ money,” citing the alleged pro-Israel outside spending in Chicago, and accusing her of collaborating with Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The WFP ad offers support for state Sen. Robert Peters, highlighting his record of opposing ICE and his endorsement from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and others. The group has spent at least $100,000 on the ads.

So far, Elect Chicago Women has spent $3.8 million supporting Bean; Affordable Chicago Now, another group rumored to be backed by Israel supporters, has spent $3.3 million supporting Miller; and UDP has spent $3.3 million supporting Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin in the 7th Congressional District.

A host of other outside groups, including those affiliated with the AI and cryptocurrency industries, have also spent millions across the four open Chicago House races.

In the closing message of her campaign ahead of the North Carolina Democratic primary today, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, a far-left antagonist of Israel, is leaning into criticism of the war against Iran.

“President Trump just used our taxpayer dollars to bomb a school in Iran, killing over 100 elementary school children and starting another endless war abroad. This is reprehensible, and I strongly condemn it, as should every elected official,” Allam said in a direct-to-camera video ad posted on social media on Monday — despite no evidence that the U.S. or Israel were responsible for the strike.

Allam, who is Muslim, vowed that she would never accept support from defense contractors or pro-Israel groups, and said she “opposed these ‘forever wars’ my entire career, and I hope to earn your vote to be your proudly uncompromised pro-peace leader in Washington.”

By contrast, Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-NC), aiming to fend off a primary challenge from Allam, offered a condemnation of the “brutal and repressive” Iranian regime in a statement on Monday, while arguing that its “abuses do not give the president the authority to launch military strikes without Congressional approval.” She said Congress must vote to bring the war to an end.

In an initial statement on X over the weekend, Foushee issued an unequivocal condemnation of the operation, calling it “an unconstitutional escalation that risks dragging the United States into another catastrophic and endless war in the Middle East” that “ignores the will of the American people and recklessly puts our servicemembers in harm’s way” without making mention of the Iranian regime.

In 2022, Foushee won the seat in the 4th Congressional District against Allam with significant backing from the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project super PAC, but Foushee has taken a more critical posture towards Israel over the last year. This year, significant outside spending has flowed into the race on both sides.

Allam’s allies have claimed that AIPAC is secretly spending to support Foushee, who vowed not to accept funding from the group last year. But AIPAC has strongly denied those claims. “Rep. Foushee rejected AIPAC support and we are not involved in or participating in any way in this race,” the group said Monday.

Foushee has faced a spate of attacks during the primary, including from the groups backing Allam, over her past support for Israel and relationship with AIPAC. She has gone to significant lengths to emphasize that she has cut ties with AIPAC, telling Politico, “My voting record and support for legislation to stop arms sales to Israel speaks for itself.”

The race to the left on Israel in the primary, in a deeply progressive district, underscores the extent to which Middle East politics have shifted and criticism of the Jewish state has become a litmus test in left-wing circles and districts. The shift comes as a new Gallup poll shows, for the first time, that Americans are now more sympathetic to Palestinians than Israelis.

Allam’s comments centering the U.S. as the perpetrator of atrocities in the Iran war also point to how radical she could end up being if elected to Congress.

The race also raises a key questionfor pro-Israel groups and voters going forward: when the two choices are a critic of Israel and an even more extreme critic of Israel, how should they respond? Is it worth backing someone critical of Israel to prevent someone with even stronger views from being elected?

Robert Peters, a far-left state senator from Illinois who is now competing in a crowded Democratic primary for a safely blue Chicago-area House seat, has made anti-AIPAC messaging a central focus of his campaign, castigating the pro-Israel group as a corrupting force in congressional elections funded by Trump-aligned interests scheming to promote a “right-wing agenda.”

Just last week, for instance, Peters joined forces with a coalition of progressive House candidates in Illinois to decry AIPAC’s recently reported political engagement in key congressional races in the state, claiming that anyone who accepts support from the group will become “a ‘yes man’ to Trump donors to commit unspeakable horrors in another part of the world.”

Not long after he had launched his campaign last year, however, Peters met privately with an AIPAC official in Chicago and then filed an Israel position paper at the group’s request, according to a person with close ties to the organization who reviewed the document at the time it was submitted. 

The behind-the-scenes engagement — rumors about which have circulated among Peters’ opponents — raises questions about the sincerity of his hostile rhetoric toward AIPAC as he now is building support from prominent Israel critics.

Most likely, the source familiar with the matter suggested to Jewish Insider this week, Peters was “seeking AIPAC’s good grace” in a strategic effort to preempt attacks from its super PAC, United Democracy Project, which often targets candidates who stray from pro-Israel messaging. 

“Israel is a vital partner to the United States, and Congress must ensure that this special relationship is preserved,” Peters wrote in his paper, confirming in a separate section he is “committed to ensuring the U.S. continues to be an essential ally of Israel, including funding foreign aid to protect the people of Israel from terrorism, cyber threats and missile attacks.”

The group is now facing scrutiny over its alleged covert funding of a newly formed super PAC, called Affordable Chicago Now!, which is investing heavily in Peters’ race to help boost a top rival, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, a pro-Israel Democratic candidate. Peters, for his part, has accused “AIPAC and Trump donors” of “pouring cash” into Miller’s primary bid, warning “AIPAC and Trump allies” are now “trying to buy this seat,” though AIPAC has not endorsed her and UDP is not publicly involved in the race in Illinois’ 2nd Congressional District. (UDP did not respond to a request for comment.)

