Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) is facing a serious primary threat from state Rep. Donavan McKinney, a left-wing challenger backed by several anti-Israel groups including Justice Democrats and TrackAIPAC.

Those groups are riding high, coming off of a recent wave of congressional primary victories in New York City and, most recently, Colorado, which they say point to a desire for a leftward shift in the Democratic Party and, in particular, rejection of support for Israel and pro-Israel groups among the Democratic base. Thanedar is one of their next top targets.

Thanedar is one of the few Democrats who has gotten more supportive of Israel during his tenure in Congress, even as the party has become more hostile to the Jewish state. As a state legislator in 2021, he co-sponsored a resolution calling for a halt in U.S. aid to Israel, which described Israel as an “apartheid state” and accused it of “countless human rights violations.”   

Thanedar sought to walk back his support for the resolution during his 2022 primary, but the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project backed his opponent, then-state Sen. Adam Hollier, in that race. The independently wealthy Thanedar was able to counter with millions in his own spending.

After comfortably winning the contested 2022 primary, Thanedar met with supporters of Israel and traveled to the Jewish state, ultimately reinventing himself as a strong pro-Israel voice and picking up support from the Jewish community. That stance has since cost him support among progressives.

McKinney was the first challenger to an incumbent endorsed by Justice Democrats this cycle, and is also supported by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and former Rep. Andy Levin (D-MI) — all anti-Israel voices. (Former Rep. Brenda Lawrence, who was strongly pro-Israel during her time in office, is also endorsing McKinney’s campaign.)

Thanedar may be particularly vulnerable, given that he represents a district with a large Black population in and around Detroit with a history of Black representation. He’s also built something of an odd public persona in Washington, including an effort to force a vote on impeaching President Donald Trump earlier this year, which he ultimately walked back after pressure from House Democratic leadership.

“We haven’t seen any publicly available polling in this race yet in this primary, but Shri has to be feeling at least somewhat vulnerable here in that today he’s been able to avoid a heads-up primary against a Black Detroiter and now he’s got a heads up primary against a Black Detroiter,” Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political strategist, told Jewish Insider.

Given his district is in an “overwhelmingly majority Black city,” which had at least one Black member of Congress since the 1960s and now has none, “Congressman Thanedar is going to have some work ahead of him to get those folks to pull the lever for him and not to have Black representation in Congress.”

Hemond — who has been publicly critical of Thanedar as ideologically flexible — said that Thanedar isn’t necessarily disliked at home, but has a “reputation as being odd,” and has faced criticism over poor constituent services — often an Achilles heel for Democratic lawmakers who’ve lost primaries in recent years — in part because he has struggled to maintain staff in his office.

But, Hemond argued, McKinney — who has gone on the road visiting other states and districts to stump for fellow progressive candidates — shouldn’t be “confident at all” in victory because “Shri’s got a lot of money, and it’s not like this hasn’t been attempted before.”

McKinney, Hemond said, may be somewhat to the left of the district as a whole, but his views are largely aligned with the Democratic primary voter base, more so than Thanedar’s own. In order to win the district, he continued, McKinney will need to out-organize Thanedar on the ground, particularly in ensuring his supporters return their absentee ballots, which are set to go out at the end of the week.

“If you have a better absentee program than Shri Thanedar does, you should win this election,” Hemond continued, adding that “it looks like they’ve got the pieces in place to be able to run a really strong absentee chase effort, and if they do, it’s going to bode real well for him come 9 o’clock on election night.”

As far-left House members face primary competition over their polarizing stances on Israel’s war with Hamas, newly emboldened pro-Israel groups are indicating that they are now preparing to invest significantly in the upcoming election cycle.

In one notable development, a major Democratic fundraiser with ties to a moderate political action committee that backs pro-Israel candidates is signaling that top donors are eager to fund credible primary challenges to Reps. Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Cori Bush (D-MO) — who have drawn backlash for equivocating over Hamas’ Oct. 7 terror attack.

