Nina Turner and Shontel Brown diverge on Israel-Gaza conflict

The leading Democratic candidates now competing in Ohio’s 11th-district special election, Nina Turner and Shontel Brown, are divided on several fundamental issues, Israel chief among them. Turner, a progressive stalwart backed by Justice Democrats, supports conditioning aid to the Jewish state, whereas Brown, a moderate with close ties to establishment Democrats, holds more mainstream pro-Israel views.

Further underscoring that contrast, both candidates offered sharply divergent statements this week as violence escalated between Israel and Hamas. “In times like these the United States must stand firmly behind our close ally Israel,” Brown said in comments to Jewish Insider on Wednesday, while urging “all sides, regardless of fault, to exercise restraint and de-escalate the crisis.”

“Hamas’s massive rocket attacks are deeply troubling and must stop,” Brown added. “Hamas is placing civilians on both sides at risk. Israel has the right to defend its citizens in the face of these attacks. Israeli families should never have to spend the night in a bomb shelter.”

Turner, on the other hand, positioned herself firmly on the side of the Palestinians. “Solidarity is a verb,” Turner declared in a briefly worded Twitter message, adding a raised-fist emoji to the end of her comment.

The congressional hopeful was emphasizing her support for a separate tweet from IfNotNow, the far-left Jewish group. “NOW: American Jews are joining with Palestinians and others in front of the State Department to say #SaveSheikhJarrah and #EndApartheid,” the message read, referring to the East Jerusalem neighborhood where six Palestinian families are facing eviction. “The Jewish moral tradition demands action.”

Turner’s approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict has drawn scrutiny among Jewish community members in the 11th district, which includes a large swath of Cleveland as well as a sliver of Akron. 

“By promoting the attack that Israel engages in ‘apartheid,’ Nina Turner does nothing to advance ‘solidarity’ and only furthers division,” Rob Zimmerman, a Shaker Heights city councilmember who knows Turner from her time as an Ohio state senator, charged in an email to JI. “Her views are uninformed and out of step with the Jewish community she wishes to represent.”

Turner’s campaign did not respond to requests for comment.

Meanwhile, Brown, a Cuyahoga County councilwoman and party chair, appears to have captured support from Cleveland’s sizable Jewish community. Advocacy groups such as Pro-Israel America and Democratic Majority for Israel have also thrown their support behind Brown, who has had to contend with Turner’s substantial warchest with less than three months remaining until the August 3 primary, according to the latest filings from the Federal Election Commission.

Turner and Brown are among several Democrats vying to succeed former Rep. Marcia Fudge (D-OH), who was recently confirmed as the Biden administration’s secretary of housing and urban development.

John Barnes, Jr., who is also running for the seat and previously served as an Ohio state representative, was eager to weigh in on the conflict between Israel and Hamas. “Any aggression against the State of Israel is an aggression against the United States of America and we must be strong and unapologetic in our stance with our ally,” he told JI. “I urge all sides to come together and work towards an immediate de-escalation of the tensions and against further extremist provocations.”

“We need to condemn the actions of Hamas for indiscriminately firing rockets into Israel,” Jeff Johnson, another candidate and a former Ohio state senator, said in a phone interview with JI. “But I think we also need to lead by asking both sides to step back to focus on a way to have a ceasefire and not go any further because it’s leading toward war. We have to be able to use the United States’s power and influence to get some diplomatic relations to try to solve this.”

Brown said the clash has only reinforced her commitment to a negotiated two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “It is the only way to bring hope and prosperity to the people, ensure Israelis and Palestinians live in the safety and peace they deserve, and to stop these eruptions of violence,” she said.

Left-wing groups pour money into Louisiana special election

Two longtime Louisiana Democrats — State Sens. Troy Carter and Karen Carter Peterson — will face off this Saturday in a special election runoff to fill the congressional seat for Louisiana’s deep blue second district. The seat, which encompasses most of New Orleans and part of Baton Rouge, was previously held by former Rep. Cedric Richmond (D-LA), who left Congress to lead the White House Office of Public Engagement.

The two Democrats have staked out positions reflecting what’s become a familiar battle in the Democratic Party: Carter fills the mainstream/establishment lane and Carter Peterson has claimed the progressive lane. And as Carter pulled ahead in the race, progressive groups threw their support behind Carter Peterson.

In the all-candidate election on March 20, Carter led by more than 10 points, with 36.4% of the vote to Carter Peterson’s 22.9%. The third-place candidate, progressive activist Gary Chambers, who came in at 21.3% of the vote, has endorsed Carter Peterson, likely helping her narrow the gap with Carter.

The race has been shaped in part by the endorsements and outside support each candidate has received. Carter Peterson has been endorsed by former Georgia gubernatorial candidate Stacey Abrams, EMILY’s List, the Congressional Progressive Caucus, Peace Action and several other outside groups. Late-breaking endorsements have also arrived in the past week from Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). EMILY’s List and the League of Conservation Voters have poured money into boosting Carter Peterson — EMILY’s List had spent $600,000 as of March and the LCV spent $400,000.

Carter is endorsed by Richmond, Democratic Whip Rep. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Democratic Caucus Chair Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), in addition to a score of local officials and unions.

“This is a classic race of D.C. versus the locals,” Dane Strother, a Democratic political strategist who has worked closely with officials in Louisiana, told Jewish Insider, referring to the apparent dichotomy between the high spending from outside groups on Carter Peterson’s behalf and Carter’s endorsements from local officials. 

Some similar dynamics are playing out in the special election in Ohio’s 11th district, where progressive donors are boosting State Sen. Nina Turner.

Since the initial election, Carter Peterson has significantly accelerated her fundraising — at the time of the election, she had raised $450,000 to Carter’s $924,000. She now heads into Saturday’s election having raised $830,000 to Carter’s $1.1 million.

Ahead of Saturday’s election, experts generally agree that it’s anyone’s race and, without any public polling, it’s difficult to pinpoint a clear frontrunner. “My guess is it’s dead even,” said Strother.

The fact that neither candidate has released any internal polling indicates that both campaigns believe the race is neck-and-neck, added Brian Brox, a professor of political science at Tulane University in New Orleans.

Neither Carter nor Carter Peterson agreed to numerous interview requests from JI.

The election, local observers said, is likely to come down to the most committed activists and which candidate has best been able to mobilize them. Strother predicted that turnout will be 10% or less of eligible voters.

“This is a special election when you’ve just come off of having several elections. There is a bit of voter fatigue,” Robert Hogan, a professor of political science at Louisiana State University, told JI. 

Even the weather this weekend in the New Orleans area — rain is forecast for Saturday — could affect the ultimate result, given the already-low expected turnout.

“If we have a bad weather day on Saturday, then… I would be worried about some rather low turnout,” Brox said. “The winner will be determined by who is best able to mobilize those absolute core supporters who will go out in bad weather and vote regardless.”

Despite the energy that progressive groups have dedicated to this race, local observers have raised questions about their ultimate impact.

“I see this as primarily a fight among factions within, or at least the results of voting will be a fight amongst factions within the New Orleans area,” Brox said. “It’s an intra-Democratic Party fight, but it’s a local Democratic Party fight. So I think that to the extent that a national group is getting involved, it’s only because they would have people in town that appreciate the help or are kind of on the same page, but I’m not sure that any of these voters are looking to either the Biden administration or to other progressive groups to take their cue; I think that this is very much inward-looking.”

Experts also say that, despite Carter Peterson’s efforts to frame herself as more progressive than her opponent, the two are not, in practice, very far apart on policy issues, and would likely vote similarly in Congress.

“There might be some subtle differences in terms of the kinds of legislation that they would author, but I would suspect that they would be… highly correlated in terms of the votes that they would cast in Congress,” Brox said. “You see this tension between establishment and the progressive wings, even though I think the actual distance isn’t that great.”

Recent debates have reflected the broad agreement between the two candidates on a range of issues, at times turning acrimonious as the two have sought to draw distinctions between themselves. Carter Peterson has attempted to tie Carter to former President Donald Trump, who is widely unpopular in the solidly blue district, and Carter has accused Carter Peterson of opportunistic faux-progressivism.

Both candidates, however, have also been in local politics since the mid-1990s, meaning they are well-known and well-established in the district, regardless of broader national political trends and the mutual attacks.

“They’re just both so well-known that the ability to change the narrative on one or the other is going to be somewhat limited,” said Robert Mann, a former Louisiana politics reporter who is now a professor at Louisiana State University. 

The lopsided national spending in support of Carter Peterson also makes the outcome of the race an imperfect predictor of trends in the Democratic Party in the Biden era, suggested Strother.

“I don’t know that this is a proxy fight. There’s been no real expenditure from the moderates in support of Troy Carter… I think you’d have to have money on both sides to determine if this is a predictor for the future,” he explained. “And you don’t. You only have money on one side.”

Even so, for Louisiana’s 2nd district, the race is likely to carry significant consequences.

“The person who’s going to win is going to be an incumbent in a safe district for a long time, unless they get caught up in a scandal or decide to run for something else,” said Brox. “So the stakes are pretty high.”

In New York City’s only purple district, a first-term incumbent is in jeopardy

In an email to supporters this week, Rep. Max Rose’s (D-NY) campaign manager admitted that the first-term congressman’s seat in New York’s 11th congressional district is in danger of flipping. 

“In the past few weeks alone, political experts at Roll Call, CNN, and now the National Journal have singled Max out as one of the most vulnerable incumbents anywhere in the country,” read the message. A similar email, sent out by the campaign of Nicole Malliotakis read, “Roll Call named Max Rose the 3rd most vulnerable member of the House.” 

The emails underscore just how close the race has become in recent weeks ahead of Rose’s first reelection battle. The 11th district is considered the most conservative part of New York City — won by President Donald Trump in 2016 by 10 points — and one of the couple dozen districts the Cook Political Report rates a “toss-up.” 

A NBC4/Marist poll released on Monday showed a neck-and-neck race, consistent with polling in recent weeks. 

***

In a recent interview with Jewish Insider, Rose, a Purple Heart recipient and National Guard veteran of the war in Afghanistan, said he tries not to pay attention to the polls, instead choosing to focus on serving “the interests of my community, according to my own values and according to my never-ending commitment to give everything for this country, including my life. I will give my life to this country. I’m a patriot through and through.”

Ultimately, Rose believes that Republican and Democratic voters alike will appreciate that, despite his membership in the Democratic caucus, he “has been willing to stand up to both parties” when he thinks things in Washington are heading in the wrong direction. 

Rose also prides himself on standing up for what he believes is right, regardless of which party originated the idea or legislation. He pointed to his support of Trump’s executive order to combat antisemitism on campus, issued last December, and his approval of the targeted killing of Qassim Soleimani, the commander of Iran’s elite Quds Force, earlier this year, as instances where he chose values over politics. 

An elected official “can’t be thinking about parties, the polls, the next election and what your donors want,” Rose explained. “That very false commitment is why people hate politics. And when we talk about changing politics, that’s what we have to change.” 

Malliotakis contested Rose’s effort to portray himself as an independent by highlighting his vote to impeach Trump as well as backing he received from a super PAC aligned with House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA). “It’s very disingenuous to tell the community that you are independent when you turn around and go to Washington and vote [96%] of time with Nancy Pelosi, including for the most partisan measure we’ve seen in years — which is the impeachment vote against the president,” Malliotakis told JI. 

She further suggested Pelosi’s investment on behalf of Rose — who voted against Pelosi in her bid for House speaker last year — is an attempt to “save him because she wants to keep him as a rubber stamp” in Washington. 

Outside political groups have been pouring millions into the race for the swing-district seat — adding to the string of attack ads the two candidates have aired. Rose outraised his opponent 3-to-1, raking in about $8.3 million, according to recent FEC filings. 

In the interview with JI, Rose avoided attacking his opponent — a pivot away from campaign ads and viral campaign clips that targeted Malliotakis. “Service is a privilege for me,” Rose explained. “I count my lucky stars for the love and the support of my family and the commitment that the community has shown towards building a better country, and I just strive to be there for them. That brings great joy and a great sense of fulfillment.”

Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) and his wife, Leigh, pose for a photo atop Masada.

***

Both candidates have strong ties to the Jewish community and enjoy a nearly even amount of support among members of the large Sephardic segment of the community in the portion of the district that lies in Brooklyn, according to conversations with a handful of constituents. 

For Rose’s supporters, his record speaks for itself. In his short time in Congress, the Democratic congressman has stood out as a staunch supporter of Israel and an important voice in the effort to combat rising antisemitism, which has included speaking out against controversial language used by members of his own party. 

Rose has also earned points in the Orthodox Jewish community — which has aligned more with the Republican Party in recent years — by supporting the president’s executive order to protect Jewish college students, inviting the administration’s antisemitism envoy to the district and being openly critical of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio. 

Jack Ashkenazie, a community activist in Brooklyn, told JI that as a member of Congress, Rose “has shown his support for the issues that are important to us, and it’s prudent for us to support moderate Democrats who share our values.” 

Ashkenazie, a registered Republican, said that the community is split in its support for Rose, largely because of his vote on impeachment. While the Sephardic Community Federation, based in South Brooklyn, endorsed a number of candidates for state office, it chose not to endorse either Rose or Malliotakis. Similarly, it did not make an endorsement in the presidential race.

But Ashkenazie said he’d vote for Rose as the incumbent, calling him “a staunch leader within his own party on the issues that affect us.”

“I can vote for President Trump, and I can also vote for Max Rose,” Ashkenazie told JI, “because it’s the right thing to do.”

Malliotakis has represented parts of Brooklyn and Staten Island in the New York State Assembly since 2010. She also ran for mayor in the 2017 election, losing to De Blasio by nearly 40 points, but winning her home borough. Malliotakis first visited Israel in 2019 with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee.

Former New York Assemblyman Dov Hikind told JI that he chose to endorse Malliotakis to take a stance against the rise in antisemitism, because when it comes to support for Israel, both candidates are on the same page. Hikind — who is not a resident of the district — suggested the incumbent hasn’t been forceful enough, just “fulfilling the most minimum requirements” to challenge the progressive members of his party. 

“These days are different from normal days. During a time of unprecedented antisemitism, when people are concerned about their future, we need people who are dedicated and devoted to fight antisemitism and hate,” he explained. “And especially someone like Rose, with his background — he’s no pushover. He has a strong personality, he could have done so much more within the Democratic Party to take a stand against the hate that exists in that party.” 

Malliotakis criticized Rose for not condemning Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s (D-NY) comments last year comparing ICE’s detention facilities to concentration camps. “To this day, I have not heard him condemn that,” Malliotakis told JI, adding that last year, Rose called Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), whose controversial comments about pro-Israel legislators drew widespread ire and sparked a congressional resolution condemning antisemitism, a “friend” with whom he “shares values.”

“Voters in this district deserve to know what values he’s referring to,” she said.

Nicole Malliotakis visits the Western Wall in Jerusalem. (Facebook)

In a statement to JI, Rose said, “No one should compare anything to the atrocities of the Holocaust,” adding, “Nicole [Malliotakis] lacking the self-awareness to realize how offensive it is to lecture a Jew about the Holocaust demonstrates exactly who she is and why she doesn’t belong anywhere near Congress.”

In a recent letter of support for Rose, more than two dozen prominent members of the Jewish community in Brooklyn — including a number of Republicans — noted that “electing a Republican to Congress will guarantee that our voice remains in the minority for the coming years. Max unequivocally supports every piece of legislation promoting the US-Israel relationship, and we should support those who are fighting to keep the Democrat party firmly pro-Israel.”

But for some, Rose doesn’t deserve credit for the diplomatic successes of the Trump administration when it comes to Israel. 

“To give him any credit for anything that happened to Israel in the last two years, while Trump was in office, it would be akin to thanking Pharaoh for letting the Jews out of Egypt,” Morris Benun, a local activist supporting Malliotakis, told JI. 

In his interview with JI, Rose maintained that his support for Israel is absolute, regardless of who sits in the White House or has a majority in the House, pointing out that he’s a lead sponsor of a bipartisan House resolution that expresses support for the recently signed Abraham Accords. “It’s got to be ‘country first.’ You cannot be blinded by partisanship,” he explained. “When we change those two things, we will dramatically fix our politics for the better. And I believe with all my heart and soul, that that is the direction we’re gonna take this country.” 

“That’s why I’m in Congress to focus on things like this. This is why I’m there,” Rose added. 

***

Rose has put his bipartisan credentials on display as a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, a group of 50 Republican and Democratic legislators who meet regularly and work to craft legislation that can garner support from both parties.

Asked whether she would join the bipartisan panel if elected to Congress, Malliotakis was noncommittal. “I’ll certainly look into it, but I have to learn more about every caucus and what they stand for” before making a decision, she said. 

But she was quick to point out that as a minority member of the New York State Assembly, “I’ve been willing to cross party lines and work with my colleagues to achieve positive things, but at the same time, I’m going to hold anybody who is going to be hurting the people in my district accountable.”

Malliotakis was also reluctant to point to instances where she would stand with a future President Joe Biden if they are both elected next month. “We haven’t really heard much from Joe Biden, other than he is not going to support law and order fully, and that he’s going to raise taxes. But I think one example, both [candidates] said they want to preserve [health care] coverage for pre-existing conditions. That’s something that I agree with,” she said. 

Rose told JI he does not regret the positions he’s taken during his first term in office, even if he loses his reelection bid. “You have got to do what’s right for the country, you have to do what’s right for the community, you have to uphold your values, and you have to uphold the Constitution.”

Can Marilyn Strickland make history in the Pacific Northwest?

In Washington’s 10th congressional district, two Democratic candidates are competing to succeed outgoing Rep. Denny Heck (D-WA) in a race that is viewed as representative of the growing ideological rift between moderates and progressives.

Marilyn Strickland, the former mayor of Tacoma, has earned establishment support from local and national leaders, among them two former Washington governors as well as Reps. Jim Clyburn (D-SC) and Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY). Most recently, she was CEO of the Seattle Metropolitan Chamber of Commerce, where she led the opposition to a head tax on businesses that her opponent holds up as evidence of Strickland’s fealty to corporate interests. 

Meanwhile, Beth Doglio, a community organizer and climate activist who serves in the Washington House of Representatives, has pulled in endorsements from labor groups along with progressive stalwarts like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY).

“We are running a very good campaign that highlights the differences between myself and my opponent,” Doglio, 55, told Jewish Insider in a recent interview, arguing that her support for such progressive policies as Medicare for All and the Green New Deal stands in contrast to Strickland’s more measured approach to healthcare and the environment. 

But in conversation with JI, Strickland rejected the notion that she is on the moderate end of a binary that many have put forth, she suggested, to create false distinctions. 

“We love labels because it makes it easy,” Strickland, 58, said in a phone interview earlier this month. “As a woman who is Black and Korean, I’ve been labeled my entire life, or people have been trying to assign a label to me. My lane is left-of-center. There are times when I am very progressive on issues, and there are times when I’m more moderate — it really depends on the needs of the people that I want to represent.”

On Israel and the Middle East, however, both candidates seem to hold relatively similar views that are common among the vast majority of Democrats. Strickland and Doglio both support rejoining the Iran nuclear deal and back a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Neither candidate has been to Israel, but each expressed a strong desire to visit if elected to Congress. Both say that they do not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, though the candidates speak differently about the reasoning behind their decisions.

While Strickland worries that BDS could cause damage to Israel’s economy, she believes that it has failed to gain enough traction to do so. Her larger concern is that the movement “paints an inaccurate picture of Israeli life,” she told JI. “It’s antisemitic.”

For her part, Doglio also firmly renounced the movement. “I don’t support what BDS stands for because it would eliminate the Jewish state, which is not a two-state solution,” she said matter-of-factly. Still, Doglio noted that even though she won’t back the movement, she respects BDS as an organizational effort given her background in community activism. “It’s hard for me to take tools out of the toolbox for people who feel strongly about something,” she said. 

According to Doglio, many activists in the Evergreen State are supportive of BDS, which she described as a “tough issue” in her community because of a young Washington native, Rachel Corrie, who in 2003 was killed by an Israeli military bulldozer while defending Palestinian homes in the Gaza Strip. Though a court ruled in 2012 that Israel was not at fault for Corrie’s death — and an appeal also was later rejected — Doglio said the issue is still a raw one at the local level. 

“There’s a strong BDS presence in Washington because of that,” she told JI. 

Doglio said she has had several discussions with community members as part of an evolving effort to better understand the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “There is not a consensus around what a solution looks like,” she said. “The range of views on that within the Jewish community is big, and so I’ve been taking that in and learning as much as I can.”

Doglio, whose Jewish husband has family in Israel, described her “strong connection” to the Jewish state despite never having visited. Doglio said she met with AIPAC about the possibility of going this past December but wasn’t able to make it happen. She told JI that it would be a priority if she is elected.

Washington State Representative Beth Doglio and her family. (Courtesy)

Strickland, though, is the candidate who appears to have garnered more support from the pro-Israel community. Last month, she earned an endorsement from the grassroots advocacy group Pro-Israel America, whose executive director, Jeff Mendelsohn, described Strickland as a “strong champion of the U.S.-Israel relationship” in a statement to JI. “There has never been a more critical moment to elect officials to Congress who support clear and consistent pro-U.S.-Israel policies.”

In her interview with JI, Strickland made clear that she was committed unequivocally to such policies, which she came to support after having spent time with members of the Jewish community in Washington who are pro-Israel. “It has just given me the opportunity to learn a lot more about the history,” she said.

“I have an understanding now that the U.S. and Israel have a deep and abiding commitment to supporting democracies around the world,” she said. “This is a very special relationship between the two nations, and it’s important to strengthen this relationship, to partner, to ensure that we are sharing our goals of peace and free speech and democracy.”

Her own identity as a Black and Korean woman, she added, has led her to feel a “shared experience of bigotry and prejudice” with the Jewish people as antisemitism is on the rise. “We just want to make sure that, as I have the chance to serve in Congress, my door will always be open,” she said, “and I’m going to be a friend of Israel and a friend of people who want to support Israel.”

“At the end of the day, we all want peace and prosperity, and that is both for Israel and for the Palestinians,” Strickland said, noting that that she was currently reading Yossi Klein Halevi’s Letters to My Palestinian Neighbor to gain more insight into the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Jessyn Farrell, a member of Seattle’s Jewish community and a former state representative, said that Strickland brought a similar sense of care to her position as Tacoma’s mayor. “She’s been a real leader on issues that Jewish community leaders have focused on,” said Farrell, who has endorsed Strickland. 

Former Tacoma Mayor Marilyn Strickland. (Courtesy)

According to Farrell, gun violence is a major concern among Washington Jews after a deadly shooting at the Seattle Jewish Federation in 2006 — and as mayor, Strickland passed a resolution supporting universal background checks that Farrell found reassuring. Shortly after President Donald Trump’s election, Farrell recalled, Strickland also reintroduced a resolution to reaffirm Tacoma’s commitment to diversity and inclusion. 

“It was important to me to make sure that the people of the city I represented understood that we were not going to waver on treating all people with respect and dignity,” Strickland said.

Doglio, who lives in Olympia, has served as a state legislator since 2017 and for the past 13 years has been a senior advisor and campaign director for Climate Solutions, a nonprofit advocating for clean energy. She announced her bid for Congress in February, joining a crowded primary election.

Strickland would be the first Black representative from the Pacific Northwest and also the first Korean-American woman in Congress if she prevails on November 3. Born in Seoul, Strickland moved to Tacoma with her family in the late 1960s. She was on the Tacoma City Council before being elected as the city’s mayor in 2010 and served in that role until 2018. She announced her candidacy in December 2019, shortly after the incumbent, Denny Heck, said he would retire.  

The candidates are vying to represent a district in the western portion of the state that includes the capital of Olympia. There is scant polling in the race, though one internal survey conducted in late August for Strickland’s campaign suggests that she is the favorite, leading Doglio by a margin of 21 percentage points. 

“I feel like, win or lose, we’ve raised really, really important issues,” Doglio told JI.

Michael McCann, a professor in the department of political science at the University of Washington, said that Doglio’s support from organized labor has helped her stand apart from Strickland, whose ties to business when she led the Seattle Chamber of Commerce have been an issue in the race.

“That said, the difference on policy issues and ideology are not great,” McCann told JI in an email, “a moderate progressive vs. more progressive.”

Lee Zeldin contrasts Trump’s record on Israel with Obama’s in reelection pitch

A second Donald Trump administration would “do even more to strengthen the relationship between the United States and Israel,” Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY) said in a pitch to participants at a virtual candidate forum hosted by the Orthodox Union on Wednesday, highlighting the administration’s Mideast policy achievements.