The policy paper that Peters allegedly submitted to AIPAC — screenshots of which were obtained by JI — is far more measured than the anti-Israel stances he now espouses. Most strikingly, he voiced support for upholding continued U.S. military aid to Israel, which the group views as one of its top litmus tests. Earlier this month, for example, UDP invested millions on attack ads in a special House primary in a wealthy suburb of northern New Jersey, hitting an erstwhile ally, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who had entertained policies to condition assistance to Israel. 

“Israel is a vital partner to the United States, and Congress must ensure that this special relationship is preserved,” Peters wrote in his paper, confirming in a separate section he is “committed to ensuring the U.S. continues to be an essential ally of Israel, including funding foreign aid to protect the people of Israel from terrorism, cyber threats and missile attacks.”

By contrast, Peters has more recently condemned AIPAC-backed candidates as pro-Israel pawns “OK with unconditional military aid” to support what he calls Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s “war machine,” which he says committed genocide in Gaza. If elected, Peters has pledged to sign on to the Block the Bombs Act, a bill that seeks to impose sweeping new conditions on U.S. weapons transfers to Israel.

Matthew Fisch, a spokesperson for Peters, said in a statement to JI on Wednesday that the state senator has shared his Israel position paper “with a range of stakeholders and individuals upon request, some of whom responded with feedback for our campaign.”

“Among those stakeholders was AIPAC staffer Martin Ritter, who has a longstanding relationship with Robert going back to his days as an organizer with the Chicago Teachers Union,” Fisch said. He claimed that Ritter, who directs AIPAC’s Midwest outreach in Chicago, “requested the document and provided feedback, which our campaign promptly rejected.”

Peters “is not and has never been open to receiving support from AIPAC for his campaign,” Fisch said, noting the candidate’s “positions on this issue are well documented and have been widely discussed.”

When JI first reached out to Peters’ campaign last October to inquire about the paper, Fisch said the document had been “drafted in the early months of the campaign to share with any and all stakeholders from across the spectrum of viewpoints,” and that it had “reflected Robert’s nuanced position on a range of subjects in the context of that moment.”

He did not respond to follow-up questions from JI at the time asking if the paper had been submitted to AIPAC.

Peters, a Jewish convert, had long been prominently opposed to Israel’s war in Gaza, joining at least one anti-Israel protest affiliated with the far-left Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow, the latter of which is now backing his campaign. He called for a ceasefire in mid-November 2023, just over a month after the Hamas attacks of Oct. 7, writing in an opinion piece that he had “watched the unprecedented bombing campaign rain down on” Gaza and “saw that it was being done in our name, as Jews and as Americans.”

But even as Peters’ outspoken views on Israel would seem to preclude any outreach to AIPAC, the source familiar with his engagement, granted anonymity to discuss a sensitive topic, said he had regularly been in touch with the group at least until January, when he spoke with Ritter to express his concerns that the paper had been leaked.

Fisch confirmed that a call took place last month but said Ritter initiated it. “At the time, he falsely insisted to Robert that AIPAC was not supporting Commissioner Miller,” he told JI, “something that proved demonstrably false just a few days later.”

“Robert has always supported conditioning aid and ensuring it is in full compliance with the Leahy Law and international law,” Matthew Fisch, a spokesperson for Peters, told JI, adding the paper “does not mention the Block the Bombs Act because it was drafted prior to the bill’s introduction.”

Ritter, for his part, referred questions to an AIPAC spokesperson. “Like many advocacy organizations,” the spokesperson said in a statement to JI, “AIPAC routinely meets with candidates across the country to understand their views on issues important to its members.”

In some ways, the paper seems written specifically to meet AIPAC’s approval — including in its support for “fully” implementing the Taylor Force Act, a key legislative tool favored by the lobbying group that withholds direct aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ceases payments to convicted terrorists or members of their families.

But Fisch insisted that the paper is consistent with Peters’ long-standing Middle East policy positions. “Robert has always supported conditioning aid and ensuring it is in full compliance with the Leahy Law and international law,” he told JI, adding the paper “does not mention the Block the Bombs Act because it was drafted prior to the bill’s introduction.”

In a section of the paper on foreign aid to Israel reviewed by JI, Peters made no explicit argument for conditions, saying only that he supports “the continuation of aid in the framework of President Obama’s 2016 Memorandum of Understanding, compliant with existing U.S. law.” The 10-year agreement, set to expire in 2028, provides $3.8 billion in military aid and missile-defense funding to Israel annually — assistance the Block the Bombs Act is designed to challenge. Critics have argued the proposed legislation would effectively amount to an arms embargo on Israel for many key weapons systems.

Peters, 40, has largely positioned himself as a progressive front-runner in the March 17 primary, where 10 candidates are competing to fill the seat being vacated by Rep. Robin Kelly (D-IL), who is running for Senate. In addition to Peters and Miller, the primary field includes former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL), who is drawing support from an AI-backed super PAC, and state Sen. Willie Preston, among others candidates.

During a recent candidate forum, Preston accused Peters of being dishonest in his AIPAC messaging. “Robert Peters tells you AIPAC hates him,” Preston said, according to video of the event reviewed by JI. “He sought their support — they just didn’t give it to him.”

Peters, in his own remarks at the forum, said that he shared a “position paper” with “Palestinian-led organizations,” among other organizations he claimed “groups like AIPAC fundamentally hate,” according to the video. He denounced AIPAC as a “right-wing, Trump-allied” organization, and said that “anybody taking” its support “is disqualified to represent” the district in Congress.

Peters has claimed major endorsements from leading Israel critics, including Sens. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Reps. Ro Khanna (D-CA) and Delia Ramirez (D-IL) — who introduced the Block the Bombs Act last May. He has also won support from anti-Israel groups such as the Working Families Party, which endorsed his campaign on Tuesday, and the anti-Israel AIPAC Tracker, which has argued that candidates “only submit a policy paper to AIPAC if” they are “angling for” support from the organization.

