Today’s special election runoff in Georgia between Republican Clay Fuller and Democrat Shawn Harris to determine the successor to former Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA) isn’t much in doubt. The northwestern Georgia district that Greene represented backed President Donald Trump by 37 points in 2024, one of the largest GOP margins in the country.

What makes the otherwise sleepy contest significant is the potential for the results to indicate if there are any fissures within the MAGA coalition, ones that may represent Republican discontent with Trump’s hawkish turn amid the Iran war. In this race, the margins will be as notable as the winner. 

Greene, since leaving Congress, has emerged a loud Republican voice against the Iran war and against Trump’s strong alliance with Israel. Fuller, a military veteran with a background in counterterrorism operations and district attorney for the Lookout Mountain Judicial Circuit, has been a stalwart supporter of Trump’s military operations in the Middle East, and Trump has endorsed him in the race.

Harris, the Democrat, holds foreign policy views closer to the isolationist Greene, attacking the pro-Israel advocacy group AIPAC and describing Israel’s war against Hamas as a “genocide” — views which place him on the left flank of the Democratic Party. This despite Harris’ time serving as defense attache in Israel during his years in the National Guard, work history that he has not publicized during the campaign.

It’s worth noting that Greene, since she was first elected to the seat in 2020, has underperformed Trump’s standing in the district, only winning 64% of the vote against Harris in 2024 — four points below Trump’s 68% showing at the top of the ticket. And since breaking with Trump in his second term, her political standing has taken an even bigger hit.

Greene has not endorsed either candidate in the race.

If Harris wins over 40% of the vote in this ruby-red district, it’s a sign that Democrats are making inroads into rock-ribbed conservative turf, potentially over frustrations with rising gas prices and the Iran war. But if he doesn’t perform much better than he did in 2024 — and he only won 37% of the vote in the first round of balloting, compared to the 36% he tallied two years ago — it’s a sign that the media hype over a MAGA fissure is greatly overstated. 

The election also carries some relevance for another big political showdown in Georgia later this year: Sen. Jon Ossoff’s (D-GA) reelection campaign. Given a divided GOP primary field and an unfavorable national environment for Republicans, Ossoff starts with some advantages in what otherwise looks like a tough reelection.

If the GOP base turns out strongly for Fuller, it’s a sign that Republicans will still be able to rely on conservative voter enthusiasm and engagement in the run-up to the closely watched Senate battleground.

But if there are signs of GOP weakness in one of the reddest parts of the state, it would be evidence that Trump’s political problems aren’t just limited to swing voters, but could extend to even redder states and districts on the battleground map. 

Joe Hathaway, the Republican nominee in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, repeatedly accused Democratic nominee Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer, of espousing antisemitism and taking stances that would make the district’s sizable Jewish community unsafe, during their sole debate earlier this week.

Hathaway, in his opening statement, said that Mejia would “demonize thousands of members of our Jewish community.” The Randolph, N.J. city councilman has leaned into outreach to Jewish voters during the campaign. 

Mejia, who won the special election primary in part because of significant United Democracy Project spending against the frontrunner, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), is favored to win in a district that backed Kamala Harris by eight points.

Though she had described the war in Gaza as a genocide less than a month after the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attack, Mejia stopped short of using that word during the debate. Instead, she said that “many individuals are feeling conflicted about what we are seeing in Gaza,” while accusing Israel and its prime minister of having committed war crimes. 

“I believe that criticism of Benjamin Netanyahu and his administration is not anti-Israel any more than criticism of Donald Trump is anti-American,” Mejia said. “Neither man deserves a blank check or a blind eye.”

Hathaway responded by highlighting past instances in which Mejia has accused Israel of genocide, in spite of her dodge on the issue during the debate, and said that her positions are “radically out of touch with a district that has a thriving Jewish community that is made less safe, more dangerous by this extreme rhetoric. It has to stop.”

He accused Mejia of blaming Israel for the Oct. 7, 2023 Hamas attacks — something she denied. On Oct. 10, 2023, Mejia said that “Every fiber of my being is horrified beyond words at what is furthering in Gaza. Yet again we see how oppression & dehumanization leads to despair & unthinkable destruction,” without making direct mention of Hamas’ attack.