Zeldin praised the Trump administration’s record on Israel, contrasting it with the way the Obama administration handled the U.S.-Israel relationship since he entered Congress in 2015. 

“Finally our country was starting to treat Israel like Israel and Iran like Iran, and I do not want to go back to my experience of my first term,” Zeldin, who is running for reelection in New York’s 1st congressional district,, told the group. “I would love to see us build on his progress.” 

“Israelis know that President Trump has had their back every step of the way,” Zeldin continued “Just think of the possibilities if President Trump has four more years in office. Because, with President Trump, he does not wake up the next day and look to just move on to the next unrelated battle. When he scores a win, he asks himself and asks his advisors, ‘What else can we do?’ That’s why we’ve had so many successes in strengthening the U.S.-Israel relationship — because the president wakes up the next day saying that he wants to accomplish even more.”

Earlier this week, the OU hosted a conversation with surrogates from former Vice President Joe Biden’s presidential campaign. 

In a separate Zoom call hosted by the Biden campaign on Wednesday, Israeli-American mogul Haim Saban said Trump’s moves on Israel were largely symbolic. He compared the Jerusalem embassy move to a “bar mitzvah,” noting that only one country, Guatemala, followed the U.S. lead and moved its embassy to Jerusalem. 

Another Central American country, Honduras, is expected to move its embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem before the end of the year, according to a social media post from Honduran President Juan Orlando Hernández last month. 

Saban was also skeptical that the president’s withdrawal from the Iran deal had bolstered Israel’s security.

“In the test of results — where are we from a security standpoint — we have Iran opening a new front against Israel from Syria and we have Iran with three times more enriched uranium,” Saban explained. “You draw your own conclusion.”

Saban, who has maintained close ties with Trump’s son-in-law and White House senior advisor Jared Kushner and reportedly helped broker the recent normalization deal between Israel and the United Arab Emirates, suggested that the president was only a participant of a “photo op” and did not deserve credit for the Abraham Accords. “All the credit should really be going here to Jared Kushner and [Mideast peace envoy] Avi Berkowitz, who worked really hard on it,” Saban said.

After staying on the sidelines during the 2020 Democratic presidential primary, Saban, a major Democratic donor and bundler, endorsed Biden in September, hosting a virtual fundraiser in support of the Democratic nominee.

Highlighting Biden’s longstanding support for Israel, Saban said, “The facts speak for themselves. Facts, you know, are a very stubborn thing. Look at the track record. Andall Jews in America [who] care about the U.S.-Israel alliance know that they can sleep peacefully as far as Israel’s security goes under a Biden presidency.”

Cardin assures Orthodox Jewish community: Biden would be a ‘trusted ally’ on Israel

Sen. Ben Cardin (D-MD) assured members of the Orthodox Jewish community on Monday that Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden would be a “true trusted ally” who would use his long-standing relationships and credibility amongst world players to “always stand by Israel. Cardin was speaking as a campaign surrogate at a virtual candidate forum hosted by the Orthodox Union, one of two events hosted by the group this week featuring representatives from the presidential campaigns. 

A poll, conducted for the American Jewish Committee between September 9 and October 4 with a margin of error of ±4.2%, showed Jewish voters — by a margin of 75-22 —  favor Biden over President Donald Trump in the presidential race. The survey, however, showed Trump earning the support of 75% of Orthodox Jews, with Biden receiving only 18%. 

Asked how a Biden administration would differ from the Obama administration, Cardin told the group that the former vice president “will never be a mystery” to the pro-Israel community. In a Biden-Harris administration, the Maryland senator suggested, “there will never be a question about U.S. support for Israel. But there will be candid discussions as to what are the best strategies in order to keep [the U.S.-Israel] relationship strong and to protect Israel’s security.” 

According to the AJC poll, which was conducted by phone and had a sample size of 1,334, American Jews believe Biden would be better suited to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship by a margin of 12%. Still 42% approve of Trump’s handling of relations with the Jewish state. 

“I’m sure he will disagree with some decisions made by the State of Israel, but Joe Biden would never compromise the security of Israel, or the basic commitments that we’ve made towards Israel’s security — I am convinced about that,” Cardin stressed. “Joe Biden has said so, and Joe Biden is a person of his word. When Joe Biden tells you something, you know, that he’ll live by those words. His credibility, his honesty is beyond any question. And you’ll have a true friend in the White House.” 

Cardin, who voted against the nuclear deal with Iran in 2015, defended Biden’s current position on the Iranian threat, saying that he’s right in pointing out that Trump’s withdrawal from the international accord has made the U.S. “less safer.” Cardin said that by leaving the JCPOA, the U.S. “lost a key vote in the United Nations on the [arms] embargo against Iran.” 

On the Zoom call, Rep. Grace Meng (D-NY) pointed to the rise in antisemitism, saying that “Biden is committed to continuing to protect our Jewish communities, whether through nonprofit security grants… establishing a faith-based law enforcement program dedicated to preventing attacks against houses of worship, strengthening prosecutions of hate crimes, or combating antisemitism abroad.” 

The OU will hold a call with a Trump campaign surrogate Wednesday evening.

New Mace campaign poll shows statistical tie in SC race

A new internal poll shows Republican state Rep. Nancy Mace and incumbent Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) in a statistical tie in South Carolina’s 1st congressional district, despite some indications that the race has been trending toward Cunningham.

The poll of 400 likely voters, conducted by landline and cellphone calls between Oct. 14 and 16, showed Mace with support from 47% of likely voters, compared to Cunningham’s 45%. The poll had a margin of error of 4 percentage points.

This poll is a welcome sign for Mace compared to another internal poll three weeks ago, which showed Mace 6 points behind Cunningham, according to a polling memo shared with JI. Yet another poll, commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee released last week, gave Cunningham a whopping 13-point lead.

Gibbs Knotts, a political science professor at the College of Charleston, told Jewish Insider last week that he expects the final race to be close, predicting a single-digit margin of victory for Cunningham.

The new polling numbers also arrive shortly after Mace announced strong third-quarter fundraising, beating Cunningham by $500,000 and giving her a $500,000 cash-on-hand advantage heading into the race’s final weeks.

First-term Cunningham gains upper hand in battleground South Carolina district

Republicans had high hopes that the party would be able to take back South Carolina’s first congressional district this election. They had a candidate with an impressive resume and solid financial support, a district that President Donald Trump won by 12 points and a first-term incumbent who had been elected by just 1.4 points.

But three weeks out from Election Day, Rep. Joe Cunningham (D-SC) appears to have secured a solid lead over Republican state Rep. Nancy Mace.

A new poll commissioned by the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee found Cunningham leading Mace by 13 points, and race handicappers including the Cook Political Report and Sabato’s Crystal Ball have moved the race from “Tossup” to “Lean Democratic” in recent weeks.

Gibbs Knotts, a political science professor at the College of Charleston, credited Cunningham’s fundraising and “really effective commercials” for his success in widening the polling gap between himself and Mace.

“[He’s] somebody who’s really about not being super ideological,” Knotts told Jewish Insider. “That message has been able to get out, and he’s been able to tell that story a bit more.”

State Rep. Nancy Mace

Cunningham’s advertising has emphasized bipartisanship, Knotts continued, and highlighted votes in which he has bucked the party line. Several of Cunningham’s ads point to the freshman legislator’s fight against a congressional pay raise proposed by Democratic leaders. “There’s nothing I won’t do in D.C. to put the Lowcountry first,” Cunningham says in one ad. 

Cunningham even received praise from Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) for his position on coronavirus-related unemployment benefits in a recent senatorial debate.

Nevertheless, Knotts cautioned that the DCCC-commissioned poll may somewhat overstate Cunningham’s lead. “It’s going to be close even with a strong candidate like Joe Cunningham,” he said. “I expect it to remain in the single digits.”

Mace’s campaign disputed the results of the DCCC’s poll.

“Right on cue, after blockbuster Q3 fundraising that breaks national records for amount raised over D incumbents, the DCCC comes out with a polling memo that defies science,” Mace campaign manager Mara Mellstrom told JI. “This race is a toss-up and all interested parties are acting accordingly… Believe your eyes — not a selectively leaked hack poll designed to scare money away at the close.”

Mace raised $2.3 million in the third quarter of 2020, while Cunningham raised $1.8 million. This gives Mace a cash on hand advantage going into the final month of the election — Mace has $1.7 million on hand compared to Cunningham’s $1.2 million, The State reported.

Knotts characterized Mace as having failed to “articulate her clear vision,” according to Knotts.

“She did not have a breakout moment in the debates,” Knotts said. “She had some bright spots… [but] I think Cunningham certainly held his own.”

Knotts also noted that Cunningham has solidified his support among college-educated suburbanites in the district, who are proving to be a key constituency for Democrats nationwide this cycle.

This support also “bodes well” for Democratic Senate candidate Jaime Harrison and Vice President Joe Biden in this year’s surprisingly competitive statewide races, Knotts said.

Harry Reid pulls no punches with his political predictions

Since he retired from the Senate four years ago, Harry Reid has watched with dismay as the chamber he inhabited for three decades has deteriorated into what he regards as a cauldron of incivility.

The 80-year-old Nevada-born Democrat, who ended his run in 2017 as his party’s leader in the Senate— and served for eight years, from 2007 to 2015, as Senate majority leader — blames the Republican Party. 

“I don’t think it was bad when I left,” he told Jewish Insider in a recent phone interview from his home in Las Vegas, where he now lives with his wife, Landra Gould. “What has happened is Republican senators have been dismal failures, as far as I’m concerned, because they’re lap dogs for [President Donald] Trump.”

Still, Reid sees an upside to this dynamic as November 3 comes into view. “It’s going to be a change election,” he predicted, charging that the GOP has badly damaged its reputation in cozying up to the president, whose popularity has waned as he goes up against Democratic nominee Joe Biden. “I think Trump’s going to be beaten.”

The former senator, who has kept a close eye on the national political scene notwithstanding his absence from Washington, envisions a Democratic sweep in which the party maintains control of the House and picks up a majority in the Senate. 

“You’re going to see many down-ballot races decided in favor of Democrats,” Reid said, “just because people don’t like Trump.”

He believes that Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) will fall in Colorado, as will Sen. Thom Tillis (R-NC) in North Carolina, Sen. Steve Daines (R-MT) in Montana and Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) in Arizona. He is optimistic, too, that Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) will lose his seat in Georgia and that Dan Sullivan (R-AK) will be vanquished in Alaska.

As for Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC), who is currently engaged in a fight for his political life as Jaime Harrison, his Democratic challenger, outraises him at every turn? 

“I hope he loses,” Reid said. 

The outspoken Democrat and former amateur pugilist who is a member of the Nevada Boxing Hall of Fame has never been one to pull his punches. “People always know where I stood,” Reid said, “and where I stand.”

And in conversation with JI, Reid was in a spirited mood, despite the occasional cough, as he discussed the upcoming election. In 2015, Reid suffered an exercise accident that left him blind in his right eye, followed three years later by a pancreatic cancer diagnosis. 

He says that he is now cancer-free, but according to a spokesperson, Reid is still undergoing chemotherapy treatment to keep the disease at bay. Nevertheless, he is staying busy. “I’m doing fine,” said Reid, who now co-chairs a public policy institute at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, with former House Speaker John Boehner (R-OH).

Reid’s partnership with Boehner underscores his conviction that Democrats should reach across the aisle, along with his faith in a “strong, two-party system.” To this day, he maintains ties with his former colleague, Sen. Richard Shelby (R-AL), as well as the billionaire GOP donor Sheldon Adelson.

“I’ve known him so long, I knew him when he was a Democrat,” Reid said of Adelson, who is one of Trump’s most deep-pocketed backers. “I understand his politics have changed. I accept that. We have an agreement where he respects what I do, and I respect what he does. I don’t get involved in his politics, and I appreciate him staying out of mine. So I still keep in touch with him.”

But the senator is less forgiving of those who currently represent the GOP in D.C., even as some Republicans have sought to distance themselves from the president. 

“Mitch McConnell’s had his arm wrapped around Trump pretty tightly for many years now,” Reid said of the Kentucky senator. The Senate majority leader recently said that he had not visited the White House since August 6 in an apparent effort to separate himself from the president’s haphazard approach to the coronavirus pandemic. 

For Reid, such statements are insufficient. “We’re less than three weeks before the election,” he said of McConnell, “and he can’t unwrap his arm.”

Either way, Reid added his belief that the Republican Party could rebuild itself after the election, noting that such groups as the Lincoln Project — the political action committee made up of former Republican strategists who oppose the president — have given him hope for the future of the party post-Trump. 

“Republicans are going to get rid of him,” he said, “and reestablish the brand.”

Reid believes his own party, on the other hand, is in good shape. Tom Perez, the chairman of the Democratic National Committee, has done a “remarkably good job,” and Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-NY) will make a fine majority leader if the Democrats take control of the upper chamber, according to Reid. 

“He’s done a wonderful job leading the Democrats since I left,” Reid said of his successor in the Senate. “I have nothing but good things to say about Chuck Schumer. He’s a unique individual. People don’t realize how smart he is. He got a perfect score on his SAT, perfect score on his LSAT exam. He’s extremely smart. He knows the Senate. I think he’ll do just fine.”

The senator said that he had no advice to impart to Schumer. “He doesn’t need my words of wisdom,” Reid said. “I taught him everything I know.”

As for Biden, Reid said that he will make a good president who may even be able to instill a sense of normalcy in the legislative branch. “That’s not going to happen overnight,” he said, while suggesting that Biden is a “peacemaker” who could help bring about a shared sense of cooperation between the two parties if he is elected. “I think that it could turn out to be like the old Senate.”

He declined to reveal his views on court packing as pundits and politicians alike have speculated whether a Biden administration would seek to expand the Supreme Court bench in response to the Republican effort to rush the nomination of Judge Amy Coney Barrett before the November election.

“This is something that should not be done lightly,” he said. “I think it’s a terribly important decision to make. Certainly, everyone knows it can be done with a simple majority vote in the Senate and the House. But I think I think we should wait and see how the elections turn out.”

A staunch supporter of Israel, Reid is unworried by some progressive Democrats in Congress who have expressed views that are critical of the Jewish state. “That’s just a very small group,” he said. “That’s not the Democratic Party in any way.”

“Democrats have always stood up for Israel,” he added, “and they’ll continue to do so in the future.”

Reid, who is Mormon, said he had no special insight into the views of religious voters, remarking that he has always tried to separate his religious views from his political convictions. “I try not to wear religion on my sleeve,” he said. 

He provided one insight, however, when asked about his views on the similarities and differences between Mormon and Jewish voters. “I think that there are more Democrats who are Jewish than Republicans,” he said, “and there are more Republicans who are Mormons than Democrats.”

Reid is concerned about the rise of antisemitism, citing recent incidents in which swastikas were painted on a stairwell at the University of Nevada, Reno. 

“White supremacists have risen their ugly heads,” he said. “I think antisemitism is a real issue that we need to understand. It’s alive and well.” 

Reid was instrumental in launching an effort that culminated in Trump’s recent executive order on antisemitism, which penalizes colleges and universities for ignoring antisemitic behavior.

Though Reid demurred when asked if he thought Biden would enforce the order, he said that the presidential nominee was in a good position to address antisemitism. “He’s well-equipped to understand and handle the antisemitism that has risen its ugly head,” Reid told JI.

Despite his antipathy toward the president, Reid did reserve one bit of praise for Trump, giving a nod to his role in brokering peace deals between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain. “I think it’s one of the highlights of the Trump administration,” Reid said, characterizing the effort as “commendable.”

Not that he thinks such diplomacy has indemnified the president from what Reid regards as an otherwise abysmal run in public office — one he believes will soon come to an end. 

“Instead of giving him a D-,” Reid said, “I guess we’ll give him a D+.”

JI’s guide to races to watch in the general election

With three weeks until the 2020 general election, the Jewish Insider elections team has created a short guide to the key Senate and House races to watch in the wildest election year of our time. Read through interviews, in-depth looks at races across the country and candidate questionnaires with answers to some of the questions that matter most to JI readers. Daily Kickoff updates on these races will continue over the next three weeks.

House:

New York 22nd: Former Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) held her seat for just one term before losing to Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY) by less than 2 percentage points in 2018. A recent poll shows Brindisi in the lead in this year’s rematch.

New York 11th: Freshman Rep. Max Rose (D-NY) faces a tough reelection against New York Assembly Member Nicole Malliotakis in a Staten Island district Trump won by 10 points.

New York 2nd: Following the retirement of Rep. Peter King (R-NY), Democrat Jackie Gordon and Republican Andrew Garbarino are fighting to win the toss-up seat in this Long Island district.

New York 1st: Rep. Lee Zeldin (R-NY), one of two Jewish Republicans in Congress, is facing a challenge from Democrat Nancy Goroff in this Long Island swing district that the GOP expects to hold on to in November.

California 50th: After losing to then-incumbent Rep. Duncan Hunter (R-CA) in 2018, Ammar Campa-Najjar — who grew up in Gaza — is mounting a second bid for Congress in the district. Due to Hunter’s resignation and arrest, Campa-Najjar this time faces former Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), who served in Congress in a neighboring district for nearly 20 years. An early September poll showed the two in a statistical tie. 

California 53rd: San Diego City Council President Georgette Gómez has the backing of the pro-Israel community — as well as progressives like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) — in her race against Qualcomm heiress and fellow Democrat Sara Jacobs. A late September poll found Jacobs with a solid lead, but nearly 40% of voters said they were still undecided.

Pennsylvania 7th: Freshman Rep. Susan Wild (D-PA) appears to have shot ahead of Republican challenger Lisa Scheller. A poll in late September found Wild more than 10 points ahead of Scheller, and the Cook Political Report recently moved the district from “Leans Democratic” to “Likely Democratic.”

Pennsylvania 10th: Freedom Caucus member Rep. Scott Perry (R-PA) is fending off a challenge from Auditor General Eugene DePasquale, who appears to have the momentum in the final weeks of the race. Perry recently faced scrutiny from the Republican Jewish Coalition, which endorsed him, for being one of the few lawmakers to vote against a resolution condemning the QAnon conspiracy theory.

Georgia 7th: After losing by less than 500 votes in 2018, Democrat Carolyn Bourdeaux is making another bid for this seat. The GOP is hoping that political newcomer Rich McCormick, a veteran and doctor, can keep the seat in Republican hands, despite a “Lean Democratic” rating from the Cook Political Report.

New Jersey 2nd: Recent polling shows Democrat Amy Kennedy leading Rep. Jeff Van Drew (R-NJ), a former Democrat who voted against impeachment, switched parties and pledged his “undying support” for the president in late 2019. 

Virginia 2nd: In a rematch of the 2018 race, first-term Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) and former Rep. Scott Taylor (R-VA) are working to win over undecided voters. Their military-heavy district has increasingly tipped toward Democrats in recent years, but the race remains a tossup, according to the Cook Political Report.

Virginia 5th: Virginia’s 5th district was initially considered a relatively reliable Republican seat. But with religious conservative Bob Good’s primary win over incumbent Republican Denver Riggleman (R-VA), Democrat Cameron Webb is surging in a race the Cook Political Report recently rated as a tossup.

Indiana 5th: With early backing from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, State Rep. Christina Hale has maintained a lead in most polls over State Sen. Victoria Spartz, who self-funded her campaign to break through a crowded Republican primary field. Both candidates have heavily emphasized their bipartisan credentials.

Michigan 8th: Although first-term Rep. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) is running in a Republican stronghold and has established a reputation as a Trump administration critic on national security issues, she is favored to win reelection. Slotkin and her allies have attacked opponent Paul Junge for advertisements they say are antisemitic.

Minnesota 7th: Former Lt. Gov. Michelle Fischbach has a solid shot at unseating Rep. Collin Peterson (D-MN), a rare Democrat in a conservative-leaning district. While Peterson has maintained a reputation as a centrist and is popular with the agriculture industry, Republicans believe Fischbach may give them a chance to flip this seat.

North Carolina 11th: Political newcomer Madison Cawthorn nabbed a surprise victory in the runoff to succeed former Rep. Mark Meadows (R-NC), who departed the seat for a job as the president’s chief of staff. The paraplegic 25-year-old’s campaign has been riddled with controversy, including social media posts about Adolf Hitler, and he’s found a formidable challenger in retired Air Force Colonel Moe Davis.  

Nebraska 2nd: After narrowly losing to Rep. Don Bacon (R-NE) in 2018, Kara Eastman is again neck-and-neck with the incumbent congressman in her second bid to unseat him. Bacon’s campaign has sought to paint the progressive Eastman as too far left for the district.

New Mexico 2nd: Despite struggling through a bruising Republican primary, State Rep. Yvette Herrell has managed to remain neck-and-neck with Rep. Xochitl Torres Small (D-NM) in this rematch of their 2018 faceoff. Torres Small defeated Herrell by less than 2 percentage points in 2018, and Herrell has continued to insist the election was stolen.

Texas 10th: After a narrow loss in 2018 to incumbent Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) in the Austin-area district, attorney Mike Siegel is again challenging the longtime Republican congressman. An early September poll commissioned by Siegel’s campaign had McCaul with a two-point lead over Siegel.

(Check out JI’s interactive election map for more profiles, questionnaires, results and endorsements.)

Senate

Georgia: Much of the recent polling in Georgia — once a Republican stronghold — shows Sen. David Perdue (D-GA) in a dead heat with Democratic challenger Jon Ossoff, although one survey gave Perdue an edge.

Georgia special election: With no candidate close to 50% in the polls, the race to replace former Sen. Johnny Isakson (R-GA), who retired in late 2019 amid health concerns, appears headed to a runoff. Republicans Sen. Kelly Loeffler and Rep. Doug Collins are neck-and-neck in most recent surveys, although Loeffler seems to hold a slight edge. Meanwhile, Democrats worry that Matt Lieberman — son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman (D-CT) — could serve as a spoiler and prevent Rev. Raphael Warnock, who is currently leading the Democratic pack, from making the runoff ballot.

Arizona: Democrat Mark Kelly leads Sen. Martha McSally (R-AZ) in recent polling in Arizona, which appears to be shifting increasingly toward Democrats, given a growing population of Latino voters and shifts among college-educated whites and opposition to President Donald Trump within the state.

Maine: Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) — one of the most moderate Republicans in Congress — is looking to save her seat in a tough matchup against speaker of the Maine House of Representatives Sara Gideon. With both candidates statistically tied in recent polls, the race will come down to the wire in a seat considered vital to Democrats’ chances of retaking the Senate.

Colorado: Former Gov. John Hickenlooper appears poised to unseat Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) as their state turns increasingly blue. Gardner’s campaign seems to have been hampered by Trump’s unpopular reputation within the state.

South Carolina: Sen. Lindsey Graham is scrambling to hold onto his Senate seat amid a fierce challenge from Jaime Harrison, who has shattered fundraising records and pulled even in recent polls. As the campaign approaches its finish line, Graham also finds himself chairing Amy Coney Barrett’s confirmation hearings, reneging on a promise he made in 2016 not to support a confirmation in an election year.

Kansas: Although some Democrats had written off the Kansas Senate race as a lost cause after Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS) defeated controversial immigration hardliner Kris Kobach, state Sen. Barbara Bollier has delivered a strong campaign, with recent polls indicating that the race will come down to the wire.

Michigan: Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) is locked in a tight race with veteran and businessman John James. James lost a 2018 challenge to Sen. Debbie Stabenow (D-MI), but has risen in the polls against Peters in the final weeks of the campaign. A poll released Monday found Peters and James virtually tied.

Alaska: The Senate race in Alaska is tightening, with Al Gross — a Democratic-backed independent — closing the gap with incumbent Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK). Both parties are pouring money into the state, in a race that has turned out to be unexpectedly competitive.

Can Dan Sullivan hang on in the tightening Alaska Senate race?

Sen. Dan Sullivan (R-AK) spent a good portion of the five-week August Senate recess driving through Alaska and meeting with voters in an effort to boost his profile ahead of his November reelection battle. “I’ve been getting out with my wife,” he said in an interview with Jewish Insider as he drove north from Anchorage to the Matanuska-Susitna Valley on a recent September afternoon.

“We’ve covered well over 1,000 miles in my truck,” added Sullivan, estimating that he had interacted with approximately 2,000 voters at outdoor campaign events and rallies during his peregrinations through Alaska. “We were all over the state.”

The Republican senator is well aware that he needs to work hard to defend his seat this cycle. In 2014, the first-time candidate narrowly defeated the incumbent Democrat, Sen. Mark Begich, by just three points. 