Their reactions to the brutal massacre have created “a lot of energy among donors and activists in the center,” Dmitri Mehlhorn, a political advisor to the billionaire entrepreneur Reid Hoffman, who largely funds the Mainstream Democrats PAC, confirmed in an interview with Jewish Insider on Thursday.

“One of the very, very small silver linings of this horrible moment is that it does modestly increase the likelihood that we can remove some of these members of Congress,” Mehlhorn said. “We believe that there is a winning electoral coalition, a large governing majority of Americans who want their leaders to be able to condemn violent atrocities and mass rape.”

In another salvo aimed at Tlaib on Thursday, Democratic Majority for Israel’s political arm released a six-figure TV ad in Detroit hitting the Squad member over her calls for a cease-fire and vote last week against a resolution standing with Israel in the wake of Hamas’ assault, among other things. 

The target of the ad — as well as its messaging — was noteworthy for DMFI, which has traditionally avoided going after anti-Israel incumbents. The group’s advertising has also not typically mentioned Israel or foreign policy, despite its focus on electing pro-Israel candidates. But Mark Mellman, the president of DMFI, suggested that the escalating conflict has contributed to a new sense of urgency on issues relating to Israel.

“Normally foreign policy is not an important electoral issue unless American troops are fighting a war,” Mellman told JI on Thursday. “But Israel is the number one news story in the world right now and polls demonstrate it is a salient issue for a large majority of Americans.”

On Monday, Bush drew her first challenger: Wesley Bell, the prosecuting attorney of St. Louis County, who cited Bush’s positions on the conflict between Israel and Hamas as a reason for entering the race. “Hamas is a terrorist organization,” he told JI, “and I will not waver in my support for Israel.”

Meanwhile, Tlaib, who represents a large population of Arab American voters in Dearborn, has yet to face opposition in her primary — despite ongoing efforts to recruit a credible challenger.

Political activists in Detroit have been working behind the scenes to convince Adam Hollier, a former state senator who launched a rematch against freshman Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI) last month, to switch races and challenge Tlaib instead, according to a Democratic source familiar with the effort.

Hollier, however, said in a text message to JI on Thursday that he is “not considering any other district,” adding, “I’m running in MI-13, my home district, because our communities deserve real, serious representation in Congress and they just aren’t getting it with Rep. Thanedar.”

Speaking with JI, Mehlhorn said he had already heard from several unnamed donors in the tech and finance worlds who reached out to him after he went public with his plans in an interview with CNBC on Thursday — which he characterized as an opening signal to spur “credible candidates to run.”

Mehlhorn had indicated in an interview with The Intercept last May that he believed Mainstream Democrats PAC had succeeded in neutralizing the far left in 2022 — and would not need to spend as aggressively this cycle. But he suggested that his thinking had since changed as the Israel-Hamas conflict has underscored the growing extremism of the far left ahead of a presidential election year.

“We believe the winning strategy is for Democrats to present themselves as capable and able to police their own extremists,” Mehlhorn told JI.

Mehlhorn explained that he and his allies would for now be focusing exclusively on unseating Tlaib and Bush — even as other Squad members who have staked out polarizing positions on the ongoing war in Gaza are also poised to face primary opponents next cycle. “If you try to police your own side too aggressively,” he said, “it actually breaks things.”

The Bush and Tlaib campaigns did not respond to messages seeking comment on Thursday evening.

In addition to Bush, Reps. Summer Lee (D-PA) and Ilhan Omar (D-MN) are preparing to defend their seats from new challengers who are drawing sharp contrasts on Middle East policy. 

Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), who has faced mounting criticism from Jewish and pro-Israel constituents over his approach to the war, also appears poised for a competitive primary as George Latimer, the Westchester County executive, weighs a challenge — which could come as soon as next week, according to sources informed of his thinking. 

AIPAC, the bipartisan pro-Israel group, has privately indicated that it is ready to back Latimer’s campaign.