He also highlighted that she said during a primary candidate forum that she felt “incredible discomfort” with the idea of Israel being a Jewish state.

“I’ll stop calling you an antisemite when you stop saying things that are antisemitic and when you stop taking money from people … who shout that Jews in Israel are the same things as Nazis in Germany,” Hathaway said. “You take money from these people, you support their policies. It is completely out of touch with this district that has a thriving Jewish population. This isn’t a district where you can make those kinds of comments and people are going to be okay with it.”

He claimed that his campaign is seeing mass defections from Democratic voters “because the Jewish people of this district know there’s only one candidate they can vote for if they care about their safety and their children’s safety.”

Mejia responded by accusing Hathaway of “fearmonger[ing]” and misrepresenting her record and past statements.

“I would say it’s laughable except it’s one of the most serious topics,” Mejia said. “As a member of Congress, I would use every legislative power at my disposal to protect the rights of Jewish constituents and convene spaces to educate and to fight antisemitism because I know it’s real. … But that doesn’t mean that we cannot call the question on violations to international law and human rights.”

“We should be able to criticize the actions of a government without being called a person of hate,” she said. “We should be able to support freedom and protect our nations without turning to the very thing that we say we fight against. We have to uphold human rights, and if that’s the worst thing that I could be accused of, then I will stand with it, because I believe we have to fight for the freedom and justice of every human being.”

Hathaway fired back that “antisemitism is a bad thing to be accused of.”

Mejia responded, “and that is why I am disgusted by the fact that you are unable to see that criticism of a prime minister does not equal hate. It is disgusting and it is beneath you.”

The two candidates also debated the issue of congressional war powers, in the context of the ongoing war in Iran.

Mejia said she would not support “illegal and endless wars” or wars “without a plan to keep Americans safe.” She focused her comments primarily on the Trump administration’s posture toward America’s European allies, highlighting that the administration had lifted sanctions on Russian oil.

“I believe that we have to fight [Iran’s] nuclear threat, but more bombs do not equate [with] peace. We have to ensure that we’ve exhausted diplomacy and sanctions to keep Americans safe,” she said.

Hathaway said that Iran cannot have nuclear capabilities and that he would like to see diplomacy work, but that he supported the military action the U.S. took when diplomacy failed, praising the effectiveness of the U.S. operations.

He said he’s hopeful that the war will end soon and said he would not support deploying U.S. ground troops. He alleged that Mejia’s stance on Israel “renders her completely unable to make the right decisions for America and for our allies in Israel when it comes to a nuclear-capable Iran.”

Throughout the debate, Hathaway characterized Mejia  as a radical leftist out of step with the district, and himself as a moderate who will work across the aisle. Mejia denied that she identifies as a socialist, emphasizing her longtime role as a Democratic county committee member.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Voters are casting ballots today in the special election for the ruby-red House seat previously held by Rep. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-GA), but the final outcome will likely remain uncertain for another month. 

With 17 candidates on the all-party ballot, the race is expected to go to a runoff — unless any candidate receives 50% or more of the vote, making today’s race effectively a competition over which two candidates are likely to finish with the most support. 

On the GOP side, the race is dominated by two candidates. The first is Clay Fuller, a local district attorney, veteran and former White House fellow who is backed by President Donald Trump. 

The second, former state Sen. Colton Moore, a hard-line conservative rabble-rouser often at odds with his own party’s leadership, is running as the anti-establishment populist — a profile that more closely matches Greene’s. 

The district is one of the most Republican in the country: Trump carried the district by 37 percentage points in 2024, and paid a visit to the district in late February to throw his support behind Fuller.

A third Republican candidate, Brian Stover, a local businessman, has raised a significant amount of campaign cash and is a wild card. 

On the Democratic side, the likely leader is Army veteran Shawn Harris, who lost to Greene in 2024 by nearly 30 points. He’s pulled in $4.2 million from Democrats outraged by Greene and who’ve been attracted by a far-fetched pitch that he can flip the seat. But he’s likely to secure a runoff spot, given how many Republican candidates are on the ballot.