Now, the roles have been reversed as Sullivan prepares to go up against a formidable challenger, Al Gross, an independent allied with Democratic Party leaders who has picked up traction in the state.

Though polls from June and July suggested that Sullivan, 55, was comfortably ahead of Gross, recent numbers have indicated that the race may be tightening. A Public Policy Polling survey, conducted in late August, found that Sullivan and Gross — both of whom have raked in millions of dollars in campaign donations — were tied with 43% of the vote.

The race has become increasingly acrimonious in recent weeks as the two candidates have traded barbs in an ongoing series of attack ads. A possible Supreme Court nomination and an in-state mining scandal have added to the high stakes in a contest that is drawing national media attention as well as significant outside spending.

Gross has run a strong campaign, experts say, casting himself as a political outsider in a state that favors them. The 57-year-old Jewish doctor has sought to play up his background as a commercial fisherman and gold prospector. Gross, who was born and raised in Alaska, is also an outsider of another sort: He was the first to have a bar mitzvah in the state’s southeastern portion. (His parents flew in a rabbi for the ceremony.) 

But despite his status as an independent, the playing field is still unfavorable to Gross in historically red Alaska, whose top elected officials are currently all Republicans. 

Gross’s odds further decreased last week when the Alaska Supreme Court rejected an appeal to reprint ballots to include candidates’ party affiliations and not only list how they got elected — meaning Gross, who ran in the Democratic primary, will likely be identified as a Democratic nominee rather than as an independent, which could diminish his prospects at the polls.

Sen. Dan Sullivan speaks to constituents. (Courtesy)

“Gross is fighting well and will likely capture a portion of the vote, but I have yet to see a key indicator that he is likely to win,” Amy Lauren Lovecraft, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, told JI. “Sullivan just hasn’t had any large missteps that would turn his base against him or cause new folks to vote for him rather than his competition.”

Sullivan remains confident that he can win over voters, accusing his opponent of hoodwinking Alaskans by not adhering to any party affiliation as he campaigns for office. 

“He’s telling people he’s an independent, but then he’s caught on a national fundraiser telling people that he’s going to caucus with the Democrats,” Sullivan scoffed, implying that Gross was only running as an independent because it was politically expedient. “His values are to the left.”

In the interview with JI, Sullivan took aim at his opponent’s healthcare proposals — Gross supports a public option for Medicare — but reserved his harshest criticism for Gross’s foreign policy views, particularly on Iran. 

Gross opposed President Donald Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear agreement and believes the United States should be brought back into compliance with the deal.

“I saw my opponent said he thought it was bad that we pulled out,” Sullivan said, alluding to a June interview with JI in which Gross expressed his disapproval of Trump’s abandonment of the deal. “I couldn’t disagree more.”

Sullivan declared that one of the primary reasons he decided to run for Senate in 2014 was because he so strongly disapproved of former President Barack Obama’s approach to Iran. 

“The appeasement that was going on with regard to Iran was shocking, it was dangerous, and it was something that I thought was not only bad for America but very bad for our most important ally in the Middle East — and that’s Israel,”  Sullivan told JI. 

Sullivan, who has not travelled to Israel during his time as a senator, touts his record when it comes to the Jewish state. He is, along with the majority of Senate members, a co-sponsor of a proposed bill, the Israel Anti-Boycott Act, which would give states permission to require that companies pledge not to boycott Israel. Sullivan said he signed on to the bill because he regards the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement as part of a rising tide of antisemitism in the U.S.

“Part of the reason I was one of the original cosponsors of that was to show that, at least from the Congress’s perspective, we don’t find that acceptable,” he said, adding his disagreement that the act would infringe on free-speech rights. “I think it’s important to send a signal from the Congress of the United States that those movements on boycotting Israel are completely unacceptable.”

Sullivan and his wife, Julie. (Courtesy)

The first-term senator previously worked as commissioner of the Alaska Department of Natural Resources and as Alaska’s attorney general. Before that, the Ohio-born Republican served as an assistant secretary of state for economic and business affairs in the George W. Bush administration. Sullivan, who was deployed to Afghanistan in 2013, is now a colonel in the Marine Corps Reserve.

“When I got to the Senate, I didn’t need to be educated on the importance of the U.S.-Israeli relationship,” Sullivan said. “I also certainly didn’t need to be educated on the threat that the terrorist regime in Tehran posed to Israel and posed to the United States.”

His experience in the State Department, where he worked from 2006 to 2009, molded his view of international relations and diplomacy. 

During that time, he told JI, he helped push for Israel’s inclusion in the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development and traveled the globe as part of an effort to convince America’s allies, including France, Germany, Norway and Japan, to divest from the Iranian oil and gas sector.

Sullivan commended Trump’s actions with regard to Iran, singling out his decision to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani, the head of the Quds Force in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, whom the senator regarded as a grave threat to the security of American troops in the Middle East. 

“As soon as I got to the Senate, I started giving speeches about this guy Soleimani,” Sullivan said. “I’ve talked to the president numerous times about him. I’ve talked to the senior military. What the United States did with regard to the strike against Soleimani is that we reestablished deterrence,” Sullivan added. “This is really hard.”

Sullivan believes Trump’s tough posture toward Iran has helped the United States in brokering recent agreements between Israel and Bahrain and the United Arab Emirates. 

Sullivan on the campaign trail. (Courtesy)

“Most of this, of course, is driven by the recognition that the biggest threat in the region, whether it’s to Israel, or to Saudi Arabia, or to the UAE, is Iran,” Sullivan said. “The Trump administration has been very steady and focused on this in a way that has dramatically shifted the narrative,” he told JI, “in a way that, I think, takes advantage of the changing circumstances on the ground in a really important way.”

Sullivan added his concern that Trump’s diplomatic achievements would be in jeopardy if Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden — who has said he will reenter the Iran nuclear deal — is elected in November. “He would be undermining this progress,” Sullivan said. 

“This is what is at stake with regard to this election,” the senator concluded.

Sullivan can at least remain hopeful that he will hold onto his seat even if Trump isn’t reelected, though he told JI that he is operating on the assumption that he needs to run an aggressive campaign nonetheless. 

“Alaska, from my perspective, is a lot more purple than red,” Sullivan said. 

Ivan Moore, a veteran pollster who runs Alaska Survey Research in Anchorage, agreed with Sullivan’s appraisal of the state’s political makeup. 

“I think he’s still the favorite, but there is the potential for an upset,” said Moore, adding that the state has been trending purple in recent years as young transplants who aren’t interested in working in the energy sector move to the state.

While Sullivan appears somewhat vulnerable this cycle, Moore predicted that he would hold onto his seat. But whether that will be the case six years from now remains to be seen.

“The days when a Republican could run a weak campaign, not really pay much attention to it and still win by 10 or 15 points,” Moore told JI, “are kind of a thing of the past.”

On Rosh Hashanah call, Trump urges support for his reelection

President Donald Trump implored American Jewish leaders to back his administration’s efforts to bring peace in the Middle East and support his reelection bid during an annual High Holidays conference call with rabbis and Jewish community leaders on Wednesday afternoon. 

“Whatever you can do in terms of November 3rd, it’s going to be very important because if we don’t win, Israel is in big trouble,” Trump told participants on the call, adding that if he loses reelection and Republicans lose control of the Senate, “you are going to lose control of Israel. Israel will never be the same. I don’t know if it can recover from that.” 

Trump noted the previous lack of widespread support among Jewish voters for his campaign, saying he was surprised to have only received 25% of the Jewish vote in 2016. “Here I have a son-in-law and a daughter who are Jewish, I have beautiful grandchildren that are Jewish, I have all of these incredible achievements,”” he said. “I’m amazed that it seems to be almost automatically a Democrat vote. President Obama is the worst president, I would say by far, that Israel has ever had in the United States… And yet the Democrats get 75%.”

“I hope you can do better with that,” Trump continued. “I hope you could explain to people what’s going on. We have to get more support from the Jewish people — for Israel… We have to be able, to hopefully, do well on November 3, and I hope you can get everybody out there. Otherwise, everything that we’ve done, I think, could come undone and we wouldn’t like that.”

On the call, White House Senior Advisor Jared Kushner touted the administration’s record. “I can honestly say that there’s been no greater president for the Jewish people in history than Donald Trump,” Kushner said.

Trump ended the call by saying, “We really appreciate you. We love your country also.”

Trump campaign launches Jewish outreach coalition

President Donald Trump’s reelection campaign will launch a Jewish outreach team on Wednesday aimed at promoting the Trump administration’s record on Israel and efforts to combat the rise in antisemitism ahead of the November presidential election.

The group, named Jewish Voices for Trump, will be co-chaired by Las Vegas casino mogul Sheldon Adelson and his wife, Dr. Miriam Adelson, along with Republican Jewish Coalition board member Wayne Berman, former Trump White House aide Boris Epshteyn and Julie Strauss Levin, wife of TV and radio personality Mark Levin. 

Trump reportedly scolded Adelson in a phone call last month for not spending enough on his reelection. Adelson “chose not to come back at Trump,” Politico reported. Axios later reported that Adelson has signaled he is poised to spend big to support the president’s reelection.

“President Trump has fought against antisemitism in America and throughout the world while continuing to ensure the long-term success and security of the Jewish state,” Epshteyn, a senior advisor to the Trump campaign, told Jewish Insider. Citing the relocation of the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem, the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran and the recently signed peace accords between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and Bahrain, Epshteyn said, “Trump’s record on Israel and the Middle East can be summed up in four words: promises made, promises kept.” 

A number of prominent Jewish Republicans sit on the group’s advisory board, including former Mideast peace envoy Jason Greenblatt, Houston-based GOP donor Fred Zeidman, Chairman of the Commission for the Preservation of America’s Heritage Abroad Paul Packer, CEO of Miller Strategies Jeff Miller, Fox Paine & Company CEO Saul Fox, Boca Raton-based investor Marc Goldman, CEO of Hudson Bay Capital Sander Gerber, MizMaa Ventures co-founder Yitz Applbaum, nursing home operator Louis Scheiner, Blackstone’s Eli Miller, Mark Levenson, Dr. Jeffrey Feingold, and Haim Chera, son of the late Stanley Chera, among others.

“Never before have we seen an American president more dedicated to uplifting and protecting the Jewish people at home and around the world,” a Trump campaign official noted about the group’s launch. 

In addition to highlighting the administration’s Israel policy and the measures signed by the president to combat antisemitism, the group will also focus on Trump’s economic and trade policies. 

Epshteyn stressed that Trump’s record stands in stark contrast to the Democratic Party, which he referred to as the “radical hateful Democrats.”

The next Senator Coleman from Minnesota

Julia Coleman hasn’t been involved in campus advocacy for a number of years now. But Coleman still carries many of the lessons she learned during her time working as a field representative for the Leadership Institute, a conservative youth organizing group, touring colleges in the mid-Atlantic region.

“One of our demonstrations was we would take a SodaStream and we would set up a little booth,” Coleman recalled in a recent interview with Jewish Insider, referring to the popular soda machine, which is headquartered in Israel and is a frequent target of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaigns. “While we’re showing them this amazing apparatus, we would talk about the innovations coming out of Israel and the importance of having a free, democratic state in the Middle East and protecting Israel. And it opened up a lot of students’ eyes.”

Such discussions were, incidentally, also good practice for Coleman in her personal and political future as a young Republican. She is now the daughter-in-law of Norm Coleman, the former Minnesota senator and current chair of the Republican Jewish Coalition. “You can’t be in my home and not have those conversations,” the former senator said matter-of-factly in a phone conversation with JI. 

Now that she is vying to represent Minnesota’s 47th district in the state Senate, Coleman — who currently serves as a city council member in Chanhassen, a suburb of Minneapolis — is acutely aware that some of the same issues she faced on campuses will also be present in higher office. Coleman defeated Victoria Mayor Tom Funk in the 47th district Republican primary in August.

She says she is ready for the challenge. “I would like to let the Jewish community in Minnesota know that they do have an ally in me,” she said.

Coleman, 28, says she entered the race to replace Scott Jensen, a Republican retiring at the end of his term, because she believes the state has been co-opted by progressives like Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), the freshman congresswoman who is highly critical of Israel and has been accused of antisemitism. “She definitely has yanked that entire party further left and has really created quite a radical base here in Minnesota,” Coleman declared weeks after Omar’s resounding primary victory over a more moderate challenger. 

Julia Coleman during her swearing-in ceremony.

“I will fight antisemitism, whether it’s coming from Ilhan or members of the state legislature or the public, whether it’s coming from movements like BDS,” promised Coleman, who characterizes herself as “a strong, Zionist, pro-Israel supporter.”

It may seem, at first glance, that a down-ballot candidate such as Coleman wouldn’t have much of an opportunity to effect change at the state level. But her father-in-law avers that it is just as important to have pro-Israel candidates locally as it is to have them in Congress. 

“To have somebody who, in their core, understands the importance of these issues, I think, really makes a difference because the battles are being fought on the local level,” he said. 

Dan Rosen, a lawyer in Minneapolis who is involved in pro-Israel causes at the state and national levels, agreed. “Even here in Minnesota, the Jewish community has to be on its guard,” he told JI. “Anti-Israel advocates are active at our capitol, where pro-Israel legislators have passed anti-BDS legislation and thwarted efforts to force divestment from Israel. Accordingly, we are grateful when legislative candidates, like Julia, are committed to fighting those that would single out Jewish and pro-Israel interests for attack.”

Coleman, who was raised Catholic, has developed a strong affinity for Judaism since she married Jacob Coleman — an account executive at a Minneapolis insurance company and a volunteer fireman in Chanhassen — in 2018. They have decided to raise their 10-month-old son, Adam, in both religious traditions, just as Jacob, whose mother is Catholic, grew up.

“We’ll do Christmas and Hanukkah, we’ll do Easter and Passover,” she said, “and it has helped me to not only appreciate the Jewish people and their faith, but also it has taught me so much about my own because we share that Old Testament. I think that it is so important for Christians to really get to know their Jewish brothers and sisters and their faith, because it helps us to understand our own even better.”

Coleman with her husband, Jacob, a volunteer fireman in Chanhassen.

Coleman said she has learned much about Judaism as well as the U.S.-Israel bond through her relationship with her father-in-law. “He did my first Seder,” she told JI, “and it was just such a beautifully eye-opening experience into the Jewish faith, as well as my own, because that’s part of our background.”

“You learn simply by being around him,” Coleman added, noting that she attended the RJC convention at his behest in 2019. “That was such a great experience. I’ve always been pro-Israel, but to hear the president speak and to get to meet hundreds of people who are Jewish and Israel supporters, and to share why this issue matters to them on a personal level, and to hear Norm speak to them and hear their stories — you learn so much.”

Coleman — who has never been to Israel but wants to visit — was raised in Minnesota. Her father is a Ramsey County deputy sheriff, and her mother is an executive consultant. She graduated from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities, and was Miss Minneapolis in 2014. (Her platform, she said, was suicide prevention.) She “gave up” her “crown,” as she jokingly put it, to spend a year with the Leadership Institute, but returned to her home state to work for Charlie Kirk’s conservative nonprofit student organization, Turning Point USA.

“I got kicked off of college campuses more than I care to admit,” she said.

Soon after, she was hired as a reporter and anchor for Alpha News, a partisan media startup in the Gopher State. But Coleman found that being in front of a camera was unfulfilling, so she moved on to a new position as a public relations manager at Medical Alley Association, a trade group advocating on behalf of Minnesota’s health technology community. 

She currently holds that job while serving on the Chanhassen City Council, a position she has occupied since 2018, the same year she married her husband — who five years ago ran for the Senate seat she is gunning for, but lost the Republican endorsement to Jensen.

“My dad was thrilled when I married Norm’s son, because Norm brought the Wild to Minnesota, and my dad is a die-hard Wild fan,” said Coleman, alluding to Minnesota’s professional hockey team. “I don’t think my husband had to put up too hard of a fight to ask for permission, although my dad was on duty and armed when Jake asked for permission, so, brave guy.”

Coleman sits with her father, a Ramsey County deputy sheriff.

Though Coleman is only two years into her term as a city council member, she believes that she is ready for a promotion to the State Senate. 

“I felt compelled to run in order to preserve the freedoms that I got to grow up with and the opportunities I had,” she said, emphasizing that she takes Omar’s statements personally in large part because of her son.

“My son has Jewish heritage,” she told JI. “I’m just blown away by Ilhan Omar’s rhetoric, and when people think of a female politician from Minnesota, I want them to think about someone who’s pro-Israel and supportive of the Jewish community.”

Support for BDS, Coleman added, has become commonplace among left-leaning politicians in Minnesota, a development she regards as troubling. “It is just antisemitism at its finest,” she told JI.

Coleman, who is all but assured a seat in the solidly conservative district as she goes up against Democrat Addie Miller in November, swats away questions about her ambitions beyond state office. 

“I always say the same thing when I was on council,” she said. “I have to prove I can do a good job here before I’ll even think that far ahead.”

In the meantime, she is looking forward to taking on more substantive issues assuming she is elected to the State Senate — a return of sorts to her days advocating for conservative causes on campuses in her early 20s.

“You really don’t talk about hot button issues on council,” Coleman told JI. “You talk about zoning, you talk about the local levy, the fire department. In the State Senate, issues like BDS will come before me. Issues like abortion and the Second Amendment will come before me. Issues that are going to affect every single Minnesotan will be discussed and debated. And so I do believe that, if elected in November, I will be incredibly blessed to fight for the people of Minnesota and, hopefully, leave behind a state that is better than the one I grew up in for the next generation of Minnesotans.”

In new ads, Jewish Dems highlight ‘antisemitic’ attacks by GOP candidates in GA, MI

The Jewish Democratic Council of America is set to launch two digital ads aimed at Jewish voters in the states of Michigan and Georgia, targeting Republican senatorial candidates in close races ahead of the November 3 elections.

The ads, which were shared in advance with Jewish Insider, accuse Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) and John James, who is challenging Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI), of employing antisemitic tropes in attacks against their rivals. The ads are part of JDCA’s six-figure digital ad spend leading up to Election Day.

The 15-second video targeting James highlights a 2018 campaign ad in which a swastika briefly appears on screen — James later apologized for the symbol’s inclusion in the ad — and comments made by the candidate in June suggesting that the political establishment was “genuflecting” for the Jewish community.

Recent polling in the Michigan Senate race shows James beginning to close the gap with Peters, who is serving his first term in the upper chamber.

A screenshot from the JDCA ad featuring candidate Jon Ossoff.

The ad targeting Perdue, who is fighting a challenge from Jon Ossoff, spotlights a July Facebook ad promoted by the Georgia senator, which included an image of Ossoff with an enlarged nose — a classic antisemitic stereotype. Perdue took down the ad after coming under fire for the image. 

JDCA executive director Halie Soifer told JI that she expected Jewish support for Ossoff and Peters to increase as a result of allegations that the two Republican candidates “have invoked antisemitic language, imagery, and tropes in their campaigns.” 

“There’s a reason these two ads are similar — sadly, Republicans are using antisemitism and other forms of bigotry as part of their political strategy in 2020,” she said. 

In a candidate questionnaire submitted to JI last month, Perdue, who has maintained a slight lead on Ossoff in recent polling, touted his fight against antisemitism as a top priority. “I’ve been a friend of Israel and the Jewish community since I was very young,” the Republican senator averred. “Since I got to the U.S. Senate, I’ve made fighting antisemitism and all forms of bigotry a top priority.”

Meet the Israeli immigrant mounting a longshot bid for Senate in Wyoming

In every sense of the word, Merav Ben-David is an outlier in Wyoming politics.

A Jewish Israeli immigrant who speaks with an accent, Ben-David is running for Senate as a Democrat with a platform focused on climate change in a state that has not elected a Democrat to a federal office since 1976, has a minuscule Jewish population and is heavily economically reliant on resource extraction. 

But despite the hurdles in her path, Ben-David believes her message is one that will resonate with Wyoming voters, as long as she’s able to reach them. 

“I think the vision that I’m offering Wyoming is much more compelling to many,” she told Jewish Insider. “I’m not saying it’s gonna be easy. We knew that when we started, but I think that a lot of people were ready to hear a different message.”

Ben-David acknowledges, however, that she needs more money in order to disseminate her message to voters. Having spent most of the $81,000 she raised during the primary, she had just $22,000 on hand at the end of July, compared to the $413,000 her Republican opponent, former Rep. Cynthia Lummis (R-WY) had in the bank at the time.

Ben-David and Lummis are competing to replace longtime Sen. Mike Enzi (R-WY), who is retiring.

In an interview with JI, Ben-David laid out her vision to help bolster Wyoming’s economy, which includes shifting miners and oil workers to other fields, creating more work opportunities for young people and attracting remote workers to the state. She also backs several progressive policy priorities, including a federal jobs guarantee and universal healthcare.

But the issue Ben-David emphasized most — which lies at the heart of her campaign — was climate change. This topic, and Ben-David’s observations and research on its impact through her work as an ecologist and zoologist, spurred her to run for office.

“It’s not enough. I need to do more. That was the main motivation. I need to do more in terms of making sure that our younger generations have a livable planet,” she said. “But also specifically to the state that has become my home, to make sure that we are not reliant on an industry that is on the way out.”

Ben-David got her start in the sciences at Tel Aviv University — after completing her IDF service amid the 1982 Lebanon War — and earned a bachelor’s degree in biology in 1984 and a master’s degree in zoology in 1988.

She went on to spend five years as a wildlife tour guide in Kenya before making a drastic shift and relocating to Fairbanks, Alaska, to pursue a PhD in wildlife management.

“I just packed a few things in my suitcase and made it from the equator to nearly the North Pole in one week,” she said. 

Despite moving from one of the world’s hottest regions to one of its coldest, Ben-David said she adjusted quickly, and quickly fell in love with winter sports.

“I really enjoyed living in Alaska,” she said. “The cold is something that is really easy to deal with. You just dress warmly, and have heating in your home. It’s the short days in the winter that are difficult to deal with.”

After earning her PhD, Ben-David remained in Alaska for several years and applied for permanent residency in the U.S. Her contributions to wildlife conservation in Alaska earned her support from Sen. Lisa Murkowski (R-AL), then-Sen. Ted Stevens (R-AL) and then-Gov. Tony Knowles for her residency application. 

Senate Candidate Merav Ben-David at Vedauwoo Recreation Area on March 31, 2020. (Courtesy)

Ben-David said that, once she realized that work would keep her in the U.S., it was critical to begin the process to become a U.S. citizen.

“I’ve been engaged civically since I was a teenager in Israel, when we had all kinds of changes in Israel back in the 70s. I’ve been involved as a citizen,” she said. “You can’t let other people make decisions for you. If you want to be influential, if you want to make sure that things you believe in have a voice, then you have to be engaged.”

In 2000, Ben-David accepted a faculty position at the University of Wyoming. She explained that she settled in the state in part so that she could continue to enjoy winter sports. Around this time, she applied for citizenship, and became a naturalized U.S. citizen in 2009.

Ben-David has also cemented herself within Wyoming’s Jewish community, which has one of the smallest Jewish populations of any state — just 1,150 people, or .2% of the total state population in 2019.

“I think we all know each other personally,” Ben-David said of the state’s Jewish community, remarking that she usually makes matzoh balls for the local community Seders.

***

Having grown up in Israel, with family still living in the country, Ben-David would bring a unique perspective on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict to the halls of Congress should she be elected — for one thing, she would be the only person with Israeli citizenship ever elected to the Senate. Ultimately, she would like to see a two-state solution, including a shared capital in Jerusalem, she said in responses to JI’s candidate questionnaire.

Ben-David is an outspoken critic of current Israeli policies, which she said make a peace agreement more difficult to achieve.

“Expansion of West Bank settlements, unilateral annexation of Palestinian lands, demolitions of houses, forced relocations of Palestinian families, and continued violence contribute to escalation of the conflict,” she wrote in the questionnaire. “I believe peace can only be achieved if the Palestinian people are treated with dignity, provided with financial assistance to develop a sustainable economy, and their human rights and wishes for self-governance in their own country is guaranteed.”

She added that the Trump administration has likewise undermined peace efforts, and has “made support for Israel needlessly partisan.”

(Read Ben-David’s complete answers and those of other candidates on JI’s interactive map.)

If elected, Ben-David said she would work to engage both sides to pursue a peace agreement. She predicts that the imminent global climate crisis will serve as an impetus to force parties in the Middle East to come together to form agreements, as the impacts of climate change will be devastating for the region.