Peters is not the only Israel critic now seeking the Democratic nomination in an Illinois primary race to have allegedly engaged in discussion with AIPAC. Daniel Biss, the mayor of Evanston who is hoping to succeed retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) in the suburbs of Chicago, sought backing from the group before he announced his run for Congress last year, JI has reported, though he denies having done so.

Biss has claimed publicly he met with AIPAC in an effort to stave off potential spending by the group in his race.

In recent weeks, AIPAC has become a particularly divisive subject of debate in Illinois as the group has ramped up its spending while facing accusations it is attempting to hide its involvement in some districts by operating under the cover of newly created super PACs not required to disclose their funding sources until after the primaries.

“He is practiced in the ways of politics,” Tom Bowen, a Democratic strategist in Chicago who is not involved in Peters’ primary, told JI on Wednesday. “That he submitted a paper in order to demonstrate he would be a collaborative elected official, I’m not surprised at all. Robert understands politics, and you have to build coalitions in order to legislate.”

Last week, for example, Schakowsky said she was rescinding her endorsement of Miller because of support the county commissioner has reportedly received from AIPAC-aligned forces in her primary. “Illinois deserves leaders who put voters first,” the congresswoman said in a statement, “not AIPAC or out-of-state Trump donors.” 

In a separate Democratic House primary in the state, meanwhile, Anthony Driver Jr., a progressive candidate critical of Israel, said recently that he was rejecting a campaign contribution from a prominent Jewish party donor in Chicago, Michael Sacks, over his ties to AIPAC — a move Sacks lamented as a sign of growing “anti-Israel sentiment and outright Jew hate.”

Tom Bowen, a Democratic strategist in Chicago who is not involved in Peters’ primary, said he would not be surprised if the candidate had privately engaged with AIPAC, calling him a savvy political operator.

“He is practiced in the ways of politics,” he told JI on Wednesday. “That he submitted a paper in order to demonstrate he would be a collaborative elected official, I’m not surprised at all. Robert understands politics, and you have to build coalitions in order to legislate.”

As for why he is “saying what he’s saying today,” Bowen suggested that there is “obviously political opportunity in corralling support from the folks in Congress who make” Israel “a top issue for national fundraising.”

“In many races in Illinois now, it is very difficult to forge broad coalitions,” Bowen added. “Ultimately,” the candidates are working to build coalitions “they think they need to win.”

With progressive activist Analilia Mejia’s expected victory in the special election Democratic primary in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, attention is now turning to the upcoming April special general election and the June regular election primary as the last chances for moderates and pro-Israel groups to defeat her.

AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, which spent $2.3 million attacking former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), said in a statement that its “focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress” and that it will be “closely monitoring … the June NJ-11 primary, to help ensure pro-Israel candidates are elected to Congress.”

Mejia is on track to receive less than 30% of the primary vote in a relatively moderate suburban district, creating an opportunity for a moderate candidate to challenge her. But several Jewish leaders, as well as a local analyst, said that that will be difficult to achieve.

“June is potentially irresistible for the other candidates who ran … if any of these candidates could get a one-on-one shot at making it in June,” Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said. But unless the field can consolidate, Rasmussen said, it’s hard to see how the result would be any different in June.

Rasmussen said he doesn’t share the view of some Democrats that voters would be frustrated with a Democratic candidate who decides to challenge Mejia.

Though they haven’t formally endorsed her yet, other members of New Jersey’s congressional delegation appear to be coalescing around Mejia — Reps. LaMonica McIver (D-NJ), Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-NJ) and Rob Menendez (D-NJ) participated in a town hall focused on Immigration and Customs Enforcement organized by Mejia on Saturday, and Menendez — a relative moderate aligned with the state’s party machine — posted a photo with her on Sunday.

Malinowski has not yet conceded the race, but said during the primary that he would not run again in June if he lost. Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill also does not plan to run again. That leaves the most likely moderate challenger as former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, who was endorsed by Democratic Majority for Israel and is believed to be AIPAC’s choice in the race.

Way is holding in third with 17% of the vote. Her campaign did not respond to a request for comment on whether she plans to run again.

Local Jewish leaders on Friday were generally pessimistic about the chances of taking Mejia down in the June primary — for the full term in Congress — but there could be a path to defeating the ascendant progressive.

“I sat on a debate stage with Analilia Mejia when she said that Israel has a right to exist, but not as a Jewish state,” Jeff Grayzel, a local Jewish leader who ran for the seat with ambitions of uniting the Jewish community behind his campaign, said. “It is said that Jews will be blessed when they stand together and will experience misfortune when they are divided. My pleas for Jewish unity in this race went unheeded. In my messaging to the Jewish community, I warned of a repeat of New York City in NJ-11, and this result is a consequence of a house divided. I pray our people can unify to find a path forward.”

Rasmussen said that Malinowski, who came closest to beating Mejia, would be the strongest candidate in a head-to-head race against Mejia in June, and Rasmussen said he could envision a scenario in which Malinowski ultimately took another shot at the seat despite his previous pledge not to.

“I think it’s a little bit tougher for Tahesha Way to do that,” Rasmussen said. “She would very clearly have outside spending with her. She’d very clearly have fundraising with her. But it’s a little tough to go from a 17% result to a majority result. We’ll see what happens. It doesn’t mean she shouldn’t think about it, she shouldn’t consider it, but it’s probably a stretch.”

Jeff Grayzel, a local Jewish leader who ran for the seat with ambitions of uniting the Jewish community behind his campaign, lamented Mejia’s victory as a disappointing development for supporters of Israel, and said the Jewish community needs to come together.