Fuller’s campaign has been touting Trump’s endorsement, and his own military service. Fuller’s Air Force career included work on counterterrorism operations, and he was deployed in 2024 to the Al Udeid airbase in Qatar supporting U.S. Central Command operations. He also has the support of the conservative Club for Growth.

He has backed the U.S.-Israeli offensive against Iran, and expressed support for Israel. “President Trump tried the peace route with Iran not once, not twice, but THREE separate times—and they refused. He’s the peace President, but you can’t negotiate with a death cult,” Fuller said, emphasizing he had supported operations against Iran and that the regime and its proxies had killed many Americans.

Despite not receiving Trump’s support, Moore is also trying to tie himself closely to the president, describing himself on his campaign website as “Trump’s #1 Defender” and “a Proven Warrior for President Trump” — pointing to his vocal efforts to contest the results of the 2020 election and opposition to subsequent investigations of Trump and his allies — and using the campaign slogan, “God. Guns. Trump.”

Moore has repeatedly found himself at odds with Georgia’s GOP establishment, having been expelled from the Republican caucus, banned from the Statehouse floor and arrested when he tried to enter the 2025 State of the State address.

Moore doesn’t appear to have addressed the war in Iran, but said, days after the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks, “The Jewish people are the indigenous people of Israel.” And according to a candidate questionnaire from 2022, he is a longtime supporter of Israel, having attended AIPAC conferences and, as a college student, having served as co-chair of the University of Georgia AIPAC chapter. “There is no Palestinian land, it is all the land of Israel,” he said in the questionnaire.

So despite his MAGA bona fides, his record appears decidedly more supportive of Israel than Greene, who has advanced antisemitic conspiracy theories and became one of the few anti-Israel Republicans in Congress.

However, Moore was also the only Republican member of the state Senate to vote against a bill in 2024 codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism — echoing Greene’s stance on the Antisemitism Awareness Act in the same year.

As of Feb. 18, Stover had raised $940,000 (around two-thirds of that was in the form of a personal loan to his campaign), Fuller $787,000 and Moore $342,000.

The normally voluble Greene has stayed on the sidelines in the race to replace her, not endorsing or rallying for any of the candidates, as she continues to air her disappointment with Trump and the GOP leadership.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Rasmussen said that UDP’s advertising against Malinowski “very clearly … worked,” citing the significant drop in Malinowski’s share of the vote from the first early votes to be submitted — where he was receiving 60-70% of the vote — and votes submitted later in the cycle, as well as votes on election day.

“It’s pretty clear that the reason they went in [Mejia’s] direction is because she carved out a different position on ICE, which is very clearly on voters minds, and just convinced voters that she was the person who could best stand up to Trump, and that, it seems is what Democratic voters are looking for,” Rasmussen said.

He was skeptical of the narrative that the result was a sign of a broader voter appetite for socialist or socialist-adjacent policies in moderate suburban districts.

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

The race also saw substantially higher turnout than most anticipated — surpassing 2024 primary turnout levels in not just the 11th District but every congressional district in New Jersey, according to Rasmussen — a sign of strong Democratic motivation to vote, likely spurred by President Donald Trump.

Gill’s fourth-place finish — despite entering the race as the favorite given the backing he received from New Jersey Democratic institutions — is a clear signal that the state’s Democratic machine has largely lost its ability to shape elections to its will, Rasmussen added.

The AIPAC-affiliated United Democracy Project super PAC launched a $500,000 ad campaign this weekend targeting former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), who is running in a special election for the seat formerly held by Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill.

The ads highlight Malinowski’s vote in favor of additional funding for Immigration and Customs Enforcement years ago, while he was in office representing the neighboring district. The vote also received support from a majority of Democrats.

“There are several candidates in this race that are far more supportive of the U.S.-Israel relationship than Tom Malinowski,” UDP spokesperson Patrick Dorton told Jewish Insider. Dorton also confirmed the size of the ad buy.

Its decision to aggressively single out Malinowski is unexpected given that he has not expressed the same sort of caustic anti-Israel views that many of the candidates the super PAC traditionally targets have espoused. Malinowski, a former State Department official, was a prominent voice on foreign policy matters during his time in Congress and maintained a pro-Israel record.