“It’s not anymore a question of Palestinians versus Israelis. It’s not Saudi Arabia versus Iran. It’s not Turkey versus Egypt anymore,” she said. “If we don’t work together as a humanity to solve our climate crisis, nothing else will matter.”

“Mother Nature doesn’t care about what we think or feel,” she continued. “It is happening right now… I think a lot of people are starting to pay attention. They have no choice. We have no choice.”

In the questionnaire, Ben-David called out increasing antisemitism across the U.S., both in terms of increasing hate crimes and antisemitic political rhetoric, including in her own primary race — where one of her opponents referred to her as a “fake Jew.”

“When antisemitism is virulent and explicit, we must immediately condemn it. When it is organized and violent, we must prosecute it,” she wrote. “But when it is inadvertent, education and compassion will be more effective.”

Ben-David added that she sees antisemitism as part of the broader issue of racism in the U.S.

“Jews should also stand in solidarity with other groups facing oppression,” she said. “We can’t fight antisemitism without also fighting other forms of racism — and we can’t fight racism without also fighting antisemitism.”

Should Ben-David be elected, she would join several outspoken critics of Israel in the halls of Congress, some of whom have called to condition aid to Israel or expressed support for a one-state solution. 

She told JI that she would tell those who support such measures that U.S. pressure has historically been an ineffective tool to change countries’ behavior, and that only diplomacy will be effective.

“We, the United States, have failed miserably in all attempts to force our vision on other countries. It doesn’t matter if you look at it from the war on drugs or involvement in Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, Iraq,” she said. “We failed because we did not use diplomacy as the main approach.”

She highlighted the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran as the government’s most prominent success in recent years.

“If we are willing and have learned how to exert influence through diplomacy with an enemy called Iran, there’s absolutely no reason why we can’t do that with our ally, Israel,” she continued.

Ben-David speculated that, if the U.S. sanctioned or conditioned aid to Israel, Israel would instead turn to the U.S.’s geopolitical opponents.

But Ben-David disputed the idea espoused by some in the American pro-Israel community that criticizing Israel is inherently antisemitic.

“I criticize the government. My family members in Israel criticize the Israeli government… That is legitimate criticism. Just like American citizens criticizing our own government. This is democracy,” she said. “I wouldn’t say there is no antisemitism. I wouldn’t say that antisemitism is not a motivating factor in some of those discussions. But you can’t take every single criticism of a government and immediately call it antisemitism. I think we need to look more deeply into the motivation for it.”

Neal leading Morse 49-40 in Massachusetts 1st

Rep. Richard Neal (D-MA) leads his progressive challenger, Alex Morse, by nine points ahead of the heavily contested September 1 Democratic primary in Massachusetts’s 1st congressional district, according to a new Jewish Insider poll.

The poll, based on 518 voter surveys conducted by RABA Research on August 23 and 24, puts Neal on relatively comfortable footing with 49% of the vote, placing him outside the ±4.3% margin of error. Morse pulled in 40% of the vote among those surveyed, with 12% of likely voters reporting that they were “not sure” who they would choose.

At the same time, Neal’s failure to clear the 50% threshold could be a sign of trouble for him, as incumbents polling below 50% are often considered at risk of defeat.

In recent weeks, the contentious race has gained national attention as Morse, who is gay, became embroiled in a sexual misconduct scandal that nearly ended his run. But he was vindicated after the allegations put forth in a letter by the College Democrats of Massachusetts appeared to have been part of a scheme to derail Morse’s campaign in coordination with the state’s Democratic Party. Neal has denied any knowledge of such plans.

The controversy seems to have given Morse a boost, said Robert Boatright, a professor in the department of political science at Clark University in Worcester. “A lot of people outside Massachusetts rallied to his side on that, so the story got him more visibility, and my guess would be it helped him more than it hurt him,” he told JI. 

“But at the same time, the district is not really favorable to him,” Boatright added, predicting that Neal’s blue-collar base would likely give him an edge next week.

Still, Boatright speculated that left-leaning enthusiasm for another candidate in Massachusetts, Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA) — who is running against a younger challenger, Rep. Joe Kennedy (D-MA), but has been backed by progressives in and outside of the district — could perhaps buoy Morse in his own race. 

According to the JI poll, Kennedy leads Markey 44% to 37% among Democratic and independent voters in Massachusetts’s 1st congressional district. Nineteen percent of respondents said they were undecided.

Morse, the 31-year-old Holyoke mayor, entered the race to unseat Neal last summer, riding a progressive grassroots wave that, this election season, has swept away a number of long-serving legislators including Reps. Eliot Engel (D-NY), Dan Lipinski (D-IL) and William Lacy Clay (D-MO). 

Among the many issues demonstrating the political divide in the race, Neal and Morse have divergent views on aid to Israel. Morse, who is Jewish, believes the U.S. should condition aid to Israel in order to pressure the Israeli government to change its policies towards the Palestinians. Neal opposes conditioning security assistance to Israel.

According to the poll, a plurality of voters in the district — 48% — think aid to Israel should be conditioned, while 34% want assistance to continue without conditions. Eighteen percent — including 29% of voters who identified as “very liberal” — were not sure or expressed no opinion on the matter.

Morse said he does not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, but opposes efforts to legislate against BDS.

Neal is backed by a number of pro-Israel groups including Pro-Israel America and Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI), which last week poured more than $100,000 into anti-Morse advertising.

Over the past year, Morse has built a formidable campaign operation, raising more than $1.3 million, according to the latest filings from the Federal Election Commission. 

While the polling indicates Morse has been gaining momentum, he’ll still have to overcome the gap if he wants to pull off an upset in the district, which includes a large swath of western and central Massachusetts. 

Morse, who is backed by Justice Democrats, picked up another key endorsement on Tuesday from Courage to Change, the political action committee founded by Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY). The endorsement was not reflected in the poll because it occurred after the surveys were conducted.

Neal, who entered Congress in 1989 and serves as the powerful chairman of the tax-writing Ways and Means Committee, has vastly outraised his opponent, raking in nearly $3.8 million in his reelection effort. 

Neal, 71, has also benefited from considerable outside spending. In addition to the money spent by DMFI, the American Working Families super PAC poured more than $500,000 in advertising into the race in an effort to boost Neal.

Even if Neal manages to defend his seat, his falling short of 50% in the poll signals a tough political environment for established longtime members of Congress.

“If this were an isolated phenomenon, it wouldn’t be a big deal, but there have been a bunch of these races,” Howard J. Gold, a professor of government at Smith College in Northampton, told JI. “This fits into a really well established and growing pattern, and the old guard, the Democratic establishment, has to be really, really, careful. They can’t rely on politics as it used to be.”

Jacob Kornbluh and Marc Rod contributed to this report.

David Perdue and Jon Ossoff address antisemitism ahead of close election

Sen. David Perdue (R-GA) has strong words against antisemitism. 

“Antisemitism has no place in society, period,” he told Jewish Insider in a candidate questionnaire. “It’s horrifying any time you see hate perpetrated against Jewish people in the United States or anywhere around the world.”

Despite his emphatic beliefs, Perdue’s opponent in Georgia’s upcoming Senate election, former journalist Jon Ossoff — who is Jewish — has argued that Perdue himself has recently perpetrated antisemitic hatred. 

In late July, Perdue’s campaign tactics came under scrutiny when the first-term Republican senator published a Facebook ad that enlarged Ossoff’s nose — a classic antisemitic stereotype. A spokesman for Perdue told The Forward, which first reported on the image, that the edit was “accidental” and the ad would be removed from the site. 

But Ossoff wasn’t buying it. “This is the oldest, most obvious, least original antisemitic trope in history,” the 33-year-old Democratic candidate wrote in a Twitter statement when the ad was publicized by national media outlets. “Senator, literally no one believes your excuses.”

(Read the complete Perdue and Ossoff questionnaires, along with many others on JI’s interactive election map.)

Perdue did not mention the ad in his responses to the JI questionnaire, which includes a question asking candidates whether they believe there is a concerning rise of antisemitism, including in their own party.  

“I’ve been a friend of Israel and the Jewish community since I was very young,” the senator averred. “Since I got to the U.S. Senate, I’ve made fighting antisemitism and all forms of bigotry a top priority. Unfortunately, we saw this issue at the forefront in 2017 after a string of bomb threats at Jewish Community Centers across the country. That was unacceptable, and I worked with national security officials in the Trump administration to make sure there would be a long-term strategy to protect these JCCs and other places of worship.”

For his part, Ossoff also chose to not directly address Perdue’s controversial ad in responding to JI’s questionnaire, despite his previous caustic statement directed at the incumbent. 

“Sectarianism and racism often increase at moments of great social, economic, and political stress — especially when dangerous political demagogues like Donald Trump deliberately inflame mistrust, resentment, and hatred to gain power,” Ossoff told JI. “Racism, anti-Semitism, and xenophobia have increased in America as President Trump has deliberately pitted Americans against Americans, stirring up conflict within our society rather than uniting us to move forward together as one people.”

But Ossoff’s answer could also have been regarded as an implicit critique of Perdue’s reelection tactics. “I learned about public and political leadership from my mentor, Congressman John Lewis, who taught me to focus on our shared humanity above our racial, religious and cultural differences,” Ossoff continued, referring to the Georgia representative and civil rights leader who endorsed Ossoff before his death on July 17. 

“My state, our country and all humanity will only achieve our full potential and build the Beloved Community [a term coined by Lewis] by recognizing that we are all in this together, that our interests are aligned and that hatred, prejudice and discrimination only hold us back.”

Despite the tension between the two candidates, both emphasized their support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. 

“Any peace deal should protect the political freedom and human rights of all people in the region and ensure Israel’s security as a homeland for the Jewish people without threat of terrorism or invasion,” Ossoff declared. “The aim of the peace process should be secure and peaceful coexistence, political freedom and prosperity for people of all faiths and nationalities in the Middle East.”

“Obviously there is no simple fix but a two-state solution would be the best outcome for both sides,” Perdue told JI. “However, that won’t happen unless the Palestinians are willing to come to the table, negotiate in good faith and cut ties with terrorist groups like Hamas and Hezbollah. The Palestinian Authority has to end their practice of providing stipends for known terrorists. It’s ridiculous and the reason I support the Taylor Force Act. We’ve got to make sure the United States isn’t sending foreign aid until these payments end. Israel has made it clear that they are open to living in peace with the Palestinians. You’ve seen a willingness by Israel to begin negotiations. The Palestinians must do the same in order to solve this issue.”

Perdue and Ossoff also both expressed their commitment to ensuring that Israel maintains its security edge in the Middle East. 

“The special relationship between the U.S. and Israel is deeply rooted and strategically important to both countries, but it cannot be taken for granted,” Ossoff told JI. “Security cooperation, trade and cultural ties enrich and strengthen both countries. The U.S. Congress, with strong bipartisan support, should play an essential role in maintaining and strengthening healthy and open relations between the U.S. and Israel.”

“The U.S.-Israel relationship is both special and strategic,” Perdue said, while noting that his first foreign trip as a senator was to Israel. “It is special because we share the common values of freedom and democracy, and it’s strategic because Israel is America’s strongest ally in the Middle East.”

“President Trump has shown that Israel is and will continue to be a priority,” Perdue added. “By moving our U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, the president recognized the historic and modern reality that Jerusalem is the center for the Jewish people and all parts of Israeli government. Jerusalem is unquestionably Israel’s capital.”

Still, Perdue and Ossoff differ when it comes to the Iran nuclear deal, known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA). 

Perdue supports Trump’s decision to pull out of the agreement. “President Obama’s Iran deal was an unmitigated disaster,” he told JI. “It’s very clear that the Obama-Biden Administration’s weak foreign policy only emboldened Iran and made the world less safe. Trusting Iran to change was not only naive, but it also created a national security risk for our ally Israel.”

Ossoff disagrees, with qualifications. “Nuclear weapons proliferation is one of the gravest threats to U.S. and world security,” he said. “I support robust efforts to prevent the spread of nuclear weapons anywhere. An Iranian nuclear weapons capability would pose an existential threat to Israel and other U.S. allies and would pose a critical threat to U.S. national security.”

“I opposed the Trump administration’s unilateral U.S. withdrawal from the JCPOA,” he added. “In the Senate, I will support U.S. participation in an agreement that prevents Iran from developing nuclear weapons, whether based on the JCPOA, another multilateral agreement or a desperately needed new global nuclear arms reduction and nonproliferation treaty.”

Ossoff, who narrowly lost a 2017 congressional bid, is hoping he can best Perdue in November’s election as the Democrats are strategizing to flip the Senate. The Cook Political Report has rated the race a “toss-up.”

Palestinian activists disappointed at DNC platform’s language on Israel

Longtime Palestinian activists expressed their disappointment at the language in the Israel plank of the 2020 Democratic National Committee platform during a webinar hosted by the Arab American Institute on Tuesday.

James Zogby, AAI’s president, who has been involved in the drafting process of the party’s platform for decades, said this year’s process was markedly more friendly to Palestinian activists and their supporters than in prior election cycles, but still expressed frustration that the 2020 platform did not reference “occupation,” condemn all Israeli settlements or support conditioning U.S. aid to Israel.

Zogby accused party leaders of caving to pressure from the pro-Israel community for political reasons. “It’s not about policy, ever. It’s really about politics,” he asserted. “And it’s sort of a power pull. It’s a question of who can make who jump through hoops… We were always on the downside of that debate. In this case, they did it again, they wouldn’t let those words in the platform just to show who’s boss.”

Zaha Hassan, a human rights lawyer and visiting fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, called this year’s platform drafting process “difficult to understand” and “not very transparent,” adding that Palestinian-American delegates were disappointed with the results. She also decried the party for failing to explicitly support “equality” between Israelis and Palestinians, not using the word “sovereignty” in discussing Palestinian statehood and including language calling for Israel to remain a Jewish state.

Zogby praised the platform’s language regarding the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, which says the party opposes “any effort to unfairly single out and delegitimize Israel, including at the United Nations or through the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions Movement, while protecting the constitutional right of our citizens to free speech.” Zogby said he sees the second clause as essentially nullifying the previous anti-BDS language and as a disavowal of the state-level anti-BDS legislation that has been adopted by 30 states.

Jewish Currents editor-at-large Peter Beinart, who recently sent shockwaves through the Jewish community with a column arguing that liberal Zionists should abandon hope for a two-state solution, claimed that there is no longer a viable argument in support of Israel from a Democratic perspective.

“One of the things that I think we see more and more clearly is it’s not really possible to cordon off the Israel-Palestinian debate from all of the other debates… People have a set of values and principles,” he said. “In the Republican Party that is not such a problem because those principles fundamentally are not about equality.”

“But in the Democratic Party,” he continued, “the move that people who want the United States to support the Israeli government… is essentially to kind of cordon off, or try to defend the Israeli policies in the language of progressivism, which really doesn’t work when you have a government that’s denying millions of people basic rights because of their ethno-religious status.”

Hassan noted that the platform does not use language seen in previous platforms about “shared values” between the U.S. and Israel — recognition, she said, of this dynamic.

Beinart partly blamed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s government for this shift.

“We’ve had an Israeli prime minister now for 11 years who is very American, and who often looks to many progressive Americans as a kind of Israeli version of the Republicans that we like least domestically,” he said. “That makes it so easy for Americans to understand why the values that he represents are so anathema to us.”

Despite his criticisms of the platform, Zogby went on to downplay its significance, noting that it often does not reflect how the party, and its members, actually behave in practice.

“I dare say most people never even read the damn thing after it’s done,” he said. “Secondly, I think it’s important to see that the platform is never adhered to even by Democratic administrations… So I’m not going to make much right now of where [Joe] Biden and [Kamala] Harris are going to be.”

Laura Loomer’s latest stunt

Laura Loomer shot to fame in far-right circles as a kind of viral stunt performer who seemed unusually intent on staging random acts of provocation. Three years ago, the 27-year-old conservative agitator disrupted a “Julius Caesar” production — heavy on Trump allusions — in Central Park, and was promptly removed by security officers. In 2018, Loomer handcuffed herself to Twitter’s New York headquarters after she was kicked off the site for tweeting, among other things, that Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) was “anti Jewish.” The list goes on.

“I’m literally the most censored person in the world,” claimed Loomer, adding that she has been banned from virtually every mainstream social media platform, including Instagram, Facebook and Periscope, as well as other services like Uber, Lyft and PayPal. 

Now, Loomer is hoping she can pull off what may be her biggest stunt yet: running for Congress in South Florida’s solidly blue 21st congressional district, which includes President Donald Trump’s official Palm Beach residence, Mar-a-Lago. The seat is currently held by four-term incumbent Rep. Lois Frankel (D-FL).

Despite Loomer’s fringe status, experts in Florida state politics believe that she has a solid chance of winning the Republican primary today. Loomer, who entered the race last August, has racked up endorsements from the likes of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and Roger Stone. Though Trump has not made an endorsement, he has tweeted in support of the candidate. And Loomer has outraised all of her opponents, having pulled in nearly $1.2 million, according to the latest filings from the Federal Election Commission.

Loomer has taken donations from some high-profile contributors on the right, including the deplatformed conspiracy theorist Alex Jones; Lydia Brimelow, who is married to the founder of the white nationalist website VDARE; Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus; and former U.S. ambassador Eric Javits.

“When I filed to run, people were mocking me on the left and the right because, I guess you could say, I’ve been a controversial figure, and a lot of people have very strong feelings about me because of the way that big tech and the media have demonized me,” Loomer told Jewish Insider in a recent interview, adding: “Now they just have egg on their face because I’m the frontrunner.”

Still, Loomer’s war chest is not a sure sign of voter support, as many of the donations she has received have come from outside the state, according to former Florida Congressman Ron Klein, who chairs the Jewish Democratic Council of America. “People think she’s a viable candidate, but that’s not necessarily the case,” he told JI. “If she was raising money in the district, it would mean she had more momentum.”

“Her game is to be the shock candidate,” Klein added. “She says things that will shock the conscience, and that’s what makes it newsworthy.”

Born and raised in Arizona, Loomer attended Barry University in Miami Shores. Previously, she worked for James O’Keefe’s guerilla journalism outfit, Project Veritas, as well as Rebel Media, a right-wing Canadian news operation. Loomer moved to Palm Beach, she said, about two-and-a-half years ago after a stint in New York.

Loomer, who is active on right-wing social media sites like Parler and Gab, decided to run for Congress because of her experiences being booted from online platforms. “I do believe that big tech censorship is the most pressing issue this election cycle, along with restoring law and order,” said Loomer, who alleges, without evidence, that social media sites including Twitter and Facebook have enabled protest movements like Black Lives Matter, which she describes as antisemitic, while silencing its critics.

Loomer, who is Jewish, said she feels a strong sense of connection with her faith. “I’m not a hyper-religious person,” she said. “I’m Jewish, but for me, it’s an identity. You know, being Jewish is also — it’s cultural, it’s political, and it’s a race. They classify being Jewish as a race now. And so you’re ethnically Jewish.”

Her grandfather, the late Harry Loomer, was a pioneering psychiatrist who was born in Brooklyn and earned his medical degree in Vienna, where he witnessed the Nazi annexation of Austria in 1938 and was arrested by the Gestapo only to be released when the U.S. consulate intervened. 

Loomer describes herself as an “open Zionist” and has been to Israel, she estimated, five times — first on a Birthright trip in college and subsequently with the United West, a Florida-based nonprofit that the Southern Poverty Law Center has classified as an “active anti-Muslim group.” 

“What we do is we take people to Israel to learn about national security and Zionism,” said Loomer, adding that last year’s trip was focused on border security.

Loomer poses with Roger Stone (Loomer Campaign)

Loomer is one of several far-right Republican candidates this cycle who have emerged as contenders in congressional elections, including Marjorie Taylor Greene, a QAnon believer who recently won her runoff in Georgia’s 14th district and is expected to claim victory in the general election.

Joseph Uscinski, an associate professor of political science at the University of Miami who specializes in conspiracy theories, said that candidates like Greene and Loomer have been able to harness support by taking advantage of low-turnout elections. “These alt-right and QAnon people can win because primaries attract very few voters,” he told JI.

But even if Loomer advances beyond her primary, she will have a hard time defeating Frankel in a district rated “solid Democratic” by The Cook Political Report. “In that district, it’s almost impossible to see how Loomer pulls it off,” said Rick Wilson, a former Republican strategist and so-called “Never Trumper,” who is based in Florida.

Loomer’s incendiary comments will also likely alienate her from voters in the district, according to Steven Tauber, a professor of political science at the University of South Florida. “Loomer certainly has supporters,” he said, “but she is extremely divisive because of her bigoted statements against Muslims and her outrageous claims that mass shootings, including Parkland, were staged.”

Steven Schale, a Democratic strategist in Florida, was more emphatic in his appraisal of Loomer’s chances. “Do I think a candidate whose views and public statements are so absurdly loony that she’s even been banned by basically every platform imaginable — she can’t even get food delivered by Uber Eats — do I think she can beat Lois Frankel?” he said. “Let’s just say I have a better chance of being named the starting quarterback for the Jaguars.”

Loomer disagrees that she won’t be able to harness support should she make it to November, citing an internal poll that she claims gives her a nine-point lead over Frankel in the general election. When JI requested the poll in a text message, Loomer replied with a link to a Breitbart report but did not go into specifics about the manner in which the poll was conducted. 

A separate poll from an outside firm puts Loomer four points behind Frankel in a hypothetical matchup.

Polls aside, Karen Giorno, Loomer’s campaign manager, who previously served as Trump’s chief Florida strategist during the 2016 election, believes her candidate should not be underestimated. “Is it a blue district? Yes,” she said. “Is it unflippable? No.” 

Giorno told JI that she came out of retirement to help Loomer get elected. “She is kind of a political celebrity in her own right, but she reminds me very much of a little mini Donald Trump,” Giorno enthused. “You know, she doesn’t sleep; he doesn’t sleep. They work off of four hours a night, if that. They are a bundle of energy.”

For her part, Frankel seems unconcerned by the prospect of going up against a young conservative rabble-rouser with no experience in government. “With COVID-19 still rampant in Florida, I am focused on saving lives and livelihoods,” the congresswoman told JI through a spokesperson.

Jewish groups condemn conspiracy theorist Marjorie Greene after runoff victory

Controversial congressional candidate Marjorie Taylor Greene appears to be headed for Washington following her victory on Tuesday in the Republican runoff in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. Her win raises concerns among Jewish organizations who have sounded the alarm over her candidacy for months. The district’s overwhelmingly Republican make-up all but ensures that Greene will win the general election in November.

Greene has been a vocal promoter of the QAnon conspiracy theory — which alleges that President Donald Trump is working to take down a network of Democratic politicians and celebrities who practice satanism, pedophilia and cannibalism — and has posted Facebook videos expressing antisemitic, racist and Islamophobic views.

Even after launching her campaign, Greene continued to unapologetically propagate antisemitic conspiracy theories, including falsely accusing Democratic megadonor and Holocaust survivor George Soros of “turning people over to Nazis where they were burned in offices” in a recent television interview. She also dismissed questions about a photo she took with a former Ku Klux Klan leader who described her as a “friend.”

“Ms. Greene has a history of propagating antisemitic disinformation,” Allison Padilla-Goodman, Southern division vice president of the Anti-Defamation League, said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “ADL previously called on Ms. Greene to disavow her relationship with a prominent white supremacist leader and retract past antisemitic statements. ADL said that ‘failure to do so is a moral failure and unbecoming of someone seeking elected office.’ Ms. Greene’s continued insistence on propagating such antisemitism shows she has decided to double down on hate, which, to say the least, is deeply problematic.”

Republican leaders spoke out against Greene after her Facebook videos surfaced, but only House Minority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA) actively worked to boost her opponent, physician John Cowan, frustrating some House Republicans, according to Politico. Scalise, House Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) and the National Republican Campaign Committee did not respond to requests for comment.

The Republican Jewish Coalition opposed Greene during the runoff and endorsed Cowan.

“We are really proud to have endorsed John Cowan. We do not endorse Greene and we think she is the antithesis of what our party stands for,” RJC communications director Neil Strauss said in a statement to JI. “We can hold our heads up high tonight for standing up to Greene, just like we did when we stood up to [Rep.] Steve King by supporting Randy Feenstra.”

Rabbi Abraham Cooper, associate dean of the Simon Wiesenthal Center, said he was hopeful that Republican leaders would continue to distance themselves from Greene.