“I sat on a debate stage with Analilia Mejia when she said that Israel has a right to exist, but not as a Jewish state,” Grayzel said. “It is said that Jews will be blessed when they stand together and will experience misfortune when they are divided. My pleas for Jewish unity in this race went unheeded. In my messaging to the Jewish community, I warned of a repeat of New York City in NJ-11, and this result is a consequence of a house divided. I pray our people can unify to find a path forward.”

Though Mejia is well to the left of candidates that the district typically picks, Rasumussen said that it’s “hard to come up with a situation” where the district — drawn to favor Democrats with a highly motivated Democratic voter base in a midterm year — would become competitive for Republicans in the April 16 special general election to fill out the remainder of Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House term.

“However, that’s not to say that Republicans won’t try,” Rasmussen said. “If I were a Republican who had the ability to invest resources, I would certainly be taking a very close look at this race on these next three elections that are going to be happening this year in this district, and trying to see if I can take advantage of the very particular circumstances.”

“I think it’s pretty clear why voters went to Mejia, and it’s not because she is a socialist or because she is the most left of any candidate in the race,” Micah Rasmussen, the director of the Rebovich Institute for New Jersey Politics at Rider University, said. “Voters were driven away from Malinowski because of that advertising. They did not view a machine candidate as a viable alternative. They saw Mejia as the candidate in the race who could most stand up to Trump … the candidate who had the clearest position on ICE.”

Rasmussen said that UDP’s advertising against Malinowski “very clearly … worked,” citing the significant drop in Malinowski’s share of the vote from the first early votes to be submitted — where he was receiving 60-70% of the vote — and votes submitted later in the cycle, as well as votes on election day.

“It’s pretty clear that the reason they went in [Mejia’s] direction is because she carved out a different position on ICE, which is very clearly on voters minds, and just convinced voters that she was the person who could best stand up to Trump, and that, it seems is what Democratic voters are looking for,” Rasmussen said.

He was skeptical of the narrative that the result was a sign of a broader voter appetite for socialist or socialist-adjacent policies in moderate suburban districts.

“I think it’s pretty clear why voters went to Mejia, and it’s not because she is a socialist or because she is the most left of any candidate in the race,” Rasmussen said. “Voters were driven away from Malinowski because of that advertising. They did not view a machine candidate as a viable alternative. They saw Mejia as the candidate in the race who could most stand up to Trump … the candidate who had the clearest position on ICE.”

The race also saw substantially higher turnout than most anticipated — surpassing 2024 primary turnout levels in not just the 11th District but every congressional district in New Jersey, according to Rasmussen — a sign of strong Democratic motivation to vote, likely spurred by President Donald Trump.

Gill’s fourth-place finish — despite entering the race as the favorite given the backing he received from New Jersey Democratic institutions — is a clear signal that the state’s Democratic machine has largely lost its ability to shape elections to its will, Rasmussen added.

Tomorrow’s New Jersey special Democratic primary election to fill Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s vacant House seat will offer an early test of AIPAC’s ability to continue showcasing its political clout. The pro-Israel group’s super PAC, in a potentially risky move, has spent over $2 million in ads attacking former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who has come out in favor of conditioning some aid to Israel, in hopes of electing a more reliable ally in former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way.

The group’s ad hits Malinowski not for his views on Israel, but for a bipartisan vote in 2019 funding the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) and over stock trades he made as a congressman. The ICE attacks, in particular, are expected to resonate in the affluent, center-left district. Because of his name recognition representing a neighboring district before losing reelection in 2022, Malinowski started out as the early front-runner but is taking a serious hit on the airwaves.

But complicating that strategy is the presence of a far-left, anti-Israel candidate in Analilia Mejia, who leads a progressive advocacy group and has been endorsed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). Mejia has been polling in second place, according to some reports, and has a path to winning the nomination — and the seat, given the 11th Congressional District’s Democratic lean.

The race also features Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, an establishment-oriented politician — endorsed by former Gov. Phil Murphy — who has expressed consistently pro-Israel views on the campaign trail and in an interview with Jewish Insider. 

Even as the political environment within the Democratic Party has shifted to the left, AIPAC isn’t backing down from its aggressive, on-offense playbook from 2024, when a number of mainstream pro-Israel Democrats backed by the group won their elections to Congress — while two of AIPAC’s most extreme opponents, former Reps. Cori Bush (D-MO) and Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), fell short in their reelection bids.

Given the changed intraparty mood, there was a question about whether pro-Israel groups would need to play a little more defense this election cycle, or at least refocus attention on stopping the most radical candidates with a chance of winning instead of going all-out for the most principled allies.

That’s looking — at least for now — not to be the case. 

In Illinois’ upcoming primaries, state Sen. Laura Fine has emerged as the pro-Israel favorite against one frequent critic of Israel (Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss) and one outspoken anti-Israel activist (social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh) in another affluent Democratic district just outside of Chicago. The pro-Israel community isn’t hedging its bets in a bid to prevent Abughazaleh from prevailing.

The confident pro-Israel playbook looks like it’s working. Fine just announced raising a whopping $1.2 million in the last three months of 2025, and a new internal poll for Fine’s campaign shows her tied with Biss in first place, holding the momentum in the crowded primary.

That same dynamic is playing out in Michigan’s three-way Senate primary, where Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) is being rewarded with political support and donations for her long record of pro-Israel allyship. Her opponents offer two different shades of opposition to Israel: state Sen. Mallory McMorrow, who tagged Israel’s war against Hamas as a genocide but has now been looking to pivot away from talking about the Middle East; and virulently anti-Israel physician Abdul El-Sayed, who has made hostility to Israel a central part of his campaign message. But McMorrow doesn’t appear to be winning — at least for now — much support from pro-Israel Democrats worried about stopping El-Sayed at all costs.