“The ad itself is obviously — and unforgivably — cynical and dishonest. The strategy behind it is inexplicable. If AIPAC’s definition of pro-Israel now excludes even someone like me, who passionately supports Israel but won’t commit to a blank check for anything [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu] might want, there won’t be enough pro-Israel people left in America to sustain the relationship,” Malinowski said in a statement to JI. “I’m confident people will see through this. But if they were to get away with it here, they will do the same to many other Democrats who at some point voted for border funding.”

Various lawmakers — Democrats and Republicans — who AIPAC supports also voted for the border funding package.

In a recent interview with JI, Malinowski described himself as pro-Israel and expressed support for the Trump administration’s Gaza peace plan and strikes on Iran’s nuclear program. But he also said he’s open to policies conditioning or restricting aid, and said the U.S. should act as “counterweight” to the Israeli far right. He added that U.S. aid shouldn’t be used to facilitate Israeli actions that the U.S. itself doesn’t support.

Multiple other candidates in the Democratic primary for the 11th Congressional District have expressed more critical views of Israel, including Analilia Mejia, who leads a progressive advocacy group. Mejia suggested in a candidate forum last week that Arab Israelis do not enjoy the same level of citizenship as Jewish Israelis and indicated she would not support sending offensive weapons to Israel as a member of Congress.

She’s endorsed by a series of progressives critical of Israel including Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY), Pramila Jayapal (D-WA), Ro Khanna (D-CA), Maxwell Frost (D-FL), Delia Ramirez (D-IL), Greg Casar (D-TX), Ayanna Pressley (D-MA) and Chuy Garcia (D-IL), as well as the Working Families Party and the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.

Other candidates in the race include Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, who expressed support for continued and unrestricted U.S. aid to Israel in a recent interview with JI; Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, who voiced her support for the U.S.-Israel relationship in a recent candidate forum; and Jeff Grayzel, the deputy mayor of Morris Township whose path to victory relies upon the support of Jewish voters in the district.

Gill, backed by Gov. Phil Murphy, and Malinowski have generally been seen as the front-runners.

Two Democratic candidates running in the crowded special election to replace New Jersey Gov.-elect Mikie Sherrill, including the state’s current secretary of state and lieutenant governor, criticized the state Assembly for failing to pass legislation codifying the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism.

Their comments came during a virtual forum hosted by the Jewish Democratic Council of America on Tuesday evening with most of the candidates in the race for the northern New Jersey House district, though some including Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, the likely front-runner, were missing; Gill was expected to join but organizers said he had unexpected family obligations.

“I, too, take offense that my own state did not adopt IHRA, and I will definitely move this forward as your congresswoman,” New Jersey’s lieutenant governor and secretary of state, Tahesha Way, said.

Multiple sources blamed the state’s governor and other senior Democratic officials for killing the bill due to concerns about political blowback from progressives targeting Democratic lawmakers who would vote for it.

Way issued a statement expressing similar support last week after the legislation failed to move forward in the legislature. “As we witness an alarming rise in antisemitism across our country, we must be unequivocal: hate has no place in our society. I will always stand by the Jewish community, and I support legislation adopting the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s working definition of antisemitism in the New Jersey Assembly and will wholeheartedly support similar federal legislation if elected to Congress.”

Candidate Jeff Grayzel, the deputy mayor of Morris Township and a local Jewish leader who testified before the New Jersey Assembly in support of the bill, also expressed frustration that the legislation had failed, when similar legislation has passed in a majority of states.

“It is pathetic that in the state with the fourth largest Jewish population in the United States, we don’t have that,” Grayzel said.

In addition to her comments on the IHRA legislation, Way also emphasized her work with the New Jersey-Israel Commission, which falls under her purview as secretary of state, to address campus antisemitism, and said she would back efforts to “streamline access” to Nonprofit Security Grant Program funding.

She said that her trip with an American Jewish Committee delegation to Israel in 2019 “really underscored … the strong alliance between the U.S. and Israel,” and emphasized the need to rebuild Gaza without Hamas and to expand the Abraham Accords, as well as pursue a two-state solution.