“During the primary campaign, top national Republican leaders in Congress, led by the House Minority Leader, denounced her bigotry with good reason. Some even endorsed her opponent. Yet she will likely be elected to Congress this fall,” Cooper said in a statement to JI.

Cooper called on Republican leaders to marginalize Greene within the Republican caucus as they did with King after he questioned why white supremacy was considered offensive.

“If Ms. Green[e] doesn’t change course,” Cooper said, GOP leaders “may have to apply [the] same standards to her.” 

In Georgia’s deep red 9th district, State Rep. Matt Gurtler, who also refused to apologize for taking a photo with the same former KKK leader, lost his runoff race against gun store owner and Navy veteran Andrew Clyde.

Auchincloss defends himself amid renewed scrutiny of past statements

Facing a firestorm of criticism for past social media posts, Massachusetts 4th district Democratic congressional candidate Jake Auchincloss addressed his comments in a web event hosted by the Boston Globe on Monday.

The Globe had endorsed Auchincloss — a Newton, Mass. city councilor — in the district’s crowded Democratic primary shortly before the social media posts resurfaced. 

In a 2010 post, addressing Pakistani lawyers burning an American flag at a rally, Auchincloss wrote, “So we can’t burn their book, but they can burn our flag?” In the other, he said that Cambridge, Mass. was “taking P[olitical] C[orrectness] too far” by changing Columbus Day to Indigenous People’s day.

Auchincloss apologized for his comments about the Quran, characterizing them as “a stuipd remark by a snarky 22-year-old” and said that he is “surprised and embarrassed” by them now. “It’s not how I felt then and it’s certainly not how I feel now,” he said.

Auchincloss argued that he was attempting to point out difficulties inherent in the broad protections of the First Amendment.

“As a country, we have grappled with how to balance the First Amendment freedom of expression, which has been an important bulwark of liberty in our country’s history, against the portfolio of other civil liberties that we cherish, including freedom from fear and freedom from harassment — and that’s an ongoing balance that we need to strike as a country,” he said.

He went on to say that he objects to burning both scripture and the American flag, adding that he was not advocating for burning either in his post. He said he has “grown and evolved” since he posted the comment, pointing specifically to his experiences working with Afghani Muslims while deployed to the country.

When pressed by Globe editorial editor Bina Venkataraman, who moderated the event, Auchincloss said the post was a “tone deaf way to kind of make a point about mutual toleration.”

The candidate also addressed a previous statement that Newton high school students should not be punished for displaying a Confederate flag on school grounds. Auchincloss had argued that the students had the First Amendment right to display the flag, but told Venkataraman that he now regrets his response.

Auchincloss also said that he has changed his opinion on Columbus after reading more about him, and is now advocating for Newton to change the holiday to Indigenous People’s Day.

On the issue of political correctness more broadly, Auchincloss pointed to the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and broader criticism of Israel on college campuses as examples of the potential dangers of political correctness taken too far.

“I do worry that on college campuses in particular, we see an increasing reluctance to engage with different points of view, I think we’ve seen this, and this is especially close to home for me as a Jewish American,” he said. “We’ve seen this with issues related to Israel and BDS… I do think that as a country, we’ve got to be careful that we’re not putting [blinders], that we really are willing to grapple with the full suite of opinions.”

Auchincloss also addressed reader concerns over his level of engagement with communities of color in Newton.

He insisted he’s been engaged in conversations about racism and discrimination throughout his time in city government, noting that he has received the backing of local civil rights advocates.

“I’m going to continue to be there in Congress on behalf of the Black community, on behalf of other historically marginalized communities,” he said. “We have a tremendous amount of work to do as a country to be a place where everybody truly feels like they’re part of our common heritage and they’re part of the 21st century promise that we have. And I’ve been there on the City Council and I’ll be there in Congress.”

Venkataraman questioned Auchincloss’s claims that he opposes dark money in politics, noting that he has benefited from $180,000 in outside advertising from a super PAC, which received a $40,000 donation from his parents.

“We have a broken campaign finance system,” he responded. “We have to operate in the system that we have. We all have to play by the same set of rules. And right now I’m under attack by a quarter million dollars worth of dark money that is trying to paint an incredibly unfair distortion of my beliefs. And I think there are people who want to tell a positive story about me… I hope that story gets out and can counterbalance these really negative unfair attacks.”

Despite acrimony, Loeffler and Collins walk in virtual lockstep on Israel

Sen. Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) and Rep. Doug Collins (R-GA) are locked in an acrimonious battle ahead of the U.S. Senate special election in Georgia on November 3. Collins, who represents a portion of northeastern Georgia, entered the race to compete against Loeffler shortly after she assumed office in early January, having been appointed by Gov. Brian Kemp against the objections of President Donald Trump, who favored Collins for the seat.

But when it comes to Israel, the two Republican candidates hold virtually indistinguishable views, according to questionnaires solicited by Jewish Insider and filled out by the candidates. 

Loeffler and Collins both support a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, endorse Trump’s Middle East peace plan, back continued foreign aid to the Jewish state and believe that the administration was right to pull out of the 2015 Iran nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama.

“We knew from the beginning that any deal negotiated by the Obama Administration would not go far enough to keep Iran from acquiring a nuclear weapon or to protect Israel from a nuclear Iran,” Collins wrote in response to questions from JI, echoing Loeffler, who said that Iran had “only become more emboldened in its efforts to attack U.S. interests and U.S. allies like Israel” during the time that the deal was in place.

(Read the Collins and Loeffler questionnaires, and many others, on Jewish Insider’s interactive election map.)

On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Loeffler and Collins — both of whom have positioned themselves as Trump loyalists — hold harmonious views. 

“I agree with President Trump that, especially given Israel’s agreement to terms for a potential Palestinian state, a two-state solution is a pragmatic approach that respects the validity of Israel and its people while giving Palestinians the opportunity to self-govern and remain in their communities,” Collins wrote. “Within a two-state solution, it is imperative that Israel remain the ultimate guardian of holy sites and Jerusalem to ensure all who want to worship in these sacred places will continue to have the opportunity to do so. It is also imperative that, in any agreement, Israel has defensible borders to continue to protect themselves from any future attacks.”

The senator’s response was similar. “It has become increasingly clear that a two-state solution is the best path to peace in the Middle East, and I support President Trump’s historic efforts to deliver Israel the security and autonomy it needs to prosper,” she said. “Like President Trump, I believe that any path to peace must recognize undivided Jerusalem as the capital and territory of Israel.”

Loeffler added that “any Palestinian nation must be strictly policed to ensure that the violence perpetuated by Palestinians (especially through Hamas) comes to an end so that both the Palestinians and the Israeli people can fully prosper.”

Both candidates cited their records on the Hill supporting aid to Israel. Collins, for his part, pointed to legislation he introduced in 2013 to bolster Israel’s defense interests, while Loeffler noted that she was a co-sponsor of the United States-Israel Security Assistance Authorization Act, “which will send additional funds to Israel in order to upgrade its military equipment, improve its ground force, strengthen its missile defense system, and expand the U.S. weapons stockpile in Israel.”

The candidates also agree that there is a concerning rise of antisemitism in the U.S., but reserve judgement only for the Democratic Party. “Sadly, we have witnessed this rising tide of antisemitism in Congress over the last several years,” Collins said, “with a growing number of members in the Democratic Caucus voicing their support for the BDS movement, which attacks Israel’s very right to exist.”

Loeffler went a step further in her questionnaire, calling out Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) who, according to the senator, “has repeatedly called Israel evil and openly called for the dissolution of the nation state of Israel.” She was also critical of the Black Lives Matter movement, which, she wrote, “continually endorses the BDS movement and has called Israel an ‘apartheid state.’”

Loeffler and Collins are running in a competitive special election that includes two formidable Democratic opponents: Raphael Warnock, senior pastor of Ebenezer Baptist Church in Atlanta, and Matt Lieberman, son of former Sen. Joe Lieberman (I-CT). 

Should no candidate clear 50% of the vote on November 3, then the top two candidates will advance to a runoff to be held in January.

This New York Democrat hopes to win again in Trump country

For Rep. Anthony Brindisi (D-NY), the hardest part of his job is leaving his family behind at the beginning of each week to head to Washington. But as a public servant, the father of two has found a way to ease those departures. On the flight from New York to Washington, D.C., Brindisi — who has represented New York’s 22nd congressional district since 2019 — writes a note to his 13-year-old son and 9- year-old daughter about why he’s going to Congress that week. 

“Hopefully, they can look back at that later on and understand that daddy was trying to make the world a better place,” the first-term congressman told Jewish Insider in a recent interview, “and that’s why he had to go to Washington every week.”

For Brindisi, 41, the notes don’t just add up to a collection that his kids will have to look at later in life, but also for himself, as a lawmaker, to “document and remember all the things that have been happening this last year and a half.”

Born and raised in Utica, New York, Brindisi earned his law degree from Albany Law School after graduating from Siena College. After graduation, he joined the law firm founded by his father, Brindisi, Murad, Brindisi & Pearlman. In 2011, he ran for a State Assembly seat, succeeding former Assemblywoman RoAnn Destito (D) in a special election to represent Oneida County. 

In 2018, encouraged by Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY), Brindisi ran for Congress and beat first-term Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-NY) by less than 2 percentage points. Now, the roles are flipped: Tenney is challenging Brindisi in November, hoping to take back the seat she lost.

“It has been a crazy time and an exciting first year and a half,” Brindisi said of his time in Washington. “There’s been so many history-making moments that have happened since 2018, and it’s interesting to have a front row seat to all of them.” 

*** 

The 22nd district is considered a toss-up, according to The Cook Political Report. In 2016, President Donald Trump won the district by more than 15 points and it remains a top target for the GOP.

Brindisi co-chairs the whip role for the Blue Dog Coalition, a group of Democratic lawmakers who identify as fiscally responsible, and is a member of the Problem Solvers Caucus, which is made up of Democrats and Republicans looking for bipartisan solutions to Washington’s biggest challenges.

Brindisi boasts about being one of the few freshman members of Congress who has had four pieces of legislation signed by President Donald Trump, among them bills on veteran affairs and health care matters. “It was not an easy thing to do, especially when you’re in divided government right now,” he told JI. “But I believe in bipartisanship and trying to solve problems.” 

Working in a bipartisan manner “has really been my recipe for success,” Brindisi said. “I spent a lot of time trying to build relationships with other members of Congress on both sides of the aisle. And when you take the time to listen to other members, sometimes you can find consensus and then work together to solve a problem.”

Brindisi believes this approach is greatly appreciated by his constituents. “The one thing I hear over and over again from constituents is, ‘We don’t care if you’re a Democrat or Republican. We just want you getting things done.’ And that’s what I focused on in my first couple of years, in addition to being visible in the district,” he stressed. 

***

At the age of four, Brindisi lost his mother after a protracted battle with cancer. Brindisi told JI that his three older sisters, who he credits with raising him, instilled in him the values that he feels guide his work as a public servant.

“One of the lessons that always stuck out was, don’t be a bystander. When you see something wrong, you have to do something about it,” Brindisi said, adding that those words “were in the back of my head” when he first ran for Congress. “I didn’t like seeing what was happening in Washington and people not working together to solve big problems. I guess I could have sat back and stayed in the state legislature, but I decided to run for Congress in a seat that traditionally isn’t held by Democrats to do something to change that.” 

“I’ve always enjoyed public service,” Brindisi continued. “It has its moments — it definitely has its ups and downs. But when you can help a constituent who’s trying to get health insurance or if you can pass substantive legislation that’s going to improve the lives of people in your district and across the country, to me, it makes up any of the low points.”

***

Victor Pearlman, executive director at the Jewish Community Federation of the Mohawk Valley, is married to Brindisi’s older sister Eva. “[Anthony] is an amazing young man with an innate ability who understood my Jewish upbringing and my values like I don’t even think many Jews could understand,” Pearlman told JI in a phone interview. “He has participated in Passover Seders, he has come to shul to read passages at my children’s bar and bat mitzvahs.”

Although the Jewish community is relatively small in Utica, Pearlman said that the local Jewish community “supports [Brindisi] almost to a person.” 

Brindisi first visited Israel in 2016 on a delegation of New York assembly members. He described the trip as “remarkable” and said it had a significant impact on how he views the U.S.-Israel relationship as a member of Congress. “I think being able to see firsthand the strong bond between our two countries and the shared values was important and has helped shape and strengthen my view of why we need to support our ally Israel and maintain a strong bond between our two countries,” Brindisi said. 

Pearlman told JI that following his brother-in-law’s trip to Israel, “one of the first things he said to me was, ‘I felt like I was in America, and I didn’t expect that because I was in the Middle East.’ And all I said to him was, ‘I told you so.’” 

***

The New York Democrat supported Trump’s decision to move the U.S. Embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and the U.S. withdrawal from the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran. Brindisi was also one of 12 House Democrats who broke party ranks last year to vote in favor of a Republican motion to recommit on anti-BDS legislation that would allow state and local governments to adopt laws to divest public funds from entities that boycott Israel.

But Brindisi maintained that his record on Israel is “more in line with the long-standing principles” of the Democratic Party. 

“Although there are those in my party that may not feel as strongly as I do about the relationship between the U.S. and Israel, to me, supporting Israel should not be a partisan issue,” he stressed. “It is a relationship that has existed for several decades, and we need to maintain that strong, unbreakable bond for the future.”

Brindisi is one of almost two dozen Democrats who didn’t sign onto House letters publicly expressing opposition to potential Israeli annexation of parts of the West Bank. A House letter sent to Israeli leaders, signed by 191 House Democrats and backed by House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, warned that annexation would undermine the two-state solution. Another letter, signed by 12 progressive members and addressed to Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, threatened to condition aid to Israel over annexation. 

Brindisi told JI he did not sign onto the more mainstream letter against annexation because it didn’t strongly oppose conditioning military aid to Israel.  “My concern with the letter is that I believe it’s important that we reiterate and make it very clear that it’s in America’s national security interests to maintain our commitment to security assistance to Israel without conditions,” he said. “That’s a red line for me.” 

Brindisi added that he has “concerns” with the prospect of unilateral annexation of territory in the West Bank because he favors direct negotiations between the parties. “What is most important to me is the long-standing permanent relationship between our two countries,” he said. “The security aid that we provide is not symbolic. In my mind, it saves lives, and we need to reiterate that commitment to make sure that it’s clear.”

Pearlman told JI, “I like to hope that part of his love of Jews and Israel might have been slightly influenced by me. I can say to my Jewish friends: You won’t find a better supporter of Israel [than Brindisi].” 

***

Brindisi is confident that he will win a second term in November, but acknowledged that it’s “going to be a tough race” given the challenge posed by the GOP in a presidential year. “But I feel that people in the district, by and large, don’t want to turn back the clock. They want to continue the progress we’ve made.” 

And it’s his accomplishments as a freshman that Brindisi wants voters to judge him on, drawing a clear contrast with the more progressive wing of his party. “There’s a lot of members that prefer to make noise on social media, but don’t accomplish a whole lot when they come to Washington,” Brindisi told JI. “My goal is to deliver results for the people that elected me, and that means sometimes working quietly behind the scenes.” 

Senate GOP primary comes down to the wire in Kansas

Kris Kobach, the former Secretary of State of Kansas, has accepted donations from white nationalists, paid an individual who posted racist comments on a white nationalist website and allegedly employed three other white nationalists during his failed gubernatorial campaign in 2018.

He is also a leading contender in today’s crowded Senate primary in Kansas, featuring no fewer than 11 Republican candidates jockeying to succeed retiring Sen. Pat Roberts (R-KS). Kobach’s presence in the race has put extremism experts on alert.

“It’s just a very consistent record that he takes these far-right, nativist, anti-immigration views,” said David Neiwert, the author of Alt-America: The Rise of the Radical Right in the Age of Trump, who kept a close eye on Kobach’s trajectory when he worked as a correspondent for the nonprofit Southern Poverty Law Center. “This is Kris Kobach’s identity.”

The Anti-Defamation League is similarly wary of Kobach, a 54-year-old immigration hardliner with degrees from Harvard, Yale and Oxford who currently writes a column for Breitbart.

“Kris Kobach is an anti-immigrant bigot who spoke in 2015 at an event organized by a publisher that routinely elevates the writings of white supremacists,” an ADL spokesperson told Jewish Insider, referring to Kobach’s appearance at an event hosted by the Social Contract Press, founded by white nationalist John Tanton. “He has also championed the baseless conspiracy theory about rampant voter fraud in the 2016 election, and has been credibly accused of promoting legislation that engages in racial profiling, including Arizona’s controversial ‘Show Me Your Papers’ law.”

Kobach’s campaign did not respond to requests for an interview.

Heading into Tuesday’s primary, political scientists told JI that with little polling data available, it’s unclear who currently leads the Republican field, though Rep. Roger Marshall (R-KS) has emerged alongside Kobach as one of the stronger candidates in the race. 

“The best guess is that it’s some kind of coin flip, probably between Kobach and Marshall,” said Patrick R. Miller, a professor in the department of political science at the University of Kansas.

Though Kobach has been gaining momentum, one of his weak spots is his “poor fundraising,” according to Miller. Kobach, who in 2004 unsuccessfully ran for Congress in Kansas’s 3rd congressional district, has raked in approximately $940,000, according to the Federal Election commission — far less than Marshall, who has raised $2.7 million. 

Still, Kobach’s campaign has been buoyed by billionaire tech mogul Peter Thiel, who has pumped $850,000 into a super PAC supporting the insurgent candidate. 

Kobach has also garnered unexpected support from a separate, Democratic-linked super PAC, which is spending millions of dollars to run ads that characterize Kobach as a more committed conservative than Marshall — the subtext being that Democrats view Kobach as the weaker Republican candidate in the general election.

Rep. Roger Marshall (Eric Connolly, U.S. House Office of Photography)

Some establishment Republicans seem to agree, experts say. “They’re definitely afraid Kobach will win the nomination,” Burdett Loomis, a political scientist at the University of Kansas, told JI. “If Kobach wins, the seat immediately turns into a tossup.”

Marshall, for his part, has also benefited from some outside spending, though the GOP was initially skeptical of his candidacy: Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell publicly advocated for former senator and current Secretary of State Mike Pompeo to run for the seat, despite repeated rejections from Pompeo. Now, a McConnell-aligned super PAC is spending $1.2 million to boost Marshall. 

“He might be the rickety tank they’re reluctantly riding into battle, but it’s the only tank they have,” Miller said of Marshall, 59, who has represented Kansas’s 1st congressional district since 2017.

Gavriela Geller, director of JCRB/AJC Kansas City, an organization that merged the regional office of the American Jewish Committee and the local Jewish Community Relations Bureau, said that Marshall has been receptive to meeting members of the Jewish community in Kansas and hearing their concerns. 

“We would hope that whoever wins the Senate seat will be similarly receptive to working with us and addressing the multiple sources of rising antisemitism in this country, including a troubling increase in white nationalist rhetoric and violence, which is of particular concern in our region,” Geller told JI, noting that she could not endorse any candidate in the race because her organization is nonpartisan. 

Despite pressure from some party leaders to endorse Marshall, President Donald Trump also appears set on staying out of the primary. Kobach, a Trump ally, had previously been considered for positions as Trump’s “immigration czar” as well as secretary of homeland security.

Another Republican candidate, Bob Hamilton, a former plumbing company owner well-known in the state for ads that featured his name, has shifted the dynamics of the race in recent weeks by spending more than $2 million of his own money on advertising. Experts say that won’t put him in the lead, but Hamilton’s efforts to boost his profile could pull support away from the other candidates and give one of them an edge.

The competing ads have made for a confusing situation for Republican voters. “People aren’t talking much about policy,” said Loomis.

Kansas State Sen. Barbara Bollier (Courtesy)

On the other side of the aisle, State Senator Barbara Bollier is running essentially uncontested for the Democratic nomination. She became known in the state for switching her party affiliation from Republican to Democrat at the end of 2018, and has built a reputation as a centrist candidate. 

“She’s proving to be a more credible candidate and a stronger candidate than people thought she would be,” said Miller, “and I think Republicans would be foolish to discount that.”

A June 2 poll found Bollier in a statistical dead heat with Marshall, Kobach and Hamilton in hypothetical general election matchups. 

A May 28 poll, however, found Marshall 11 points ahead of Bollier, and Bollier and Kobach tied. Bollier has stunned observers in the state, Miller said, by far outraising each of her Republican opponents in the race: She’s already raised $7.8 million, with more than $4 million still on hand.

But more surprising, perhaps, is the fact that Kobach has emerged as an ostensible frontrunner in Kansas’s packed Republican primary field. “It’s a Republican state, but historically it has not been a far-right Republican state,” Loomis said. 

When the votes are counted, Kansans will find out whether that formulation holds up.

The race to succeed Rep. Justin Amash heats up

Rep. Justin Amash (L-MI) was once a popular figure in Michigan’s 3rd congressional district.  He represented the district for a decade, winning by wide margins in several elections. Attention turned to the seat in 2019, when Amash announced he was leaving the Republican Party, and intensified when Amash declared a short-lived presidential bid in the spring. In July, he announced he would not seek reelection, leaving both major parties hopeful that they might win the seat.

Even before Amash made his announcement last month, half a dozen candidates had entered the race to represent the district, which is made up of counties in the western portion of the state, including Grand Rapids. With Amash’s departure from the race, the Cook Political Report has pushed the district from “toss-up” to “lean Republican.” 

Democratic candidate Hillary Scholten, who served in the Justice Department during the Obama administration, is running unopposed in the primary, and has already picked up the backing of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee’s Red to Blue program and JStreetPAC.

But the five-person Republican primary, scheduled for August 4, is a heated competition, with Iraq veteran Peter Meijer — scion of the Midwestern Meijer grocery chain — and State Representative Lynn Afendoulis leading the field.

And as Amash has alienated voters on both sides of the aisle, the leading candidates are taking steps to distance themselves from the congressman.

“I’d rather focus on the future than dwell on the past,” Meijer told JI. “For a lot of candidates, it’s tempting to define themselves based off of being the ‘pro-this’ or ‘anti-that.’ And I’ve always been focused on not defining myself relative to others but saying we need to be looking forward.”

Peter Meijer (Meijer for Congress)

Afendoulis had strong words for Amash, who left the Republican Party last July.

“Justin Amash looks at the role differently than I do,” she said. “He has had a constituency of one. And he has represented his own needs and his own beliefs and his own agenda, rather than the agenda of the district… He has not been able to move the ball forward anywhere because he sees things black and white, and he cannot work with others.”

Although Scholten praised Amash for advocating for Trump’s impeachment, she was skeptical of his overall record.

“I really think that Congressman Amash wasn’t doing enough for our district,” Scholten told JI, pointing to his overall voting record, highlighting his votes against the Affordable Care Act, environmental protections and anti-lynching legislation. “I raised my hand to run because I realized that the congressman was not representing our values on so many crucial issues.”

***

Meijer is the current Republican frontrunner, according to Michigan State University politics professor Corwin Smidt, although Afendoulis may still have a shot at the nomination.

Meijer and Afendoulis have adopted starkly different tones on the campaign trail. Meijer has avoided the aggressive pro-Trump rhretoric many Republican congressional candidates have embraced this cycle — noting obliquely in a recent interview that “the easiest way to win the primary is the easiest way to lose the general.” This stance, and a past donation to an anti-Trump group, have led Afendoulis’s campaign to label Meijer as a “never Trumper.”

In an interview with Jewish Insider, Meijer pushed back against the attack.

“A lot of those same opponents behind closed doors have accused me of being too supportive of the president and not distancing myself enough,” he said. “So it’s not surprising that folks who are looking for simple political advantage will talk out of both sides of their mouth.”

Meijer leads the field in fundraising, with $1.5 million raised, $325,000 of which is self-funded. Scholten is second, with just over $1 million, but she has nearly $200,000 more in the bank than Meijer at the moment, and outraised all of her Republican challengers in the second quarter. Afendoulis has raised approximately $900,000 overall.

The well-known Meijer name has also been a boon for his campaign, Smidt said. His family’s grocery chain is prominent in the region, and his family is also involved in philanthropic work in and around the district. In his interview with JI, Meijer drew a direct line between the grocery business and Congress.

“The mantra in our company is that the customer’s always right… We want to make sure that we are providing the assortment of items and that level of customer service,” he told JI. “Frankly, I want to do the same thing in Congress. Every stage of this campaign, it’s been a very simple message. It’s been about talking to the community and making sure that we are focused on how to continue to make west Michigan a great and strong place.”