The New Jersey special election primary also features some quirks that incentivize AIPAC’s involvement. The district, in the northern part of the state, has a significant Jewish constituency, and is one of the most affluent districts in the country, making it uniquely well-suited for a mainstream pro-Israel centrist regardless of the national party trends. “This is a capitalist district,” one Democratic strategist who lives in the district told JI. 

In addition, there will be another regularly scheduled primary in June for the full two-year term starting in 2027 — as opposed to the special election, which will only elect a lawmaker for the remainder of the year. If Malinowski gets elected, he’ll likely maintain a lock on the seat for as long as he wants it.  As a former congressman, he’d reenter Congress as a more-influential, longer-tenured member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee. But if a left-wing candidate like Mejia surprisingly squeaks through, she’d likely face difficulty winning the primary for a full term. 

AIPAC’s super PAC — the United Democracy Project — also has another good reason to play an active role in this year’s primaries. It reported $96 million cash on hand at the end of 2025, more than twice as much financial firepower as it had last cycle at this time. 

As she competes in a crowded Democratic primary for Pennsylvania’s 7th District, Carol Obando-Derstine is hoping support from the former Democratic incumbent, her Latina immigrant background, her experience in politics and activism and her expertise in energy will help her stand out in the competitive field of Democrats vying to unseat Rep. Ryan Mackenzie (R-PA) in the upcoming midterms.

Asked by Jewish Insider about her path to victory in the Democratic primary — facing opponents with, variously, stronger fundraising numbers and backing from popular Gov. Josh Shapiro — Obando-Derstine emphasized that she was endorsed by Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA), who held the seat from 2018-2025.

She said she also understands firsthand the difficulties that voters in the district are facing, as well as the “strength of our community.” She said has a record in getting results for the district through her work with community organizations, while working for former Sen. Bob Casey (D-PA) as an advisor on Latino affairs and her background in the energy industry.

Though she didn’t speak at length about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Obando-Derstine is taking a positive approach to the U.S.-Israel relationship on the campaign trail, telling JI, “America has a special relationship with Israel … and I will ensure that we continue to have [that] … there’s a deep connection between our two countries that spans generations.”

She said she supports continued aid to Israel and rejected characterizations of the war in Gaza as a genocide. She also called for the U.S. to continue to pursue a two-state solution.

Obando-Derstine also said that it’s “essential for [Iran] not to have access to a nuclear weapon, for our safety as well as Israel” and that she approves of any necessary methods, including military strikes or sanctions, to stop Iran from obtaining nuclear weapons, adding that “diplomacy is always the first approach that we should have.”

At home, Obando-Derstine said she’s very concerned by the rise in antisemitism, alongside rising hate against Latinos and immigrants, and said that “there is no place for that type of hate in America.”

She praised the approach taken by the Biden administration, including its national task force to combat antisemitism, and said that Congress must work to protect people from being attacked for their religion or the color of their skin.

“I know what that’s like to be targeted because I’m Latina and we have that, we have a firm and very clear responsibility to protect all Americans,” she continued. 

Obando-Derstine noted she’s the only woman, the only Latina candidate and the only bilingual and bicultural candidate in the race, and has made outreach in Spanish a component of her campaign since its launch — in a district, the 7th, in the Lehigh Valley, that’s about one-fifth Latino.

She also highlighted her experience as an energy expert, at a time when voters are struggling with utility costs and are grappling with the rapid spread of data centers.

Obando-Derstine is backed by EMILY’s List, the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ PAC and 314 PAC, which supports candidates with STEM backgrounds. Obando-Derstine and fellow primary candidate Bob Brooks are both designated by J Street PAC as “primary approved” candidates.

“I decided to run for Congress because I had had enough of watching working families struggle while politicians like Ryan Mackenzie voted to cut health care, food assistance and raise prices, all the while giving trillions in tax cuts to billionaires,” Obando-Derstine said. “And I’m also an immigrant, and I see blatant attacks on immigrants and Latinos in particular, and I just couldn’t stay on the sidelines.”

Like many candidates nationwide, she said her top priority is improving affordability and expanding health-care access. She said she’s also focused on supporting the workforce and small businesses, promoting clean energy and fighting back against the “reckless agenda that’s coming out of Washington … the prioritization of billionaires over working families, the targeting of law-abiding folks by ICE and health-care cuts.”

Former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-IL) has emerged as an early front-runner in the Illinois 8th Congressional District primary, though she’s facing off against a number of anti-Israel candidates.

Bean, who maintained a pro-Israel record in office, is running as a relative moderate. One of her leading challengers is likely to be Junaid Ahmed, who supports an arms embargo and end to all military aid to Israel, making a second run for the seat, with another candidate who has expressed support for policies cutting off aid to Israel, Yasmin Bankole, also showing some early strength in polling.

“Coming into it, you’d say Melissa would probably be the one to beat. The question is, has the party changed a lot, especially in primaries, since she was in the House last?” Pete Giangreco, a longtime Chicago-based Democratic political strategist, told Jewish Insider. “Has the party moved — or at least Democratic primary voters, have they moved to the left more than where Melissa is, is sort of an open question.”

Internal polling by the Bean campaign last September showed her with a narrow lead but only polling at 10%, followed by Ahmed at 8%, Cook County Commissioner Kevin Morrison at 5% and Bankole, a Hanover Park trustee, at 3%, with more than two-thirds of respondents undecided.

A late November poll by the campaign of military veteran and attorney Dan Tully found Bean leading at 20%, followed by Morrison at 10%, Bankole at 7% and Ahmed at 5%, with 46% undecided.