Former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-NJ), viewed as another top contender in the field, said that leaders need to police antisemitism on their own sides, while arguing that the far left “hates our leadership” and that the far right leads the GOP. He also called for proper resources and funding to combat domestic extremism, an effort he said is being undermined by shifting federal resources to immigration enforcement, and called for regulation of social media.

He said that he had a “perfect pro-Israel voting record in Congress as a pro-Israel Democrat,” while accusing Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of dragging the war in Gaza out for his own interests, and calling for more pressure on both sides to continue the ceasefire agreement.

Grayzel, in his opening statement, described himself as a “proud Jew and a proud Zionist” and declared unequivocally that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism,” adding that he is running for Congress in part to stand up for the Jewish people. 

He pushed back on suggestions from a fellow candidate that Israel is depriving members of its Arab population of equal rights, and emphasized his support for unconditional aid to the Jewish state.

Passaic County Commissioner John Bartlett noted that he had spent a year living in Israel studying at Hebrew University, experiencing the daily security threats that Israelis face. He said that he supports the continued U.S.-Israel relationship and rejected “arbitrary distinctions between offensive and defensive weapons.”

“I recognize the relationship between the United States and Israel as fundamental and rooted in shared democratic values. I’ve also heard loud and clear from you, your kids and your rabbis that families need to feel safe right here in New Jersey again. You can count on me to be a consistent and outspoken ally in Congress,” Bartlett said.

He also condemned those who are targeting the Jewish community over political differences with Israel, and said that he supports the IHRA working definition and the Antisemitism Awareness Act.

Army veteran and venture capitalist Zach Beecher noted that his wife is Jewish and they are raising their son Jewish, and highlighting his experience in combat in the Middle East. He called for expanded NSGP funding and greater Holocaust education.

He said he “categorically support[s] security assistance and the right of Israel to defend itself” following the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks on Israel.

Other candidates took a more hesitant stance toward support for Israel while expressing support for its right to exist.

Analilia Mejia, who leads a progressive advocacy group, said, “Israel has the responsibility to ensure freedom for all those who live within it,” and said U.S. funding should go “towards peace” and defensive systems “and not bombs.”

Community advocate Anna Lee Williams said, “I’m someone who really promotes peacebuilding and long-term diplomatic strategies so that we can properly support that. I think that’s the main thing — I just want to move forward in terms of, how do we use our partnership to value human rights and make sure that we are holding the Israeli government accountable when they are hurting people.”

Attorney J-L Cauvin, who has gone viral for his impersonations of President Donald Trump, said Netanyahu is “something of a monster,” and had “spit in the face of Joe Biden and is dragging America’s moral authority through the gutter.” Cauvin said that he wants to see less U.S. aid flowing to Israel.

On antisemitism, Cauvin highlighted his own experience with discrimination as the son of an immigrant and as a mixed-race person, arguing that he knows “how to fight it probably better than most people in this race.” He said that he had personally broken with a friend over his “disgusting” reaction to Oct. 7. He largely blamed Trump for the rise in antisemitism, saying he had given a “license to discriminate and speak horribly.”

Williams said her longtime partner is Jewish, and that they have had conversations about the fear that the Jewish community is feeling. She called for steps to make the Jewish community feel safe, to combat antisemitism online and in AI and to improve education.

Throughout the event, several of the candidates described the Trump administration’s policies, particularly its deportation efforts, as fascist and drew comparisons to the Nazi regime.

Grayzel said that the Jewish community “knows where fascism leads. We have an experience of what happened in Germany, and what happened in Minnesota last week is the next step in that fascist process,” referring to the killing of a woman by an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer.

“We all know how the Nazis terrorized Jews in Germany, and ICE is now terrorizing our immigrants here in this country,” Grayzel said. “But I am so scared, so, so scared as a Jew of where this country is headed and how ICE is treating people and terrorizing them. It absolutely needs to stop.”

Malinowski agreed, describing the ICE arrests as “proto-fascist operations that we’re seeing on our street.”

Williams said, of recent ICE raids, “For those of us who are part of the Jewish community, and for anyone who studies history, alarm bells should be going off.”

Beecher alleged that a slogan displayed behind Homeland Security Secretary Kristi Noem at a news event this week echoed SS rhetoric, a characterization disputed by historians.