Heading into the general election, Smidt said Meijer’s wealth and fundraising edge could serve as strong assets against Scholten. He added that Amash’s decision not to seek reelection on the libertarian line dealt a major blow to Scholten’s congressional aspirations.

“At first, I thought the advantage would be for Scholten in a three-way race if Amash was going to run as a libertarian. Amash would effectively split the Republican votes among those in the 3rd district who are anti-Trump and those who are pro-Trump,” he said. “I’m not so convinced now that Scholten has as easy of a case now with Amash not running.”

***

Lynn Afendoulis (Michigan House Republicans)

Meijer served as an intelligence officer in Iraq and later worked with an NGO in Afghanistan supporting aid workers within the country. He said his experiences in the Middle East are foundational to his congressional aspirations.

“[I] saw that our political polarization and a lack of understanding of the realities of our conflicts was really hampering our ability to have long-term strategic solutions,” Meijer said. “So I wanted to come back, get more engaged, make sure I could take the experiences that I had in Iraq and Afghanistan… and use that not only to make sure that we as a country are heading on a better path but also return a sense of strong, stable and effective representation to west Michigan.”

His time working in conflict zones also changed his views on U.S. military engagement abroad, making him a committed advocate for ending the wars in both Iraq and Afghanistan.

“I definitely came in as a hawk,” he said. “I came away that, when we lead with a military-first international engagement, it doesn’t make us more secure. It doesn’t make us safer. And it only increases risks and dangers for our allies throughout the world. I want us to be leading with a diplomacy and intelligence-first approach.”

“When I was in Iraq, we were driving around in million-dollar armored vehicles that can be destroyed by a $200 bomb, and I’m tired of American forces being on the wrong end of that cost-benefit equation,” he added.

Meijer also favors a diplomatic approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, with the U.S. acting as a “mediating force,” but stopped short of endorsing any specific plan. “I vastly prefer not to go into any negotiation with a preset outcome,” he said.

He added that he saw the JCPOA nuclear agreement with Iran as “well intended but… very flawed,” and said he personally dealt with the consequences of Iranian hostility while fighting Iranian-backed militias in Iraq. 

“We would confiscate artillery rounds that were stamped ‘made in Iran’ within a few months of their production,” he recounted. “[The JCPOA] was too narrowly targeted and was sufficiently toothless to really hem in a lot of the malign foreign influence that Iran has been projecting.”

Afendoulis avoided discussing specifics about the Mideast peace process, saying she needs to study the issue further, but emphasized that she supports a “secure, vibrant Israel.”

Hillary Scholten (Scholten for Congress)

Scholten, however, was clear in her support for a two-state solution.

“I think the U.S. should play a role of independent and neutral mediator or arbiter,” she said. “I don’t think the United States should insert itself in a way that puts the thumb on the scale of the very necessary two-state solution process that we need to eventually reach peace.”

In pursuit of that, Scholten said she supports restoring aid to the Palestinian Authority, and did not rule out conditioning or reducing U.S. aid to Israel.

“I think it’s very circumstance-dependent,” she said. “And I think that the United States should continue its very helpful and supportive role to Israel. I think that we absolutely need to make sure that we are continuing to give aid in a way that supports a neutral position and supports and enhances a two-state solution.”

Scholten said she does not support the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, explaining “it’s very clear the BDS movement has deep roots in antisemitic sentiment and rhetoric.”

The Democratic candidate added that she does not see antisemitism as unique to any particular political perspective, but emphasized that she thinks Trump has stoked antisemitism by aligning himself with domestic extremists.

Meijer agreed that antisemitism appears within fringe political movements of all stripes, but specifically mentioned BDS and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan as concerning.

Afendoulis emphasized the importance of tough conversations and strong leadership in combating antisemitism and other forms of extremism. 

“Leaders in our communities, leaders in our nation have to set examples,” she said. “And we have to show that we are people of compassion, and that we respect the rule of law, and that we respect each other and that we are interested in engaging in conversations that will get us to better understandings.”

High-stakes Republican runoff in Texas attracts national attention

Tony Gonzales recently spent two years in Washington, working as a Department of Defense legislative fellow for Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL). Now, the former Navy master chief petty officer is looking to return to the nation’s capital — as the congressman representing Texas’s 23rd congressional district.

Gonzales, who comes armed with the endorsement of President Donald Trump, is likely to win Tuesday’s runoff against another veteran, Raul Reyes. Gonzales came out on top in the March 3 primary, taking 28% of the vote to Reyes’ 23%. The winner will go up against Gina Ortiz Jones, who handily beat her opponents in the Democratic primary.

Jones narrowly lost her 2018 bid against Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX), who announced last August that he would not be seeking a fourth term. This year, Jones is favored to win in the district that The Cook Political Report rates as “Lean Democratic.”

But Gonzales is up for the challenge, telling Jewish Insider that he can deliver a victory against Jones in November where Reyes cannot. “I have the experience of being on Capitol Hill, drafting legislation, staffing, hearings, doing constituent services,” he said. 

Mark Jones, a political science fellow at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy, agreed that Reyes would be unlikely to win in November.

“Whoever wins [the runoff]… will have a real uphill struggle against Gina Ortiz Jones,” Jones continued. “It’s going to be really tough for Gonzales to win that seat.”

But Gonzales is optimistic that voters in the district, which has flipped between Democratic and Republican control in recent years but was held by Republican Rep. Henry Bonilla for 14 years, will turn out for him in November. He pointed out that he’s a Hispanic candidate running in a majority-Hispanic district, an advantage over Jones.

***

Should he win, Gonzales would bring to Congress a font of Middle East policy expertise. While in the military, he was deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan. And while working for Rubio, he focused on defense, national security and intelligence issues, with a particular focus on the Middle East.

“I spent my entire adult life basically at war,” he said. “A big part of my message is taking care of veterans, on one hand. The other aspect of it is for America to be firm. I believe in peace through strength.”

In 2018, as a national security fellow for the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Gonzales visited Israel, which he said helped shape his view of the region and understanding of the geopolitical situation.

“I read about the Golan Heights and studied it and I understood its strategic importance,” he said, explaining that seeing the situation on the ground allowed him to realize that the area was more than a military interest. “But when you visit it, the part that is left out is there’s this amazing winery just miles from the Golan Heights. So in my eyes, yeah, of course Israel would never give up that area.”

Julia Schulman, senior director of special projects at FDD, told JI, “Gina and Tony are both members of FDD’s non-partisan national security alumni network. Both are dedicated public servants who were actively engaged in our programming. Both have exciting careers ahead and we look forward to seeing how they continue to serve our country.”

Gonzales said he does not believe the U.S. should dictate any specific peace plan for the region, nor should it dictate whether Israel should be allowed to unilaterally annex portions of the West Bank.

“The Israelis and the Palestinians, I think, should lead the way,” he said. “I think [America’s] role is to bring those [actors] together and open up a dialogue, not necessarily dictate what that peace process should be like.”

He added, however, “my experience in the military has taught me that you really can’t have peace unless you have partners that are willing to have that discussion. So I think it starts there.”

Although Gonzales believes that peace negotiations also are the best way to resolve the U.S. conflict with Iran, he did not support the Obama administration’s nuclear deal with the regime.

“I’d love nothing more than Iran to come to the negotiating table and have a dialogue and a discussion. That’s, I believe, how we solve a long-term solution,” he said. “In the meantime, though, that region of the world views strength through power.”

In this sense, Gonzales said, the Trump administration’s tougher posture toward Iran, including the strike which killed Gen. Qassem Solemaini, has been a net positive.

Gonzales — who was a Navy cryptologist — said Iran, as well as Russia and China, pose major cyber threats to the U.S., including U.S. elections.

“Our greatest [external] adversaries are China, Russia and Iran,” he said. “The number one thing is having the dialogue and saying, ‘Yes, China is trying to impact our elections. Yes, Russia is trying to impact our elections. Yes, Iran and others are trying to impact our elections.’ Why? Because they’re our adversaries. They’re trying to undermine us. And I think just being able to say that is already a win that we don’t have on Capitol Hill.”

***

What was anticipated to be a fairly quiet runoff in southwestern Texas between two military veterans has become the site of a high-stakes clash between major players in the national GOP. 

Gonzales has the support of Trump, Hurd and other GOP leaders, while Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) broke with the party to support Reyes, boosting him with a massive ad campaign that raised eyebrows at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. 

And on the eve of the primary, Trump’s campaign sent a strongly worded letter to Reyes’s campaign, admonishing him for using the president’s name and image on a mailer. 

“President Trump and his campaign do not support your candidacy in TX-23’s July 14 runoff primary,” Trump campaign executive director Michael Glassner said in the letter, which was first reported by Politico. “Your campaign’s efforts to make voters believe otherwise are deceptive and unfair.”

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

Jones said Trump’s endorsement helped shore up Gonzales’ campaign by shielding him from Reyes’s claims that he’s too much of an establishment Republican.

“I think Gonzales is going to [win that runoff] pretty easily,” Jones told JI.

But if he doesn’t, Jones predicts the race will drop off the radar of the GOP. “If Reyes wins, I would expect national Republicans to pull the plug on [TX]23,” Jones told JI. “If Reyes wins, [the district] will cease to be a real priority.”

Eyeing the races in Texas’s much-anticipated primary runoffs

There are a number of intriguing races to watch in Texas’s primary runoffs today. Patrick Svitek, a political correspondent for the Texas Tribune, ran through some of the most noteworthy matchups in a recent interview with Jewish Insider. Here’s what he’s keeping an eye on as votes are tallied today:

Senate runoff: At the top of the ticket is the Democratic primary runoff for the United States Senate. M.J. Hegar, a veteran of the U.S. Air Force, is going up against Royce West, a veteran state politician who has served in the Texas Senate for close to three decades. Though West has trailed Hegar in the polls, he has slightly closed the gap in recent weeks as mass protests against police brutality have swept the nation. But West, who is African American, isn’t exactly an upstart progressive along the lines of Charles Booker, who came close to defeating Amy McGrath in Kentucky’s recent Senate primary race.

“I don’t think it’s an explicit moderate-versus-progressive matchup,” Svitek said of the West-Hegar contest. “And I think it may be tempting for folks from outside the state to kind of put it through that lens.” Svitek believes that Hegar — who is backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has outraised her opponent — is the ultimate favorite in the race. Whether she will be able to defeat Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) in November, however, is another story. Hegar is still something of a long shot, according to Svitek, but Trump’s sagging poll numbers may bode well for her. “I think she’s increasingly coming on the radar because of how close the presidential race is looking in the state,” Svitek said. 

TX-13: In Texas’s 13th congressional district, Ronny Jackson, Trump’s former doctor, is going up against Josh Winegarner, a cattle industry lobbyist, in the open-seat race to replace outgoing Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-TX). Svitek described the race as the “most contentious” in the state. Jackson, who has been endorsed by the president, has accused his opponent of being anti-Trump, while Winegarner has attacked Jackson for only recently moving to the district. As of a week ago, Svitek said, it looked as if Jackson had the edge, but more recently, the race has tightened. “That’s one to watch, for sure,” he told JI. 

TX-10: In 2018, Mike Siegel, a progressive Democrat, came within just four percentage points of beating Rep. Mike McCaul (R-TX) in the state’s 10th congressional district, a historically conservative swath between Austin and Houston. He is trying again this cycle, but first, Siegel will have to defeat Pritesh Gandhi, a well-known doctor in the district. “Gandhi is not as progressive as Siegel,” Svitek said, “but has run a pretty strong race, been the top fundraiser, brings a really interesting story as a physician here in Austin for a community health clinic, and he’s obviously benefited from being in the spotlight on the frontlines of the coronavirus.”

Still, Svitek added, Siegel has built-in name recognition from his last attempt at the seat, which may give him an advantage in the runoff. Regardless of who wins, it will be a competitive race in the general election in a district that has been trending purple in recent years. “The challenge with McCaul is that he has been able to prepare for this race since January 2019,” said Siegel, adding, “He’s also incredibly independently wealthy, and while he has been fine fundraising on his own so far, he could write himself a $5 million check tomorrow and kind of take this race off the grid.”

TX-17: Former Rep. Pete Sessions, who lost to a Democrat in 2018 in the state’s 32nd district, is trying to make his way back to the House in the open-seat contest to replace retiring Rep. Bill Flores in Texas’s 17th congressional district, which includes the city of Waco. But Sessions may have some trouble regaining entry given that Flores has endorsed the other candidate in the race local businesswoman Renee Swan. 

“It’s been a unique race in that the outgoing incumbent, I think, has really played an outsized role in trying to shape the field and the battle lines,” said Svitek. “He wanted someone with stronger roots in the district than some guy who just represented Dallas for a long time.” Svitek told JI that Sessions may be the slight favorite in the district given his name recognition. “But I think it’s going to be a close race, regardless.”

TX-24: Two Democrats are running in a competitive district for the chance to succeed Rep. Kenny Marchant (R-TX), who is retiring at the end of his term. Kim Olson, a former military pilot, is something of a “mini-celebrity” in the state thanks to her run for Texas agricultural commissioner two years ago, said Svitek. “It looked like she was going to be the candidate to beat in this current race,” he said. Candace Valenzuela, a young progressive candidate of color, got into the race a little later than Olson and had a pretty slow fundraising start. 

But then Valenzuela picked up the endorsement of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus and Emily’s List, as well as Sens. Kamala Harris (D-CA) and Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Rep. John Lewis (D-GA). Although Olson has been the top fundraiser in the race, Svitek said, Valenzuela has caught up with her and surpassed her in the most recent period. “Valenzuela has really built considerable momentum in this runoff,” he told JI.

TX-22: Two far-right candidates — Kathaleen Wall and Troy Nehls — are vying to succeed Republican Rep. Pete Olson, who isn’t seeking re-election, in this district in the Houston suburbs. Wall, a wealthy Repulican donor, is almost exclusively self-funding her campaign, Svitek pointed out. Nehls, a sheriff in Fort Bend County — which Svitek said contributes to about 70% of the vote in the district — has struggled to raise money, but has a solid base of support. “He just seems to cultivate loyalty among his followers,” Svitek told JI.

Wall, for her part, lost her bid for Congress last cycle in a separate district in Texas. “It was kind of an embarrassing loss for her,” Svitek said. And Nehls has some “vulnerabilities in his law enforcement background” that may put him at risk in the general election. Whoever emerges victorious will face stiff competition from Sri Kulkarni, the Democratic opponent who won his primary outright and lost to Olson by less than 5 percentage points last cycle. “If you look at the competitive districts in Texas, on paper, that one is maybe middle of the pack, but I think because of the current dynamic there, where you have a really strong candidate who’s already won his primary in Kulkarni, and you have this very messy runoff between these two candidates with unique flaws, I think that that district has kind of moved up the ranking.”

An Air Force vet and a state senator face off in a Texas primary runoff for the Senate

In the Texas primary runoff scheduled for July 14, two Democrats — M.J. Hegar, a white, female veteran of the United States Air Force, and Royce West, an African-American state politician — are competing for the chance to go up against Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX), the powerful Republican incumbent who has held onto his seat for nearly two decades.

If that sort of matchup sounds familiar, it’s likely because it is reminiscent of Kentucky’s recent Democratic primary battle in which Amy McGrath, a white former Marine fighter pilot, narrowly defeated Charles Booker, a Black state representative who benefitted from a late-stage surge in popularity thanks in part to mass protests against systemic racism and police brutality in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

The same dynamic has altered the political landscape in Texas, as the demonstrations “have turned what would have otherwise been a pretty easy victory for Hegar into a competitive contest,” said Mark P. Jones, a professor in the department of political science at Rice University in Houston.

Still, heading into the runoff, West has struggled to harness the national mood to his benefit. The most recent polling on the race, released on Sunday and conducted by the Dallas Morning News and the University of Texas at Tyler, found that Hegar, at 32%, leads her opponent by a comfortable margin of 12 points among Democrats and Democrat-leaning independents.

Royce West

Those numbers may reflect the fact that West, the longtime 67-year-old state senator, isn’t exactly an up-and-coming progressive, despite a legislative record that includes efforts to reform the criminal justice system. “Royce West is an institutionalist,” said Cal Jillson, a political scientist at the Dedman College of Humanities and Sciences at Southern Methodist University in Dallas. “He’s an insider and longtime member of the Texas Senate, so he is more of a moderate than a progressive among Black politicians and among Democrats.”

West seemed intent on maintaining that impression in a recent conversation with Jewish Insider. Though he supports the ongoing protests, advocating for a national standard around the use of deadly force, he also made sure to note that he has had positive interactions with the police. Shortly after he got his driver’s license, he said, an officer pulled him over for speeding and gave him a stern lesson on vehicular safety. “I never have forgotten it,” the longtime state senator recalled. 

Asked to name a political role model, West mentioned Lyndon B. Johnson, the former Texas-born president and senator. He cited Robert Caro’s biography of LBJ, Master of the Senate, noting that he hadn’t read the whole book, which is more than 1,000 pages. “I’ve read a few pages of it, though.”

You don’t hear a lot about LBJ these days, but Jillson said that West’s comment makes some sense. “Royce, I think, is saying there that he’s a deal-maker,” Jillson told JI, “that he’s an insider and that he’s tried to understand what the person on the other side of the table needs in order to deliver a product, in order to deliver a compromise, a bargain.”

For her part, Hegar, 44, has sought to avoid any sort of conflict with West, even as the race has become increasingly acrimonious in recent weeks. Throughout her campaign, she has focused largely on Cornyn, with the implicit assumption being that she will be the one to face him in November.

Hegar is the candidate with the most out-of-state institutional support. She is backed by the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee as well as Emily’s List, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) and J Street. 

Hegar, a Purple Heart recipient who completed three tours of duty in Afghanistan, ran for Congress in Texas’s 31st congressional district two years ago, attracting national attention with a viral ad. Hegar lost by less than 3 percentage points to Rep. John Carter (R-TX), but she believes she will fare better this time around. 

Though the pandemic has disrupted campaigning, Hegar — who has raised more than $6.6 million, according to the Federal Election Commission — maintains that she has “planted the seeds for a grassroots movement,” having spent the first year of her Senate bid driving tens of thousands of miles around the state.

Hegar, a Purple Heart recipient, completed three tours in Afghanistan with the United States Air Force.

In an interview with JI last week, Hegar expressed concerns about “racial injustice,” but seemed more at ease discussing foreign policy. 

“So much is falling by the wayside as far as not grabbing headlines that I think is very concerning,” she said, noting that the U.S. was losing its influence abroad. “We’re losing a lot of that position with this America-first kind of isolationist platform, with gutting our State Department,” she said. “Those kinds of things are really damaging our ability to operate globally.”

Hegar is also critical of Trump’s Middle East peace plan. “I’m going to advocate for policies that come from national security experts and advance the long-term goal of peace without sacrificing safety,” said Hegar, who supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “I don’t believe his plan does that. I don’t think anyone’s surprised because the way he develops his plans seem to be through nepotism and what’s best for his party or speaking to his base instead of what’s best for the country and what’s best for our allies.”

Hegar added that Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal was a mistake. “It wasn’t perfect,” she said. “I do think it was a practical step in the right direction. The president acting unilaterally to abandon it and escalate confrontation with Iran — which he’s shown a willingness to continue to do — has really put troops and our allies at risk and has led us down a path toward what would be a very costly and destabilizing war.”

“I think that we should be partnering with the international community,” Hegar told JI. “I know some people like to shoot from the hip and be a cowboy. And I don’t believe that we should be losing any of our autonomy — I do believe we’re the leaders of the free world — but I think that that mantle is delicate and fragile, and we will lose it if we don’t act as such. And we are not acting that way now.”

West, who has brought in nearly $1.8 million in donations, was more comfortable discussing police reform than foreign policy in his interview with JI. He supports a two-state solution as it was “outlined in the Clinton Paramaters [sic],” according to a position paper, and expressed a desire to visit Israel if he is elected to the Senate. “Israel is our strongest Democratic ally in the Middle East, and so America should be supportive of Israel,” he said.

But he hesitated when asked for his opinion of the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement, known as BDS. “Remind me of what the acronym stands for?” he asked. After he was reminded, he said he did not support the movement. 

West also appeared to support rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, but seemed somewhat hazy on what that would involve. “The fact is, I don’t know all the details of the plan, but any type of plan that we have can always be reviewed to improve upon,” he said. “So I would not be opposed to reviewing it to see whether we can improve upon it.”

Fluency on foreign policy matters, however, is unlikely to swing the runoff in either direction. But because West has struggled to leverage the national mood in his favor, experts predict that Hegar will likely advance to the general election in the fall.

Whether she can beat Cornyn remains to be seen. 

The senator will be tough to unseat, according to Brandon Rottinghaus, a professor of political science at the University of Houston. “He’s got pole position — more money, better name identification and a veteran Texas campaign operation — he can define [Hegar] early and she might not have the money to respond unless she can raise Beto money,” Rottinghaus told JI, referring to former presidential candidate Beto O’Rourke, who raised more than $80 million in his ultimately failed bid to oust Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX).

Still, Hegar maintained that she is ready for the fight. 

“The primary and the runoff feel a little bit like I’m in an aircraft flying to go pick up a wounded soldier or civilian,” Hegar told JI, “and we’re talking about the difference between having a disagreement with someone in the cockpit about tactics and how we’re going to roll in versus the guy on the ground pointing an RPG at me.”

Cornyn, she made clear, is the guy with the rocket launcher.

Alaska Senate candidate Al Gross hopes his outsider status will propel him to D.C.

Al Gross is an ideal Senate candidate — at least by Alaskan standards. 

The 57-year-old former orthopedic surgeon entered the state’s Democratic primary race last summer as an independent. In an introductory ad, a gravelly voice-over narration touted his rugged background as a commercial fisherman, itinerant ocean hitchhiker and gold prospector who once killed a grizzly bear in self-defense. (It snuck up on him while he was duck hunting some 40 miles south of Juneau.)

Gross’s compelling story has caught the attention of the national media as he competes in the state’s August 18 primary for the chance to challenge first-term Republican Sen. Dan Sullivan in November. The nonpartisan Cook Political Report recently upgraded the race from “solid” to “likely Republican,” giving the Democrats a glimmer of hope as the party attempts to flip the Senate in November.

Though Gross is running as an independent, he has support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee. Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE), who attended Amherst College with Gross, offered an enthusiastic assessment of his former classmate in a statement to Jewish Insider. 

“He’s a lifelong Alaskan with a deep understanding of the complex policies that impact our environment, our healthcare system and our place in the global community,” Coons said in his statement. “Al is informed, passionate and will legislate in a responsible and progressive way to protect Alaskans — and all Americans. He will be a valuable ally who supports a strong U.S.-Israel relationship. He’s a different kind of candidate, and he will be a strong voice in the U.S. Senate.”

Gross is confident that he can defy the odds and oust Sullivan this cycle, pointing out that Alaskan voters have a strong tendency to favor independent candidates. The Alaskan-born candidate’s father, Avrum Gross, was a Democratic attorney general who served under Alaskan Gov. Jay Hammond, a Republican who represented the state from 1974 to 1982 and whom Gross described as a “role model and a friend” during his formative years. 

“That relationship and friendship is why I registered as an independent when I was 18,” Gross told JI in an interview, “because it was always about working together for the betterment of the state.” 

Gross, who is Jewish, has long felt like an outsider in a state that takes pride in them. His bar mitzvah, he said, was the first ever in southeast Alaska — his parents flew in a rabbi for the ceremony — and there were only a few Jewish kids in his Juneau high school. 

“I’ve been a minority, and that’s what I’ve known since I was a young kid,” he said. “We joke that we’re the ‘frozen chosen’ and the ‘extreme diaspora’ up here.”

He got the chance to explore his “cultural heritage,” as he described it, after graduating from high school in 1980, when he took a year off to travel and work odd jobs. During that time, he spent four months in Israel, three of them volunteering on Kibbutz Gat in southern Israel. 

“Spending those four months in Israel really had a profound effect on me,” Gross said, “coming from the biggest state in the country to one of the smallest countries in the world and seeing and understanding the security concerns of Israel.”

“It made me feel a part of a larger community,” he added. “It made me understand some of the issues that I’d been reading about from afar and seeing what Jews throughout the world were going through, and I’ve carried that knowledge back home to Alaska as an adult.”

When it comes to geopolitical dynamics in the region, Gross supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, arguing that President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have taken a unilateral approach that he sees as ineffective. 

“It’s critical that the Palestinians be part of that discussion,” Gross said. 

Gross has similar complaints about Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran nuclear deal, otherwise known as the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action, or JCPOA. 