Businessman Neil Khot, who is self-funding his campaign, is also a wild card assuming he spends enough money to build name recognition ahead of the primary campaign.

The seat, in Chicago’s western suburbs, is currently held by Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-IL), who is running for the Senate.

Frank Calabrese, a Chicago political analyst, said he anticipates Bean will have a significant fundraising advantage in the next filing period, given her history in Congress and her post-congressional career as a banker. He named Bankole, Morrison and Ahmed as other top Democratic candidates.

Ahmed was endorsed last June by Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA), and has also been backed by Reps. Delia Ramirez (D-IL) and Pramila Jayapal (D-WA) and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC, Justice Democrats, Track AIPAC and IfNotNow Chicago.

He has a degree of name recognition and an established fundraising base — particularly among progressive and Arab-American voters — from an unsuccessful run for the same seat in 2022, a political strategist involved in the race said. The strategist rated him as Bean’s strongest competitor.

As of the end of September, Ahmed led the race in fundraising, with $838,000, fueled by small-dollar donations from Arab-Americans.

Bean, who did not join the race until mid-September, raised $530,000 in her first few weeks in the race. Morrison raised $382,000 and Bankole $293,000 during the last fundraising quarter.

Khot was the first candidate to go on air with television advertisements, which Giangreco said could give him early momentum. 

“I think you’d have to say Melissa is the favorite here, but she’s got to raise money and make her pitch, and I imagine that she’ll be on the air soon,” Giangreco said. “She got a little bit of a late start, so I think that’s probably why she’s not quite there yet on resources, and it’ll be interesting to see what the early spending for Neil Khot does.”

Morrison has a record as a local official and backing from various local leaders, as well as Reps. Eric Sorensen (D-IL), Mike Quigley (D-IL), Becca Balint (D-VT), Mark Takano (D-CA), Ritchie Torres (D-NY) and Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Equality PAC, the campaign arm of the Congressional Equality Caucus, which supports LGBTQ+ candidates.

Bankole is backed by Sen. Dick Durbin (D-IL), but Giangreco was skeptical that she’ll be able to put together a winning coalition.

“There are a number of candidates who are trying to kind of reinvent the Raja coalition. And you do have a large South Asian population there,” he said. “How many will vote in a Democratic  primary is an open question, and there are multiple candidates who are going after Raja’s base, so I don’t know if that feels like a winning strategy.”

The strategist involved in the race noted that it has received significantly less attention than several of the other open-seat races in the Chicago area. The strategist characterized Bean and Ahmed as the candidates to beat at this point.

Bean, who served from 2005-2011 is likely to highlight her work in Congress, particularly her support for the Affordable Care Act, as she works to build up support. But the strategist said that Bean could be vulnerable, among the liberal base, to attacks on her as a banker, linking her to Wall Street.

They predicted that Ahmed and his backers will work to rally support from progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and to turn out support among the socialist-leaning left.

Giangreco was more skeptical of Ahmed’s chances running on a progressive platform.

“Unlike [in Illinois’s 9th Congressional District] and [5th Congressional District], that are far more progressive, or even [the 2nd Congressional District] … there isn’t a liberal bastion like those other places have, where there’s a well-grounded progressive round structure,” Giangreco said. “It doesn’t mean there aren’t progressive voters. It’s just less part of the culture of the Democratic primary electorate there.”

Though the Tully campaign polling put Ahmed behind other progressive candidates in the race, the strategist said that Ahmed’s fundraising has been strong and should be sufficient to help him pull ahead into the top tier of the race, and he will be best positioned to capture progressive left voters.

Other candidates currently polling lower, like Tully — who raised $630,000 as of the end of the previous quarter — are hoping that a heated battle between some of those more prominent candidates will push voters away and give them a chance to capture a share of the voters.

“Dan Tully is a really interesting candidate, veteran and all that, but — not to put everybody into a box — but veterans usually have a tough time raising primary money, they actually tend not to do as well in primaries,” Giangreco said.

Rep. Haley Stevens (D-MI) announced on Tuesday morning that she’s entering the Democratic primary for Michigan’s open Senate seat, setting up an intraparty showdown in one of the most consequential battleground states in the country. 

Stevens is a leading contender for the seat of retiring Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI). She will be facing state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Abdul El-Sayed, who led the Wayne County Department of Health, Human and Veterans Services. Former Michigan House Speaker Joe Tate, a former NFL player, is also seriously considering a run.

Stevens represents a district in the Detroit suburbs and has made supporting local manufacturing a centerpiece of her time in Congress, as well as her work in the Obama administration in supporting the auto industry recovery. 

That work took center stage in Stevens’ campaign announcement video, where she also attacked President Donald Trump, accusing him of endangering Michigan jobs and driving up prices with tariffs and other policies.

“I remember being handed the keys to my first car. I’m Haley Stevens and I bet you do too,” Stevens said in her launch video, which prominently features footage of Michigan factories. “That used Oldsmobile Cutlass Supreme, it meant more to me than just freedom. It meant I had a piece of Michigan. You know, the Michigan that helped build this country. The Michigan that shaped me. It’s not just what I sound like, it’s who I am.”

In a statement, Stevens’ campaign also went after White House advisor Elon Musk, accusing him and Trump of undermining essential services and endangering citizens’ private data.

Stevens is a favorite within the state’s Jewish community for her outspoken support for Israel and condemnation of high-profile antisemitic incidents at a time when many Michigan Democrats have pandered to anti-Israel activists.

She represents a sizable Jewish community in the Detroit suburbs with which she forged a strong relationship in part during her successful primary campaign against then-Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI).