If there’s a lesson for Democrats from the GOP’s nine-point victory in the Tennessee special election on Tuesday night, it’s that the type of left-wing politics that can play in the city is a political turnoff for persuadable suburban voters. Nominating a telegenic candidate with ideologically radical views — à la Zohran Mamdani — might not matter to many urban Gen Z voters, but it does matter everywhere else.

In the big picture, Republican Matt Van Epps’ single-digit margin of victory in a district that President Donald Trump carried by 22 points is a sign of a strong Democratic environment heading into the midterms. Democrats should feel confident about their chances of winning back control of the House, even with increased gerrymandering. But look a little more closely at the results, and there are signs of an urban-suburban divide in the district, indicating that Democrat Aftyn Behn’s outspoken progressivism cost her badly in the affluent, conservative-minded suburb of Williamson County.

Take a look at the stark urban-suburban divide by the numbers: Behn won by 56 points in the city of Nashville, outperforming Kamala Harris’ margin in the country by a whopping 20 points. But in the Nashville suburbs, Behn barely outperformed Harris, losing Williamson County by 23 points (while Harris lost the county by 30 in 2024).

Behn was tagged as the “AOC of Tennessee” by Republicans, and she didn’t shy away from that comparison during the campaign, even inviting Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) to participate at a virtual rally for the Democratic candidate. Her anti-police rhetoric, antipathy towards her home city of Nashville, along with her record of hostility against Israel all underscored she was on the far left wing of her party.

Just as New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s anti-Israel and left-wing views were toxic enough that suburban New York City Democratic lawmakers — like Reps. Tom Suozzi (D-NY) and Laura Gillen (D-NY) — spoke out against his mayoral campaign, Behn’s suburban struggles underscore that swing-district Democrats who adopt the agenda of their party’s far-left activists will face consequences at the ballot box.

At the same time, Behn’s appreciable gains in Nashville and small inroads in the heavily Republican working-class rural counties of the district indicate that the Democratic message of affordability is outranking other more-ideological issues for voters facing challenges paying their bills. With fears of rising prices amid a volatile economy, Republicans risk losing a little support from their working-class base that could prove costly in the 2026 midterms — and beyond.

All told, the results should be encouraging for Democrats, even as their overly exuberant expectations led them to invite polarizing figures like Harris and AOC to boost turnout, despite the district’s strong conservative bent. But a more moderate nominee would likely have improved the party’s standing in the suburbs, and taken better advantage of the favorable overall political environment for the opposition party. It’s another reminder that moderation is the winning formula for the party to win back power in the future.

Today’s special election in Tennessee’s 7th Congressional District — covering parts of Nashville, its conservative suburbs and rural counties in middle Tennessee — was expected to be a sleepy affair, given that the district backed President Donald Trump with 60% of the vote in 2024. The state’s aggressively partisan redistricting in 2021 was intended to guarantee GOP dominance of the state’s congressional delegation, leaving just one Democratic district in Memphis.

But in a sign that Trump’s growing unpopularity is creating unforeseen problems for Republicans in conservative constituencies, the race between Republican military veteran Matt Van Epps, a former state Cabinet secretary, and Democratic state Rep. Aftyn Behn is highly competitive. 

The fact that polls show the race tightening — with one Emerson College poll showing Van Epps in a statistical tie with Behn — is a sign of just how treacherous the political landscape has become for Republicans. Gallup’s latest survey found Trump with a 36% job approval, close to an all-time low throughout his two terms in office.  

If Republicans are nervous about holding a seat that Trump won by 22 points, there’s a growing likelihood of a blue wave that would give Democrats comfortable control of the House and an outside shot at a Senate majority. (One useful benchmark: Sen. Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) carried the 7th District by just two points in her 2018 Senate race, the last election year when Democrats rode a wave to win back the House.)

The fact that Republicans are struggling to make the case that the unapologetically progressive Behn holds views out of step with the conservative district on everything from anti-police rhetoric to antipathy towards her home city of Nashville to a record of hostility against Israel is also a sign of how nationalized our politics have become. In today’s tribal world, candidate quality and specific policy views mean a lot less than the overall political mood (vibes) and the popularity of the president.