“I was very disheartened to see Trump pull out of the JCPOA,” he told JI. “I think we should go back into negotiations with the Iranians to ensure that they do not develop a nuclear weapon. But we need to go back to the table with them and negotiate with them, rather than just unilaterally pull out of a prearranged agreement.”

Al Gross, his wife, Monica, and their four children. (Facebook)

Gross believes that antisemitism is alive and well, even in a remote state like Alaska. 

“It’s something that we can’t ignore, and it’s something we’re going to be living with, probably, well into the future,” he said. In high school, he said, his son experienced antisemitism when a classmate wrote the word “Jew” on the back of his jacket in black magic marker. “Just when you think there isn’t any antisemitism, it rears its ugly head.”

“I’m not convinced that legislation by itself is going to solve the problem,” he said. “I think education is the best place to start. People are fearful of the unknown, and I think a lot of people don’t understand what the Jewish religion is or what Jewish people are like, and they’re afraid of them.”

If elected, Gross would be the second Jewish senator from Alaska in a state that has only had eight senators since it achieved statehood in 1959. The first was Ernest Gruening, who served from 1959 to 1969.

Though the coronavirus pandemic has hobbled campaigns across the U.S., Gross avers that his message has only become more relevant in the crisis. He left his profession in 2013, got a masters in public health and now advocates for lower healthcare costs.

“I felt like I had a wide open avenue to race with my platform long before COVID-19 came along,” he said. “Now that we’re in the midst of a worldwide pandemic, it really underscores the need to address some of the healthcare problems that we have in our country and to send people to the Senate who have an understanding of our healthcare system.”

Gross believes he is in tune with the concerns of everyday Alaskans. “I think I have some really good ideas as to how to develop an economy that succeeds in Alaska — that isn’t so critically dependent on natural resource extraction,” Gross said. “Dan Sullivan has nothing other than the status quo to offer, which isn’t working.” (Sullivan’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)

In the primary, Gross is competing against Democrat Edgar Blatchford, a former Alaskan mayor and an associate professor in the department of journalism and communications at the University of Alaska Anchorage, and another independent, Chris Cumings, who previously ran for Alaska’s House at-large seat in 2018, garnering only 8% of the vote in the Democratic primary.

Edgar Blatchford

Blatchford and Cumings both told JI that they have largely vowed to abjure political donations, which gives Gross a sizable advantage in the primary. He has raised more than $3 million in his effort to unseat Sullivan, according to the Federal Election Commission.

While experts say Gross is very likely to win the primary, his buccaneer bonafides may not be enough to give him a victory in the fall. 

“He ticks a lot of boxes,” said Amy Lauren Lovecraft, a professor of political science at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. But, she added, while Gross has strong and prominent advertising, “the odds are just against Al” in a state that consistently trends red and that went for Trump by nearly 15 percentage points in 2016.  

Forrest Nabors, a political scientist at the University of Alaska Anchorage, was also skeptical that Gross would emerge victorious in the general election, using a baseball analogy to suggest that he wouldn’t bet on the candidate’s prospects. 

“Right now,” he said, “it’s kind of like the Yankees playing Baltimore.”

Still, there are occasions in which the Orioles beat the Yankees, and Gross is banking on such a dynamic as he enters the final four months of the race. 

“I stepped forward because I thought I could win,” he said. “The state very much will swing to the middle if the right candidate is there, and I think I’m in a position to win.”

New Jersey’s Mikie Sherrill eschews labels, including ‘moderate’

Rep. Mikie Sherrill (D-NJ) has often been characterized as a moderate Democrat ever since she was elected to Congress in 2018, flipping a traditionally conservative enclave of northern New Jersey in the open-seat contest to succeed outgoing Republican congressman Rodney Frelinghuysen.

But in a recent conversation with Jewish Insider, Sherrill bristled at the notion that her politics were in any way straight down the middle. “Somehow moderate sounds sort of tepid,” she lamented. “I don’t feel in any way moderate about the need to create a different future for this country, to make sure that we’re investing in our economy so that everybody has a chance to get into the middle-class.”

However her politics may be described — she often eschews ideology in favor of more practical concerns like infrastructure and taxes — they have appealed to voters in the 11th congressional district, which includes parts of Essex, Morris, Passaic and Sussex counties. 

The 48-year-old former Navy helicopter pilot and federal prosecutor now appears to be comfortably ensconced in her seat, despite a rocky start when she grappled with her decision to support the impeachment of President Donald Trump at the risk of alienating some constituents.

Sherrill, who is now running unopposed in New Jersey’s July 7 Democratic primary, will likely face Rosemary Becchi, a tax policy lawyer and the sole Republican in the race, come November. But experts say Sherrill is the frontrunner.

“It’s a pretty safe bet that she’s not going to have a rough ride to re-election,” said Krista Jenkins, a professor of political science at Fairleigh Dickinson University. “You certainly can’t paint her as a progressive firebrand, and I think that’s what a lot of voters in her district are going to want to see.”

“Mikie is safe,” Alan Steinberg, a columnist for Insider NJ, said in an email. “An excellent center-left Democrat.”

For her part, Sherrill isn’t taking anything for granted. “I don’t really feel safe,” she told JI. “I feel like this district is a district where there’s so many different opinions and certainly some people feel very supportive of different pieces of what I do, and some of those same people are very against some of the other things I do. So it feels like given any issue, there’s a wide variety of opinions.”

Regardless, Sherrill appears to have become more comfortable expressing her disapproval of Trump’s policies as she wraps up her first term in Washington, even if her criticism is somewhat restrained. 

“What I think this administration has done poorly is sort of politicize some of how we respond to this,” she said of the president’s efforts to curb the spread of the coronavirus.

The freshman congresswoman also takes aim at Trump’s foreign policy approach. “Right now there’s just a lack of true strategy,” said Sherrill, adding that the targeted assassination of Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani in January was a strategic error. “We had seen massive protests in Iran against leadership, which — I would have loved to foment more of that,” Sherrill told JI. “Instead, we sort of consolidated support for Iran’s leadership with our actions.”

Still, Sherrill appeared hesitant to come down firmly on one side when asked if she supported rejoining the Iran nuclear deal, which Trump pulled out of two years into his presidency. In a 2017 position paper, Sherrill seemed to express half-hearted approval of the Iran nuclear deal brokered by former President Barack Obama, writing that “Congress must remain vigilant in the enforcement of the agreement and be prepared to take immediate action should violations occur.”

“U.S. foreign aid and missile defense cooperation are critical to the defense of Israel, especially as we begin to understand the broad implications of implementing the Iran nuclear agreement,” Sherrill wrote, adding: “The seeming grey area in the deal surrounding ballistic missile testing leaves underlying questions as to whether Iran can be trusted to act in good faith and observe the full terms of the deal.”

In the paper, Sherrill also worried about rising incidents of antisemitic violence in the United States. 

“A major concern of mine is the increase in the antisemitic rhetoric and actions that have occurred since the 2016 election,” Sherill wrote, adding that she “will always support Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state, will work to ensure that our long-standing relationship with Israel remains strong, and will stand up to acts of hate here at home.”

Rabbi David Levy, regional director of the American Jewish Committee in New Jersey, said Sherrill has stuck to her campaign pledges and has been responsive when it comes to addressing the concerns of Jewish community members in the district. 

“When the shootings happened in Jersey City,” he said, “she was one of the people, in 24 hours, who was on the phone calling me directly, finding out how the Jewish community was doing.”

Rabbi Richard Kirsch, a faculty member at Rae Kushner Yeshiva High School in Livingston, agreed with Levy’s assessment, noting that Sherrill was receptive to engaging with students in particular and had at one point welcomed them into her office during AIPAC’s annual conference in Washington. 

“The students really like her because she connects with them,” he said. 

Howard Tepper, a plastic surgeon in Livingston who is heavily involved with the district’s Jewish community, said, “for me, personally, she was an unknown before she came into her position, and she was very open to meeting with us, to hearing our concerns.” He added: “We were very active in encouraging her to make her first trip to Israel.”

In November 2019, Sherrill visited Israel for the first time on a bipartisan women’s trip led by Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) and sponsored by the AIPAC-affiliated American Israel Education Foundation. “I told my district it was a priority of mine, so I wanted to go and fulfill that commitment,” Sherrill said. 

During the visit, she travelled to Erez, a kibbutz on the border with Gaza that is a sister community of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, which sits in Sherrill’s district. The congresswoman, who brought her mother on the trip, said the experience shifted her perception of the Jewish state. 

“The changing nature of the kibbutz in Israel is fascinating to me because as a young person growing up in America, you hear about the kibbutz experience, that’s sort of part of your image of Israel,” she said, observing that a new generation of Israelis seemed to be making an effort to reinvigorate the kibbutz tradition. 

Rep. Mikie Sherrill when she was a helicopter pilot in the U.S. Navy.

Sherrill, who supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, is optimistic that a younger guard of Israelis will lead the charge in bringing stability to the region. 

“You speak to the younger generation and you get the sense that they can solve anything, that this innovative culture is so cutting-edge that there is no problem they can’t solve,” she said. “So I have to say my hope is with the young people.”

She was doubtful, however, that the current Israeli and Palestinian leadership will be able to come to any sort of compromise. “That did not feel as hopeful,” said Sherrill, who met with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as well as the chief of staff to Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas during her visit. “That felt almost intractable, like the problems were too great to be solved.”

Sheri Goldberg, chair of the Community Relations Committee of the Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ, said Sherrill came back from her trip with a newfound ability to speak much more fluently on matters related to Israel and its relationship with the United States. 

According to Goldberg, Sherrill has been a strong advocate for the Jewish community, noting that she was quick to denounce Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) last February for invoking an antisemitic stereotype. 

Omar, of course, is a de facto member of the so-called “Squad,” the quartet of progressive stalwarts including freshmen Reps. Ayanna Pressley (D-MA), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) who were elected in the same election cycle as Sherrill.

The New Jersey congresswoman — who strongly believes in bipartisanship as a means of achieving legislative results for her constituents — is unlikely to be seen as a member of that left-leaning clique. 

But she still thinks the dichotomy between progressives and so-called moderates, or centrists, is overblown, suggesting to JI that ideological battles are less important than getting bills passed. 

“I don’t think there’s an appreciation of some of the important work that Congress is doing,” Sherrill averred. 

Besides, she argued, what’s progressive in one district may not be seen as progressive in hers. “In my state,” she told JI, “getting rid of the state and local tax deduction cap is a progressive value.”

Experts weigh in on the Colorado primary races to watch

As voters cast their ballots in Colorado today following a long primary season, there are a handful of intriguing races to watch as returns trickle in. Those include a heated Senate contest for the Democratic nomination and a House seat in which a Republican incumbent faces a challenger on his right. 

Jewish Insider asked a few experts to weigh in with their thoughts ahead of the big day: Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver who regularly contributes to FiveThirtyEight; Marianne Goodland, chief statehouse reporter at Colorado Politics; and Kyle Saunders, a professor of political science at Colorado State University. Here’s what they had to say.

In the Democratic Senate primary, John Hickenlooper, the former governor of Colorado who briefly ran for president last year, is hoping he can prevail and go on to defeat Sen. Cory Gardner (R-CO) in November. 

There have been some recent setbacks for Hickenlooper — including a couple of racially insensitive gaffes as well as two ethics violations — but Goodland believes the former governor will come out on top in the primary against Andrew Romanoff, a former state politician who is known for mounting somewhat quixotic campaigns against establishment players.

“This is kind of a big nothing,” Goodland told JI of Hickenlooper’s ethics violations, which only resulted in a $2,750 fine for gifts he received as governor. “His biggest mistake wasn’t the ethics violations themselves but his decision to defy a subpoena from the ethics commission and to force them to take him to court to enforce it.”

Goodland said that Romanoff has “done well at times, but the money favors Hickenlooper and so does the support.” The former governor has the backing of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has raised $12.6 million, according to Federal Election Commission filings, while securing endorsements from party power brokers like Sens. Elizabeth Warren (D-MA), Cory Booker (D-NJ) and Kamala Harris (D-CA). 

Romanoff, for his part, has raked in nearly $3 million — no pittance, but a paltry amount relative to Hickenlooper’s haul.

“That’s just a hard thing for a challenger to take on,” Masket said, “and once in a rare while you’ll see a candidate kind of take on the establishment figure and win but those cases are very rare and it’s not looking like this is going to be one of them.”

More than a week ago, Romanoff’s campaign released internal polling that suggested he was 12 points behind Hickenlooper, putting him in competitive territory. But a new SurveyUSA poll put out Friday indicated that the gap has widened, putting Hickenlooper 30 points ahead of his opponent, with 58% of likely Democratic primary voters opting for the former governor. 

Saunders was skeptical that Hickenlooper would win by such a big margin. “I tend to think that it’s probably a little tighter than that,” he told JI, noting that Hickenlooper’s recent blunders had dented his reputation in the state, though most likely not enough to cost him the nomination. 

If Hickenlooper advances to the general election, Goodland predicted that he will beat Gardner, who has become increasingly vulnerable in a state that has been trending blue in recent years and in which registered Democratic voters outnumber registered Republicans. 

“Gardner is in the most endangered Senate seat in the country,” she told JI.

Another Republican who is facing a challenge — though in this instance from his own party — is Rep. Scott Tipton, who represents Colorado’s 3rd congressional district, encompassing most of the state’s Western Slope. In the primary, he is going up against Lauren Boebert, a gun rights activist who is running significantly to the right of her opponent.

Tipton’s race is the only contested primary in the state, as every other congressional candidate is running unopposed, Goodland said. Though she had not seen any polling on the race, she said that Tipton would probably win, observing that the Western Slope was more independent-minded than far-right. 

Tipton has raised about $1.1 million, while Boebert has only pulled in $133,000, according to the FEC.

Saunders seconded Goodland’s prediction. “It’s an odd challenge,” he said. “Tipton will likely survive that on the fundraising side.”

Beyond those races, Goodland — who took a break from poring over campaign finance reports to speak with JI on Monday afternoon — is also looking at a couple of interesting races for the Colorado General Assembly. Of particular note, she said, is a “hotly contested” Republican primary for a State House seat in Jefferson County, which includes the cities of Lakewood and Golden. 

“Tomorrow is going to be fun,” Goodland said. 

African American, an Army vet and a Republican. How will John James fare in Michigan?

Two summers ago, during his first bid for the Senate, John James was backstage at a Ted Nugent concert at the DTE Energy Music Theatre in Clarkston, Michigan, about 40 minutes northwest of Detroit. Following an impassioned introduction in which Nugent described James as a “blood brother” and, more emphatically, a “shit-kicker,” the conservative activist and rock star called the Republican Senate candidate before the audience.

“Ladies and gentlemen, our Constitution is under attack!” James bellowed in a T-shirt and jeans, a black cowboy hat perched atop his head. “Our Second Amendment is under attack, ladies and gentlemen,” the Iraq War veteran-turned-businessman added, to impassioned applause. “I understand what it’s like to keep Americans safe because I’ve done it before, and I’ll tell you, this is a battleground state again,” James said. “I’ll tell you,” he said, “when I get to Washington, we’re going to make our families great again, we’re going to make Michigan great again, and we’re going to make America great again!”

“He got fired up, man,” said David Farbman, CEO of Healthrise, who brought James to the show. “He looked like he had just won a frickin’ NBA championship — he was just going nuts, it was awesome.”

James may now be more reluctant to invoke the rallying cry of the Trump administration at a moment in which the president’s popularity in the swing state is flagging. But he also thinks the political landscape has transformed since 2018, giving him an opening. “This world has changed probably three or four times in 2020,” he told Jewish Insider in a recent interview. “I mean, this is not 2018 at all.”

***

In many ways, this should be James’s moment. The 39-year-old Detroit native is now mounting his second Senate bid after failing to dethrone Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) in 2018. This time around, he is trying to unseat first-term Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) at a time when mass protests against systemic racism have brought questions about Black representation to the forefront. James, who is African American, says he is all too familiar with sentiments expressed by demonstrators who have taken to the streets since the police killing of George Floyd a month ago in Minneapolis.

“I grew up listening to NWA and Tupac and now Kendrick Lamar and Donald Glover,” James said, name-checking hip-hop artists who are far removed from any pantheon that would include Nugent in its ranks. “You listen to Sam Cooke talk about ‘change is gonna come’ — well, what kind of change? We’ve been talking about this for generations, and the politicians that we continue to send back to Lansing and Washington have done precious little to fix the situation that we find ourselves in right now as a people.”

James doesn’t go nearly so far as to advocate for defunding the police, an idea he dismisses as “‘stupid’ — that’s as plainly as I can put it.” Instead, he argues in favor of community policing along with increased accountability for law enforcement officials. “I’m looking forward to having the opportunity representing my state, taking those next steps not just to end police brutality,” he told JI, “but also to end the elements of racism that have plagued African Americans since 1619.”

But as progressive Democrats of color have found success in recent weeks — including Jamaal Bowman, Ritchie Torres and Mondaire Jones — it remains to be seen if James will be able to ride the same wave. He is competing as a member of the Republican Party and has expressed enthusiastic support for President Donald Trump, whose own re-election prospects have worsened in recent weeks. Polling suggests Trump is 11 percentage points behind presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden in the battleground state of Michigan. 

James is now trailing Peters by about 10 points, according to a recent poll, putting him in slightly better position than the president. Experts predict that Trump’s sagging numbers, should they persist into the fall, could bring down other GOP candidates. “My main impression is that the president is in significant trouble in Michigan and that will put James at a significant disadvantage,” said Thomas Ivacko, interim director of the Center for Local, State and Urban Policy at the University of Michigan.

For his part, James has demonstrated a willingness to criticize the president, even if he is somewhat cautious in his appraisals. “We need to make sure that we are staying focused and recognizing that there are issues that are facing Michiganders regardless of race, color, creed,” he said, “that affected us before [Trump] came to office and will affect us after he leaves if we don’t get our act together and put better leadership in Washington.”

In conversation with JI, he positioned himself as “an independent thinker” with a conservative bent who happens to be running as a Republican. “I’m running in the Republican Party not because the Republican Party is perfect or because they blow my skirt up,” he said. “I’m running in the Republican Party because the platform aligns most closely with my economic and moral values.”

GOP strategists believe the Republican upstart has a decent shot of pulling off an upset in November. A victory for James would be a crucial win for the Republican Party as Democrats look to flip the Senate this cycle. Norm Coleman, who chairs the Republican Jewish Coalition, said that James’s Senate bid represents one of his party’s best chances to pick up a seat in the general election and fend off a Democratic majority. 

***

In 2018, James lost by just 6.5 points in the general election to the long-serving Stabenow. James, who is running unopposed in Michigan’s August 4 primary, now seems emboldened as he looks to depose Peters in November. 

“The last race, I couldn’t get my story out there. I couldn’t get people to know who I was,” James told JI. “Now, I’ll have the opportunity to share my heart, to share my plan and let other people understand how both will positively affect their lives both now and in the future — and, basically, force my opponent to make the case for why he’s been in a position to help Michiganders for 30 years as a politician — 10 years in Washington, six years in the Senate — and half the state had no clue who he was until the election year.”

James thinks his story is deserving of attention now, particularly in the Republican Party. “It’s so important to consider African Americans to make sure that we force both parties to earn our vote,” he said.

Still, as he works to get his own message out, James has occasionally stumbled. Two years ago, his first TV ad came under scrutiny for including an image of a swastika, for which he later apologized. And on Sunday, in an interview with a local news channel in Detroit, he stirred up controversy when he clumsily suggested that the political establishment was “genuflecting for working-class white males and for college-educated women and for our Jewish friends” in a comment whose broader point was that both Republicans and Democrats have long neglected the interests of Black people. 

In a statement on Sunday afternoon, Michigan Democratic Jewish Caucus chair Noah Arbit took aim at James’s comment. “At a time in which Americans are confronting the legacy of generations of racism and experiencing unprecedented levels of antisemitic rhetoric and violence, it is reprehensible and deeply offensive that James would think to describe the Republican and Democratic Parties as ‘genuflecting… to our Jewish friends.’”

Despite James’s weekend blunder, he is attuned to the legacy of antisemitism. His Michigan home was built in 1960 by a Jewish family, and the stained glass panes in his front door are believed to have been salvaged from a now-destroyed synagogue in Poland. 

The knowledge that those stained-glass panels may have come from a European synagogue has had a sobering effect on James, according to Bryce Sandler, a political consultant who works on James’s campaign. Every time James walks in and out of his house, Sandler said James has told him, the Army vet is reminded of the enemies he fought as an Apache helicopter pilot during the Iraq War. 

***

The West Point graduate’s experiences as a veteran have also informed his views on foreign policy in the Middle East. He was against the Iran nuclear deal and believes that Trump made the right move by pulling out. 

“I would have opposed the Iran deal point blank,” said James, who also backed Trump’s decision to assassinate Iranian Gen. Qassim Soleimani in early January. “I, in my personal experience, have suffered at the hands and seen the suffering at the hands of an Iranian-trained militia that stoked sectarian violence in Baghdad when I was deployed in Operation Iraqi Freedom,” James said. “The Iranian regime has blood on its hands.”

“Radical extremist governments like Iran’s must not be allowed to become nuclear powers,” James elaborates in a position paper his campaign provided to JI. “Iran has a history of attacking its neighbors, kidnapping American diplomats and supporting terrorist activity. Iran has made no secret of its position calling for the destruction of Israel and spending massive resources to try to achieve that goal, at the expense of its own population. The United States and the international community have a moral imperative to thwart any such attempt by ensuring Iran does not become a nuclear power.”

Some members of Michigan’s Jewish community expressed disappointment to JI that Peters had backed the Iran deal in 2015. “There was a lot of concern in the community about that,” said Sheldon Yellen, a prominent businessman in Detroit, adding, “John has a pretty good understanding of what I think the issues are.”

In a statement to JI, C.J. Warnke, a Peters campaign spokesman, defended the senator’s record. “Gary Peters has always been a steadfast ally of the Jewish community and a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Warnke said. “As the ranking member on the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, Gary Peters is a leader in fighting antisemitism, of exposing the growing threats of white nationalism, and of championing increased security funding for synagogues.”

James has never been to Israel, but told JI that he has long wanted to go and plans to visit if elected to the Senate. 

“It would be an honor,” he said, “not just from a personal standpoint with respect for my Judeo-Christian roots, but also as a matter of, from a political and an economic standpoint, I think there’s a lot more that the United States and Israel can do to cooperate for the mutual benefit of both our lands.”

James endorsed Trump’s Middle East peace proposal, describing the plan as a “solid step in the right direction.” 

“But supporting a two-state solution is something that requires two willing partners,” he added. “One of the biggest barriers that we continue to see is that Israel continues to be a willing partner, but the Palestinian Authority fails to demonstrate a willingness for a peaceful two-state solution, and they’ve rejected peace proposals time after time.”

Though James supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, he said he would defer to Israel regarding potential annexation of parts of the West Bank, which Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has indicated could occur as early as this week. 

James also expressed his support of the Taylor Force Act, which cuts off U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority until it ceases payments to families of terrorists. 

“Only if the Palestinian Authority commits to not allowing U.S. aid to go to terrorist operations or salaries should the U.S. consider restoring aid,” he said.

***

As James gears up to take on Peters ahead of the November election, he is hoping that his story will appeal to voters of all stripes. He insists that his status as a veteran and as a businessman have made him uniquely qualified for a seat in the Senate. After serving in the military, he became president of his father’s logistics and supply chain management company. 

“I believe bringing that balance, making sure that we have a seat at both tables, regardless of who’s the majority or who’s in the White House,” he said, “I believe that’s a stronger position.”

The coronavirus crisis and the killing of George Floyd have torn the “mask off the socioeconomic immobility and the racial plight experienced by, disproportionately, African Americans that have just gone unnoticed and uncared about by a majority of this nation’s population,” he told JI. “And folks were forced to look at it in the face, and I hope they hold our elected officials accountable if, for nothing else, their complicity and their failure to do anything about it over the past few decades.”

Whether his support for Trump will hobble his Senate prospects is an open question, but he is confident that this is his moment. “Better representation is very important for the state of Michigan,” James concluded, invoking a different sort of rallying cry than that of the Trump administration. “I believe it is constitutionally required, and right now, my opponent is the only thing standing between the state and not only its first Black senator but fair representation for 100% of the state, not just the ones who agree with him.”

John Hickenlooper’s late-stage missteps imperil his Senate prospects

Until recently, it looked as if John Hickenlooper’s bid to unseat Colorado’s first-term Republican senator, Cory Gardner, was all but assured.