But pro-Israel groups also view McMorrow as a reliable ally, and are more concerned with blocking the candidacy of El-Sayed, a Bernie Sanders-endorsed progressive who supports cutting off aid to Israel. 

Because of that dynamic, outside pro-Israel groups may not formally endorse a favorite in the Democratic primary — even as Stevens will likely benefit from widespread support from Jewish voters in the early stage of the campaign.

AIPAC and the affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC have been rumored to be planning to spend in support of Stevens despite not usually intervening in statewide races.

“Although we have not yet made a decision in this race, Rep. Stevens has emerged as a pro-Israel stalwart during her tenure in the House of Representatives,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told Jewish Insider.

Stevens also boasts an electoral record that demonstrates she can win over swing voters — her district was a battleground when she was first elected in 2018 before redistricting made it more safely Democratic — along with ousting Levin, an anti-Israel Democratic incumbent, in a member-on-member primary. 

McMorrow has demonstrated a knack for earning glowing national media attention — at first through a state Senate speech in which she pushed back against accusations against her by a GOP colleague of grooming and sexualizing children and her outspoken support for abortion rights after Roe v. Wade was overturned — even though she’s only been serving as a state senator in Michigan.

In a sign of McMorrow’s attentiveness to the Jewish community, she’s returned policy papers to at least one Democratic pro-Israel group underscoring her support for Israel’s security, according to a source familiar with her outreach. She also has personal ties to the Jewish community — while she’s Catholic, her husband is Jewish and they are raising their children in a mixed-faith home.

One of McMorrow’s top advisors is Lis Smith, who engineered Pete Buttigieg’s out-of-nowhere 2020 presidential campaign and who has been a prominent critic of the party’s left-wing activist class. 

Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political strategist, told JI he views Stevens as holding significant institutional advantages in the hotly-contested primary.

Hemond noted that Stevens has been a strong fundraiser in her congressional seat and has proven her ability to win close elections, which Hemond said will be “paramount” to Democratic primary voters. Stevens also boasts a strong relationship with organized labor and Black voters in her district, Hemond added.

He acknowledged that McMorrow is “trying to position herself as somewhat more moderate” but argued that her base and brand remains strongest among progressives — and El-Sayed, with Sanders’ endorsement, is playing in the left-wing lane. 

Hemond said that El-Sayed did not prove to be a strong fundraiser in his 2018 gubernatorial race and failed to build support statewide, only winning 30% of the vote in the primary contest. But he’s well-positioned to do well with Arab-American voters in the state, and other single-issue, anti-Israel voters.

On the Republican side, former Rep. Mike Rogers (R-MI) has already declared his second run for the seat after losing by less than 20,000 votes to Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) in 2024. He won Trump’s endorsement, giving him a critical edge against any potential GOP challengers.

A new poll commissioned by Democratic Majority for Israel’s political arm suggests that momentum is building for Wesley Bell as he prepares to take on Rep. Cori Bush (D-MO) in a hotly contested primary next week.

The poll shows Bell, the prosecuting attorney for St. Louis, with a six-point lead over Bush, a prominent Squad-affiliated lawmaker who has faced backlash from Jewish voters over her strident criticism of Israel. Among 400 likely Democratic primary voters surveyed between July 21-24, Bell led Bush, 48-42%, according to a polling memo shared on Monday.

His performance was an improvement over a previous poll released by DMFI PAC and conducted in mid-June, which showed Bell — at 43% — with a one-point lead in the race. Both polls were conducted by the Mellman Group. 

Other recent polls have shown Bell strongly positioned to prevail as he seeks to become the second challenger this cycle to unseat a Squad incumbent, replicating Westchester County Executive George Latimer’s victory over Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) in New York last month.

In an echo of that race, the St. Louis primary has quietly become one of the most expensive of the congressional cycle — with a diverse coalition of outside groups spending millions to boost Bell’s campaign. The biggest spender has been AIPAC’s super PAC, which has invested more than $7 million on ads and mailers.

For its part, DMFI PAC, which is also backing Bell, has spent nearly $500,000 in the race. “As voters hear from the candidates,” Mark Mellman, DMFI PAC’s chairman, said in a statement, “Democrats in Missouri’s 1st District are increasingly disillusioned with Bush and attracted to Bell.”

The coronavirus is shaking up congressional races around the country, causing candidates to shift their messaging to address the pandemic and its effects on their districts. 

Campaigning at a distance: “The term social distancing is just about the perfect antonym to the term political campaign. We’ve had to recalibrate everything,” said Jake Auchincloss, who is running in a crowded Democratic primary in Massachusetts’s 4th district. Auchincloss, who serves as a city councilor in Newton, told JI he’s doing outreach through video and phone calls. “If you can’t canvass by door, and if you can’t do meet-and-greets in people’s homes, how do you still establish connections with voters? Because conversations with voters at the end of the day [are] what matters.”

Dominating the conversation: The virus is now the leading issue in campaigns across the country, congressional candidates tell JI. “This is by far the number one issue” voters are talking about, Gina Ortiz Jones, the Democratic nominee in Texas’ 23rd district, told JI. “People have real concerns about their ability to meet the bills that are due here in just over a week. So this is by far the number one issue. It’s a health issue but it’s also an economic issue.”

Feeling the effects: Sara Jacobs, who’s running in California’s 53rd district, told a similar story. “It’s clear that everyone is feeling this crisis and is scared of what is happening right now. And especially so many folks in the district whose small businesses are not getting any money, whose incomes are being cut because of this,” Jacobs said. “I think it’s affecting every single person, and it’s clearly dominating the conversation.”