Once someone wins their party’s nomination, the penalty for holding ideologically extreme views isn’t as costly as it once was. Just look at incoming Virginia Attorney General Jay Jones and New York City Mayor-elect Zohran Mamdani’s showings in the November elections. Despite their substantial baggage, both candidates received a level of political legitimacy after winning their primaries.

Getting Trump voters to show up when the president isn’t on the ballot is also looking like an immense challenge that the closer-than-expected Tennessee race is showing — a dynamic that will continue past next year’s midterms. Part of it is the nature of off-year special elections, which less-engaged Republican voters aren’t likely to participate in. But some of the slippage in this race is also a sign of declining enthusiasm for the Republican Party even with more reliably GOP voters. 

The district is anchored by the affluent Nashville suburb of Williamson County, which stuck with Trump even as most other suburban areas swung towards Democrats over the last decade. 

Gallup found Trump dropping to 84% support among Republican voters, a decline of about 10 points in the last couple of months. If Republicans are slipping with their own voters, amid signs of cracks within the MAGA coalition, it would truly be a warning sign that the party’s vaunted unity under Trump could be dissipating as his final term progresses.

Odds still favor Van Epps in tonight’s special election, given the district’s solidly conservative bent. But if a progressive like Behn can make this race close — within single digits — it will serve as a flashing red light about where the political winds are heading for the White House, at least without a course correction. 

Far-left Tennessee state Rep. Aftyn Behn, making a bid for the open 7th Congressional District seat in next week’s special election, has staked out strongly anti-Israel positions during the course of her campaign and political career.

Behn’s race in the deep-red seat, against West Point graduate and military veteran Matt Van Epps, a Republican, has long been seen as a long shot, but it has attracted significant interest and support from national Democrats hoping for a show of Democratic strength in an upset victory.

Former Vice President Kamala Harris rallied with Behn in Tennessee earlier this month, and Behn has outraised Van Epps, $1.2 million to $993,000. Former Rep. Mark Green (R-TN), who vacated the seat earlier this year, won in 2024 by 20 points, but polls show Van Epps leading by just 8.

Behn called for a ceasefire between Israel and Hamas, and described the war in Gaza as a genocide as early as Oct. 29, 2023, weeks after Hamas’ Oct. 7 attack on Israel, shortly after she was elected to the statehouse.

“I can’t sit on the sidelines, as so many of our elected officials have done the past few weeks. Their silence is deafening. Our struggles are global and inextricably linked as our liberation is bound together,” Behn said. “The United States is funding a genocide in Gaza right now, and this is a moment when we, as Tennesseans, need to care loudly for Palestinians as we do for marginalized communities in Tennessee.”

She expressed support for a House resolution led by far-left lawmakers calling for an immediate ceasefire.

“If you don’t live in Memphis, continue showing up to rallies and vigils in support of Gaza and Palestine, stand in solidarity with our Jewish allies who are, through their grief and loss, are calling for an end to the occupation, and link arms with our Muslim neighbors whose suffering is being unrecognized by those in power. None of us are free until we’re all free,” she continued.

In April 2024, Behn opposed a resolution expressing support for Israel and its right to defend itself and condemning the Oct. 7 attacks. “Israel is committing genocide, funded by the United States, and this resolution condones genocide,” Behn said in debate on the resolution.

She also visited the anti-Israel encampment at Vanderbilt University in Nashville, describing it as “well organized, grounded in liberation politics.”

“Solidarity with these students and all of those across the country standing up to state violence and calling for the end of genocide,” Behn wrote on X.

Last summer, Behn signed onto a letter calling on the Democratic National Convention to host a Palestinian speaker.

“The pain and suffering of hostage families have been rightfully highlighted and acknowledged on national platforms,” the letter reads. “We believe that it is equally important to create space for the Palestinian experience, which has been marked by decades of hardship, loss, and displacement.”

Behn also received an endorsement from Track AIPAC, an anti-Israel group that conditions its support for candidates on rejection of support from pro-Israel groups and support for declaring Palestinian statehood, among other criteria.

Her campaign has also been supported by the Democratic Socialists of America.

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