Hickenlooper, the 68-year-old former governor of the Centennial State, who briefly entered the presidential race last year before dropping out after five months, garnered early support from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee and has notched a slew of high-profile endorsements as the party takes aim at flipping the Senate this fall. On top of that, polls suggested that Hickenlooper could handily beat his GOP opponent in the general election.

But a series of late-stage missteps — including two racially insensitive gaffes and a couple of ethics violations — have imperiled Hickenlooper’s prospects heading into Tuesday’s primary, where observers say his nomination may be in doubt. “He did not have a good June,” mused Kyle Saunders, a professor of political science at Colorado State University.

Hickenlooper now finds himself on the defensive as he goes up against Andrew Romanoff, a 53-year-old veteran state politician with a history of running longshot campaigns for federal office. Romanoff is still the designated underdog, experts note. But he has gained on Hickenlooper over the past several weeks, with his own internal polling, released in mid June, putting him 12 points behind the frontrunner.

“People underestimate him,” said political strategist Joe Trippi, who worked on Romanoff’s primary campaign against Sen. Michael Bennet (D-CO) a decade ago. Romanoff, who sold his house to finance his previous Senate run, came within just eight points of defeating his opponent in 2010, even as Bennet had the backing of then-President Barack Obama. “He ran very strong against a sitting U.S. senator,” Trippi recalled. “People forget that, but he did.”

Romanoff has long been regarded as a “thorn in the side of the Democratic establishment,” according to Tyler Sandberg, a GOP consultant. But he added that Romanoff had not run a particularly aggressive campaign until a few weeks ago, when it became clear that Hickenlooper’s mistakes might cause lasting damage.

Late last week, Romanoff, who has raised close to $3 million relative to Hickenlooper’s $12.6 million, released a scathing attack ad taking Hickenlooper to task for recent comments likening politicians to slaves as well as his connections with the oil and gas industry. “We can’t take this kind of risk if we’re going to beat Cory Gardner,” a voice-over says. “So vote Andrew Romanoff for a fresh, progressive voice in the Senate.”

Romanoff is campaigning as a progressive — he supports Medicare for All and the Green New Deal — placing himself to the left of the more moderate Hickenlooper. 

“It’s hard to know where John stands on anything,” Romanoff told Jewish Insider in a recent interview, noting that Hickenlooper had skipped a number of candidate forums where he would have been able to make his positions known. “On healthcare, the climate crisis, on any of these issues, he has been largely in hiding.”

In spite of his insurgent status, Romanoff was at one point known for his centrism — when he served as speaker of the Colorado House of Representatives from 2005 to 2008, during which time he led the first Democratic majority in decades. He also helped pass a now-controversial immigration bill that was repealed in 2013 and has been criticized for being overly punitive.

Andrew Romanoff

Still, while Romanoff appears to have calibrated further left, the shift may be because he has more latitude to do so as a Senate candidate during a year in which progressive values are becoming more mainstream. Seth Masket, a political scientist at the University of Denver, points out that Romanoff was in a “compromise-oriented position” in the State House, yet one that earned him respect from both sides of the aisle. “He knew how to put together coalitions and be bipartisan.”

Before he entered the race, Romanoff spent four years as president and CEO of Mental Health Colorado, a position he took on after losing his bid for a House seat in 2014. Earlier in his career, he worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center, where he helped research the Ku Klux Klan. “By the way, I did not expect to be having the same fight 30 years later,” Romanoff said wryly, alluding to a rise in white nationalism across the nation. 

Romanoff, who is Jewish, said his religion influences his approach to life and politics. “I think a lot about the teachings of our faith,” he said. He has been to Israel three times, the first with his grandfather to attend the Maccabiah Games. The other two, he said, were through fellowships sponsored, respectively, by the Aspen Institute and the Wexner Foundation. On his visits, Romanoff was struck by the “vibrancy” of Israel’s economy as well as its “ability to make the desert bloom.”

“I’d like to take a page from Israel and other countries that have accelerated their use of clean energy,” Romanoff said. “I’d like to shift from oil and gas to solar and wind and other renewables.”

As a progressive candidate, Romanoff is aware that anti-Israel sentiment emanates from his party’s left flank, but he seeks to set himself apart. “I don’t take the view that Israel can do no wrong or that it should be immune from criticism from its friends,” he said. “I think most people in both the Democratic and Republican Party share an understanding that Israel has a right to exist and to defend itself and, I think, also a desire to see a homeland for the Palestinian people. So I’d like to advance that consensus.”

In a position paper he provided to JI, Romanoff elaborates on his views regarding Israel and the Middle East. He supports a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, opposes annexation of parts of the West Bank and advocates for renewing aid to the Palestinian Authority as well as United Nations agencies that support Palestinian refugees. 

Romanoff also believes that the United States should rejoin the Iran nuclear agreement. While he regards Iran as “the leading state sponsor of terrorism” and doesn’t rule out military force as a means to counteract it, he characterizes President Donald Trump’s decision to abandon the deal as a “dangerous and short-sighted mistake.”

For his part, Hickenlooper also advocates for a two-state solution as well as resuming U.S. participation in the Iran nuclear deal. He has the support of a number of pro-Israel organizations, including J Street, Democratic Majority for Israel and the Jewish Democratic Council of America. 

“John has an excellent record of job creation and economic progress, expanding Medicare access, combating climate change and enacting gun safety measures,” Halie Soifer, executive director of the JDCA, told JI in a statement. “His agenda is aligned with that of Jewish voters and we look forward to him winning the primary next week and the election in November.”

Senator Cory Gardner (R-CO)

In a recent interview, Gardner touted his pro-Israel bonafides, telling JI that he had visited the Jewish state a number of times. “I’ve built a good relationship with Prime Minister [Benjamin] Netanyahu and actually have had the chance to work with [Alternate Prime Minister and Defense Minister] Benny Gantz as well,” he said. 

Gardner endorses Trump’s decision to pull out of the Iran deal while tentatively praising the president’s Middle East peace plan. “Look, we’ve got a long ways to go,” he said. “I certainly welcome the ideas that more people have to try to find a solution. I think it’s got more work to do, and we have to keep trying.”

As enthusiasm for Trump has waned nationwide, experts say that Gardner, an avid supporter of the president, may be at a disadvantage in a state that has been trending blue and in a moment when a progressive wave is sweeping the country. Gardner acknowledges that he has a challenging contest ahead of him as his first term comes to an end. “Colorado was always tough, there’s no doubt about that.” he said. “But I feel very good about what we have done for the people of Colorado.”

The incumbent seemed emboldened by Hickenlooper’s recent indiscretions. “While I’ve been busy passing the Great American Outdoors Act,” the senator said, “John Hickenlooper was busy ignoring a legally binding subpoena.”

Dick Wadhams, a Republican political consultant in Colorado, told JI that Gardner is in a better position than he was a few weeks ago. “I think Cory Gardner’s definitely in the game now,” he said. Wadhams added that Hickenlooper will be “limping” out of the primary if he manages to defeat Romanoff — a question mark at the moment. “A month ago, I would have said there’s no way Romanoff has any shot at this, but today I’m saying he’s got a shot.”

That Hickenlooper — whose campaign declined repeated requests for an interview with JI — is facing a serious primary challenger may come as a surprise to the Senate hopeful, who has “led a charmed political life,” according to Masket. “He’s honestly not faced that many serious competitors, and part of that is because a lot of Republicans have feared running against him, but he has always  been very good at managing to get Democratic constituencies on his side while not scaring off moderates.”

Laura Chapin, a Democratic political consultant in Colorado, has faith in Hickenlooper’s chances, having voted early for him in the primary because of his record on reproductive rights, which she supports. She believes the ethics issues — charges that, as governor, Hickenlooper accepted gifts including a private jet ride — have been overblown. 

Still, Romanoff believes he can beat Hickenlooper and then vanquish Gardner in November. “A lot of voters are reevaluating their decisions,” he said. 

Though Romanoff announced that he had left the state on Tuesday to be with his dying father — preventing him from campaigning, at least for a few days, in the last week before the primary — he will return to Colorado today, according to a spokeswoman for his campaign. 

In conversation with JI, he appeared to be energized by the prospect of finally fulfilling his ambition to move beyond state politics. 

“For me, the opportunity here is not just to point out all the places where Gardner and Trump have gone wrong,” Romanoff said, “but to paint a picture of what the world might look like if you put a different group of people in charge.”

In Long Island, Democrats are vying to unseat Rep. Lee Zeldin

Rep. Lee Zeldin’s (R-NY) victory in his 2018 reelection bid was not unexpected. But the narrow margin of his win over political newcomer Democrat Perry Gershon in New York’s 1st district two years ago came as more of a surprise.

Now Gershon, a real estate lender, is gearing up for a rematch against the three-term Zeldin, one of two Jewish Republicans in the House of Representatives, in a district that has trended red in recent years. But before he can take on the incumbent congressman again, Gershon must face off against three candidates in the district’s Democratic primary on Tuesday: chemistry professor Nancy Goroff, Suffolk County legislator Bridget Fleming and business consultant Greg Fisher.

Gershon is confident that, this time around, he has the experience and name recognition necessary to beat Zeldin. “I spent my time in the off year engaged in the community, meeting with people… and taking the retail politicking to a level I was unable to do the first time around because nobody knew me,” Gershon said in an interview with Jewish Insider.

Goroff, who teaches at Stony Brook University, is significantly ahead of Gershon in fundraising, with nearly $2.4 million raised and $760,000 still in the bank. Gershon has raised approximately $1.2 million and has $188,000 remaining, while Fleming raised $700,000 and has $112,000 on hand. Fisher has raised no money, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

The Democratic nominee will likely need a sizable fundraising haul to compete with Zeldin — who has raised nearly $4 million and has more than $2 million still on hand.

Goroff believes her background in science will give her an edge over her competitors and will ultimately be an asset on Capitol Hill. “I will bring unique skills and expertise to Washington, so that I can be a leader on issues that matter, like climate change and healthcare and getting us out of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis,” she told JI. She also highlighted her accomplishments at Stony Brook, including pushing to expand healthcare coverage and leading diversity, equity and inclusion initiatives. 

“I think that I can hit the ground running in Washington and really lead on important issues,” she added. Goroff, who hopes to leverage her background to serve on the House Science, Space and Technology Committee and the Education and Labor Committee, said she’s intensely focused on climate change.

“I want to be a resource for other members of Congress. I want to make sure that my office is helping members have access to the best information available,” Goroff said. “This is for Republicans and Democrats, that they can get their questions answered and then hold their [colleagues’] feet to the fire to make sure that we’re really taking meaningful action on climate change.”

Fleming is also focused on the environment, touting her record in the county legislature. “On all these issues when Donald Trump and Lee Zeldin have abandoned us, I’ve been a champion and I’ve been known to stand up for our environmental resources,” she said.

Fleming pointed to her past electoral victories and experience as a lawmaker as evidence that she’s the best choice to take on Zeldin in the fall. “I have a great deal of support because of the work that I’ve done for the community over the years,” she said. “But also I know how to run a good race, and it’s going to be a tough race.”

Perry Gershon

Goroff and Gershon both told Jewish Insider that their Jewish faith has been a driving force behind their political aspirations and their decision to challenge Zeldin.

Both candidates criticized the congressman for voting against last year’s House Resolution 183 condemning antisemitism. Zeldin said he voted no on the resolution because it had been watered down, but Goroff posited that Zeldin’s preferences for the bill “didn’t match the reality of what was going on on the ground.” Gershon called Zeldin’s vote against the bill “appalling.”

“The reason that I got in is that I want to make the world a better place,” Goroff said. “It’s very much that Jewish idea of public service and improving the world around you. It means getting involved in [the] community.”

Gershon and Goroff are also largely aligned on their approaches to the U.S.-Israel relationship. They both support a two-state solution, but believe that the president and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have made the peace process more difficult, and said the potential annexation of parts of the West Bank — which could happen as soon as July 1 — would be a further obstacle to peace.

“Too often, the discussion… has been focused on whether the Israelis or the Palestinians have the right to take a certain action, as opposed to… whether it’s actually in their self-interest,” Goroff said. “There seems to be a very short-term focus. And it’s largely about Netanyahu trying to stay in power, as so much of his activity over the last years has been.”

Gershon — who has visited Israel nine times — was mostly in agreement, but noted that the Palestinians lacked a voice in conversations related to peace negotiations. “A two-state solution isn’t in the cards right now because there’s no one negotiating for the Palestinians,” he said. “But I’d like to see the settlements stop, and I think that will help bring a partner to the table.”

Fleming criticized the Trump administration’s “impulsive” foreign policy. “Policy has to be formulated and implemented that will ensure stability in the region and safety for the citizens of Israel,” Fleming weighed in. “In that respect, I think we need to ensure that financial support for Israel is maintained.”

Gershon stated that cutting U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority was unequivocally “the wrong move.” 

“I think the Palestinian Authority is a potential negotiator on the other side, and certainly a whole lot better than Hamas,” he explained. “And the more you do delegitimize the Palestinian Authority and make it harder for them to operate, the more you’re empowering the more radical elements like Hamas.”

Gershon is also a strident critic of the BDS movement, which, in a position paper, he called “little more than a new manifestation of antisemitism.” 

“It is a lie to suggest that BDS seeks peace in the region or is founded on legitimate principles,” he added. “BDS is particularly threatening at the college level, as the movement tries to brainwash our youth to turn against Israel at a young age.”

Recent polling in the race has provided varied results with no clear frontrunner. A poll conducted in late May by Goroff’s campaign found her in a statistical tie with Gershon, with Fleming trailing by double digits. The May poll was a boost for Goroff, who in a poll a month earlier had trailed Gershon by 22 points. In the April poll, Fleming had a five-point lead on Goroff. Fisher took just 1% of the vote each time.

But a separate poll released by Fleming’s campaign painted a drastically different picture — it found Fleming and Goroff in a statistical tie, with Gershon trailing them.

With no clear-cut winner ahead of Tuesday’s primary, the race is anyone’s game. All three candidates have in recent weeks sought to tie Zeldin — who traveled to Tulsa, Okla., for Trump’s first campaign rally in months — to the president in the hopes that a blue wave will boost their odds with primary voters.

“The damage that Trump has done with his xenophobia, and that Zeldin has done enabling the president — Zeldin didn’t even criticize what happened in Charlottesville, and to me that is a shonda for his Judaism,” said Gershon.

“I’m a big believer in racial justice and in the need — as part of my Judaism — to establish equal treatment for brown people and white people under the law of the land.”

Antone Melton-Meaux says George Floyd’s killing ‘has amplified’ his campaign message

The Democratic primary race to represent Minnesota’s 5th congressional district has shifted in tone since December, when Antone Melton-Meaux first announced his campaign against freshman Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN).

Like many parts of the country, the Minneapolis district has grappled with the coronavirus over the last several months. But in recent weeks, the mood in the district has transformed from anxiety and grieving to anger over systemic racism and racial inequality after the killing of George Floyd and the aggressive police response to the nationwide protests that followed. 

Melton-Meaux, one of three Democrats challenging Omar in the August 11 primary, told Jewish Insider that although the incident served as a watershed moment in the district, his campaign strategy hasn’t changed. “We have spoken about the institutional systemic racial inequities from the beginning of our campaign,” he said. “It’s one of the reasons I decided to run for Congress. So the tragedy of George Floyd has amplified that component of our campaign, so that we can demonstrate the leadership that the people are hungry for.”

This week, Melton-Meaux’s campaign released two television ads highlighting his background as a mediator — a skill set, he says, he wants to bring to a divided Washington. “The political culture in Washington is toxic,” Melton-Meaux says in one of the ads. “We don’t need more dividers… I will bring people together and get things done for our community.” In the other ad, he discusses the hurdles he faced growing up and the current challenges of protecting his children from racial injustice. 

“I would say that the tragedy of George Floyd has made it clear that leadership matters, and how our elected officials serve their residents matters,” Melton-Meaux stressed in a recent interview with JI. “We can’t wait any longer. We need leaders who will take up the mantle and do the hard work with the people to make that change happen.” 

Campaign officials told JI that the campaign will launch an integrated marketing strategy in the coming weeks in an effort to deliver Melton-Meaux’s message to voters. 

Since Floyd’s murder, Melton-Meaux has participated in local protests and marches across the district, engaging with constituents about the need for police reform. At one gathering, he joined his 16-year-old daughter, Ava, and thousands of high school and college students at the Minnesota State Capitol for a moment of silence in Floyd’s memory. “It was a beautiful thing,” he said of the experience, which was dubbed as a “sit and breathe” protest. 

“Residents of my district are tired and frustrated by the seemingly intractable problems we have with police violence, particularly how the police interact with people of color. The inequities that have fueled this moment have existed for decades,” Melton-Meaux said. He called Minneapolis Mayor Jacob Frey’s handling of the protests “imperfect,” pointing to the jeers Frey received during a rally last week after he refused to commit to defunding the city’s police department. “The crowd booing Mayor Frey’s answer is a clear expression of that anger and frustration,” he explained.

“After decades and centuries of abuse, people will no longer accept being told to be patient or accept incremental change,” he added. “As a black man, I truly understand those feelings. More of the same is not acceptable. It’s time for massive, systemic structural change in public safety. I not only support that, I’m also encouraged by the passion and calls for action in the community.”

In recent weeks, Melton-Meaux has managed to keep his momentum going as he seeks to raise his profile, according to political observers. Nonpartisan pro-Israel groups like NORPAC and Pro-Israel America have hosted virtual fundraisers for the candidate. 

“I am very pleased to have the support of the pro-Israel community, as well as many other communities that have seen the value of this campaign,” Melton-Meaux told JI. “We are doing well with our fundraising so that we can be competitive with the congresswoman [and] to make sure we’re getting our message out and connecting with residents for the upcoming primary.” 

Melton-Meaux refrained from directly attacking Omar, who recently lost her father due to COVID-19 complications. He suggested that voters in the district are looking for a representative who can build relationships with other lawmakers to deliver results. “We are making sure as a district that we are bringing people along so their voices are heard and that we are building bridges, not burning bridges,” he said, “to make sure that local, elected and federal officials are working together to bring the resources that people need to address these crises that we’re dealing with right now — both with COVID-19 and with the murder of George Floyd.” 

Read our previous feature of Melton-Meaux and his policy views here.

Two veterans face off in Virginia’s 10th district GOP primary

Two military veterans in Virginia are hoping that serving in Congress will become their next mission.

Victory this November will be an uphill battle for the winner of the Republican primary in the state’s 10th congressional district, which was flipped blue when Rep. Jennifer Wexton unseated two-term incumbent Rep. Barbara Comstock (R-VA) in 2018. Now Republicans in the district are looking to reclaim the seat.

Jeff Dove, who deployed to Iraq as an Army chemical operations specialist, and Rob Jones, who deployed to Iraq and Afghanistan as a Marine combat engineer tasked with identifying IEDs, are considered top contenders for the nomination. Both men said their military service has shaped them, and their political aspirations, in fundamental ways.

“In the Marine Corps, I learned to be a person that took responsibility for the things that are important to them,” Jones, who lost both legs above the knee in an IED explosion and went on to become a paralympian and advocate for disabled veterans, told Jewish Insider. He said that after studying Wexton’s background and record, “I set my sights on a new mission to return conservative leadership back to my home on behalf of my home and on behalf of my family.”

Dove told JI that “one of the things that I learned while serving in Iraq was, don’t take anything for granted.” He recounted memories of distributing school supplies to Iraqi schoolchildren. “Going to Iraq and going and being in war makes me think twice about reasons why we go and fight. I don’t necessarily think that we should be getting involved in every single conflict out there.”

This is not Dove’s first congressional run — in 2018, he challenged longtime Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA) in the neighboring 11th district, losing by nearly 44 points. Despite that loss, Dove said going toe-to-toe with a prominent Democrat like Connolly, who has won by significant margins against Republican opponents since redistricting in 2010 turned the district solidly blue, helped him identify his party’s weaknesses in campaigning, and prepared him to discuss and debate major issues.

Wexton won by more than 10 points in 2018, has stronger name recognition than either Republican and is better funded than her opponents. Jones has $77,000 on hand and Dove has $41,000, while Wexton has $1.8 million. Jones and Dove have both spent hundreds of thousands of dollars on their primary campaigns.

Given that the district is a long shot with an expensive media market, neither Republican should expect much additional investment in his campaign, John McGlennon, a professor of government at Virginia’s College of William & Mary, told JI.

“That district has been trending Democratic at a very fast pace, and I don’t see it turning around in this election,” he said.

But this is not Jones’s first battle against difficult circumstances — he fought to survive a gruesome injury and remain physically active and mobile following the amputation of his legs.

Rob Jones (Jones for Congress)

“When I first got wounded, a lot of people would struggle with that, with this drastic change in their life circumstances,” he said. “But one of the things I realized early on was my mom was going to be devastated, and so what was best for her was that I be fine, that I be okay with my injury. Because of that, I think it forced me to rise to the occasion.”

Since leaving the military, Jones has become an activist for wounded veterans, raising money through athletic achievements. He bicycled across the country, from Maine to San Diego, in 2013 and 2014, and ran 31 marathons on 31 consecutive days in different cities around the world in 2017.

“I was in this position where I felt this desire to continue to serve my fellow Marines and continue to serve my country in some capacity,” he said of the marathons. “I didn’t see any of the stories [in the media] where there was this kind of post-traumatic growth after coming back from the war. And so I wanted to make sure that both sides of that coin were told.”

Dove would also bring a unique perspective to Congress if he is elected. With Rep. Will Hurd (R-TX) retiring, Dove could become the only black Republican in the House. 

Dove is sharply critical of the way Democratic politicians address the black community. “It’s a shame that politicians on the Democratic side feel they need to do something… to show that they’re so called ‘down with the struggle,’” he said, referencing the announcement made by Democrats last week regarding a police reform package, which the party’s leaders made while wearing stoles with a traditional Ghanaian pattern. 

“And also they seem to like to talk to us in a certain way to make it seem like we’re not intelligent enough to handle normal English speech,” Dove added, focusing on Joe Biden’s controversial appearance on “The Breakfast Club” radio show. “It’s all pandering and it’s ridiculous. We don’t want to be talked at. The black community wants to be talked to, and heard.”

Dove blames the controversial 1994 crime bill for many of the issues regarding policing in black communities, noting that law enforcement became more aggressive toward black Americans following the legislation’s introduction into law. “When I was in high school, that legislation was first put in place,” he said. “And we could see the difference in how police reacted to us.”

Dove added that, although he has personally had negative experiences with police, including being pulled over and handcuffed, he does not see all police officers as an issue. “I think 99.9% of law enforcement is here to protect and serve us like they’re supposed to,” he said.

Dove praised the bipartisan First Step Act, which reformed federal prisons and sentencing, as a positive move toward meaningful criminal justice reform, and added that he wants to see more portions of the 1994 crime bill repealed. He also said he wants police to be better integrated into the communities they serve, rather than holding what he called an “us versus them mentality.”

He suggested that relations between law enforcement and communities could be strengthened with more direct outreach that brings police closer to the communities they serve.

It’s a mindset that can also be applied to his views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Dove suggested that the parties need to directly engage in order to move forward.

Dove said he supports a two-state solution, but, “it’s ultimately not going to be our decision. It’s going to be the parties involved… They’re going to have to come together at some point and end this fighting. Because it’s not beneficial for either side to continue.”

Still, the Army veteran sees a role for the U.S. in the peace process — as a mediator in the conflict “making sure that both sides are at the table and continuing discussions and making sure no one is taking too much advantage of the other.”

Jones largely agrees. He also supports a two-state solution, and said the U.S. should “help them come to a solution between the two of them that both of them can be happy with.”

Republicans in the 10th district will pick their nominee at a drive-through convention this Saturday at Shenandoah University, where only pre-registered delegates will be permitted to vote. Also in the race are Matthew Truong, who emigrated from Vietnam at age 12 and built a career in the tech world, and Marine veteran Aliscia Andrews. The convention was originally scheduled for May 30, but delayed due to the coronavirus. A similar convention last Saturday in Virginia’s 5th district has raised significant controversy, but Saturday’s convention in Winchester is expected to go smoothly.

Jones, who announced his candidacy on the ninth anniversary of the attack that took his legs, is confident that delegates will pick the best person for the job — and that he is that person.

“I think the biggest thing is selflessness, acting on the best interests of people that you care about, places that you care about, things that you care about,” he said. “[That] is the key to overcoming anything and accomplishing anything in life.”