Sara Jacobs

Not forgotten: Mike Garcia, a Republican running in a special election in California’s 25th district on May 12, said voters have been asking about other aspects of the campaign as well. “Folks are talking about the coronavirus for the first few seconds, but right away, the focus is the campaign and how we’re gonna win,” Garcia said. “I think people have resigned themselves to the quarantine and they’re trying to just do what they can.”

Change of strategy: As social distancing has put an end to most in-person campaigning, candidates are doubling down on their digital strategy and operations, including holding digital town halls and other online and phone-in events. “We’re a young, nimble campaign, so we’re able to adjust and use technology to our advantage,” said Ammar Campa-Najjar, who is running in California’s 50th district. “And so we’re going to use the fact that we’re a young campaign, more tech-savvy, and use that to kind of overcome the obstacles of this moment.”

Looking ahead: Campa-Najjar said his campaign will continue to rely on mailers, postcards and phone-banking, and he’s hoping he’ll be able to get back to meeting voters face-to-face later in the race. “Hopefully by the time October and September roll around, we’ll be past this — and not just for campaigns but for the country,” he added.

Campaign finance: Candidates are also developing new strategies to keep cash flowing in during the crisis. Garcia has been holding “flash-funding teleconferences,” bringing groups of 15 to 30 donors onto a 45-minute phone call: “We’re still getting great support from the donors.”

Resources for communities: Campaigns throughout the country are also working to provide resources to their potential voters to help them through the crisis. Alan Khazei, who is running in the Democratic primary in Massachusetts’s 4th congressional district, is using social media to reach out to constituents. “I feel privileged, I have this platform. And I’m just trying to use it to connect with people and inform them and share policy ideas and get access to experts,” Khazei told JI, noting that the next digital event he is hosting will feature Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD), a former classmate of his from Harvard.

Gina Ortiz Jones

Advocacy: In Texas, Jones and her campaign are trying to help people access information about the virus — efforts that have included translating materials into Spanish, connecting constituents with federal resources and advocating for vulnerable communities. “What we tried to do is fill the void of information that’s not getting out,” she said. “We’ve pivoted in a major way, in light of the need that we’re seeing in the community,” Jones added. Jacobs said that since the current situation has made it difficult for critical workers to find childcare, her campaign has set up a fund to subsidize childcare costs.

Empty seat: Garcia has been taking on a similar role, which he said is especially important in his district, which currently has no representation in Congress following the resignation of Rep. Katie Hill (D-CA) in October. “I have taken on a responsibility to make sure that we’re getting the information out to our district, to our constituents, both sides of the aisle,” he said.

Continuing the work: California Assemblywoman Christy Smith is running against Garcia in the state’s 25th congressional district at the same time that she’s serving her assembly district, and the work, she says, sometimes overlaps. “As a state assemblymember, at this critical time, I am currently focused on my work as this community’s public servant, ensuring  state response to my local constituents and connecting people with essential information, services, and resources,” Smith said. “My campaign has moved to prioritizing remote voter contact, through tools like texting with voters, at-home, phone banking, and encouraging supporters to speak with their friends and family about early voting by mail in advance of our May 12th special election.”

Online only: Ben Sigel, another candidate in Massachusetts’s 4th district, told JI that he’s gone “fully digital” — as part of that effort, he’s held a series of Facebook Live sessions with local experts and doctors to provide information to constituents to help them navigate issues related to the coronavirus crises.

Democrats attack Republican leadership: Democratic candidates are also focusing their attacks on the Trump administration’s response to the pandemic. Jones said the federal government could do more, including ensuring that medical equipment is available and affordable.

Insisting that claims she has not broken through in the Democratic primary are “an illusion,” author Marianne Williamson brought her campaign to the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. on Thursday.

Speaking to a crowd of a few dozen journalists and supporters, Williamson touted her plans for a Department of Peace and her broader goal to move American politics away from “a very 20^th century mindset… infiltrated by the undue influence of money.”

Williamson told the crowd that the past century “was dominated by a mindset that’s basically a product of Newtonian physics, that saw the world as a huge machine… that 20^th century mindset dominates our politics today.” In contrast, the Democratic hopeful urged a 21^st century mindset that was “far more integrated” and “far more holistic.”  

The presidential candidate said she had been targeted in a smear campaign by “political elites” after the second presidential debate in Detroit, where she warned of “the dark psychic force of collectivized hatred” that Trump was evoking. 

“I sure as hell did break through,” Williamson said of her performance, suggesting “the political hits began” as a result of her popularity. Williamson has faced scrutiny over a variety of past statements including skepticism towards mandatory vaccination. The author did not meet the polling qualifications for the last two DNC debates, although she garnered a sufficient number of small donors to participate.

Advocating for a Department of Peace, a proposal pushed in past Democratic primaries by former congressman Dennis Kucinich (D-OH), Williamson argued, ”our national security agenda is dominated — as you know — basically by a constant perpetuation of war.” In contrast, she claimed “peace-building exemplifies skill sets and expertise [that are] just as sophisticated, just as important and, in many ways, take just as much courage” as those shown by the armed forces. 

In her view, the building blocks were already there for this agency inside of government: “We already have the experts,” insisted Williamson. “It is simply not what we fund. We don’t need to bring in new people but to coordinate among the agencies that exist.”Williamson also outlined her foreign policy vision and reiterated her longstanding support for reentering the nuclear deal with Iran. She harshly criticized the Iraq War, saying “it was an absolutely horrible transgression on every level” — and argued that “the genesis of ISIS comes from that” — but insisted that the United States should have intervened militarily in Rwanda in the 1990s. She also expressed her support for the U.S. invasion of Afghanistan after September 11 by noting the brutal treatment of the Taliban towards women.