The November 2026 midterm elections could change the balance of power in Washington, giving Democrats control of the House of Representatives, and perhaps the Senate as well, due to some extent to public discontent with President Donald Trump’s conduct in office (as well as to the established pattern of gains by the party which does not hold the White House in a midterm election). Meanwhile, the Democratic Party primaries are exposing a widening internal rift over Israel and the scale of the challenge now facing its supporters. The votes in Maine, and even more so in New York, illustrate what is at stake: Graham Platner, aligned with the progressive wing and known for anti-Israel positions, has become the Democratic Senate nominee despite allegations concerning his past. In the House, candidates with a strong anti-Zionist line have won nominations in several safe Democratic districts. In New York City, three anti-Israeli candidates backed by Mayor Zohran Mamdani, won in the June 23 primaries; one of them is a radical activist, Darializa Avila Chevalier, who openly expressed support for Hamas as early as October 8, 2023. A new political action committee, American Priorities, has joined the effort on behalf of anti-Israel candidates while portraying AIPAC as the representative of a “foreign” interest. J Street, which presents itself as aligned with the Zionist left but now supports conditioning U.S. security assistance to Israel, adds another layer of difficulty within Democratic politics.
The trend is not uncontested. In some districts, candidates identified with the party mainstream have prevailed, including figures whose approach to Israel is more moderate, though at times still critical. Previous election cycles also showed that AIPAC retains real political clout: many candidates flagged as problematic by the pro-Israel lobby failed to win. Even among Democratic progressives, some voices reject the positions of the Squad, the radical anti-Israel group led by Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Rashida Tlaib, and Ilhan Omar.
The outcome of this struggle is likely to yield mixed results. Precisely for that reason, Israel and its friends need a long-term political strategy to contain the drift. It would be wrong to adopt the view, heard in some Israeli circles, that Democratic support should simply be written off. That would cut against the long bipartisan tradition on which the special relationship between the United States and Israel has rested. Recent experience also points to the risks of relying exclusively on President Donald Trump and his camp. In the immediate term, Israel should move the issue higher on its agenda and deepen dialogue with senior Democratic figures and with those among American Jewry’s leaders who share concerns over the party’s direction on Israel.
The Importance of the November 2026 Midterms
Midterm elections are held halfway through an elected president’s term. The entire House of Representatives and one-third of the Senate are on the ballot. In November 2026, Senate races will be held in 35 states, including a special election in Ohio. Republicans currently control both chambers, enabling President Donald Trump in most cases to advance his legislative agenda. This year, however, a reversal is a realistic possibility:
- Republicans currently hold 218 House seats, compared with 212 Democrats, while five seats are vacant because of retirement, resignation, or death. Given broad public dissatisfaction with the Trump administration, as well as the historical pattern of gains by the party not holding the presidency, even a relatively small shift could give Democrats a majority. In the U.S. system, that would also give them the chairmanship of every House committee, most importantly the Budget and Appropriations committees.
- The Senate is less likely to change hands, but Democratic prospects are not negligible. Republicans now hold a 53–47 majority. Most of the seats up for election are Republican-held—22 compared with 13 Democratic seats—and several are developing into competitive races, especially in Maine and North Carolina, and possibly also in Texas, Iowa, Ohio, and even Alaska, a traditional Republican stronghold. Republicans have some chance of winning Democratic seats in Michigan, and possibly Georgia as well.
In today’s polarized United States, most districts, and many states, are effectively locked into partisan identities. Only a small number of races have real potential to change hands, and incumbents usually begin with a built-in advantage. A Supreme Court ruling has also allowed Republicans in several states to redraw congressional districts in ways that serve their interests, including by breaking up districts designed to ensure African American (and therefore Democratic) majorities. Even so, these elections matter greatly. Trump’s position in the polls is shaky, and American political history repeatedly shows that the party out of the White House tends to make gains in the midterms. That gives added weight to the place of the “Israel question” on the political agenda, particularly among Democrats, already at the primary stage.
The Growing Strength of Radical Anti-Israel Forces in Democratic Politics
Harsh anti-Israel rhetoric was already evident even before October 2023, both in the U.S. “progressive” camp and at the opposite end of the spectrum, among antisemitic elements within the right-wing MAGA movement. The war in Gaza, and now in Lebanon as well, has made this rhetoric far more intense, with the accusation of “genocide” at its center. That accusation has become the basis for repeated calls to end aid to Israel, or at least to condition it on a sharp change in current Israeli policy. These debates are affecting an already polarized American discourse, and their impact is especially pronounced within the Democratic Party.
The Maine Senate race illustrates the severity of the challenge. Graham Platner, a newcomer and oyster farmer identified with the progressive camp, has taken blunt anti-Israel positions and is now the Democratic nominee. Maine has been represented for 30 years by Susan Collins, a moderate Republican who has kept her distance from Trump. Platner also faces allegations concerning his treatment of women (Trump called him a “second-rate bully”) as well as the fact that, in his youth, he sported a Nazi tattoo. Yet given the clear liberal-progressive tilt of almost every New England state, his chances are currently considered even.
Even more significant are the primary results in several House of Representatives races, in which candidates clearly identified with the radical left and the anti-Zionist Squad, among them Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania’s 3rd District and Adam Hamawy in New Jersey’s 12th District, won Democratic nominations in safely Democratic districts where their election victories are assured. Most significantly, in New York, with its large Jewish population, in the primaries held on June 23 2026, three candidates backed by the anti-Israel mayor Zohran Mamdani (whose campaign messages included the description of AIPAC as “monsters”) won in crucial battles. In the 10th District, Brad Lander, a Jewish candidate who defines himself as a left-wing Zionist but actively attacks Israel, decisively defeated Congressman Dan Goldman, who was backed by AIPAC. Claire Valdez won in the 7th District, and, in the most extreme case, Darializa Avila Chevalier, a radical pro-Palestinian activist who attended a pro-Hamas demonstration as early as October 8, 2023, more narrowly won the 13th District against the incumbent congressman, Adriano Espaillat despite the support he had from the party establishment and leading figures in the Hispanic community.
Meanwhile. a new organization has also emerged to counter AIPAC and the political action committees it has created in recent years, particularly the United Democracy Project. Calling itself American Priorities, a “subtle” reference to the claim that AIPAC serves a “foreign” interest, the group contributes to anti-Israel candidates. It boasts that it invested a significant sum in Hamawy’s campaign, which he won despite his past links to Islamist terrorist elements. This boast should not be taken at face value: AIPAC did not spend on candidates running against him, so there is no basis for the claim that American Priorities “defeated the Zionist lobby.” However, the results in New York clearly qualify as a bitter defeat for AIPAC (which nevertheless points to the success in many other races across to United States).
Countervailing Forces
Indeed, even after the results in New York, the shift toward radical positions on Israel is not—at least perhaps not yet—comprehensive, even among Democrats. In some key open races, the nominees come from the party’s moderate mainstream. They include Josh Turek, the Senate candidate in the competitive Iowa race, and Rebecca Bennett, a former fighter pilot, who is the candidate in New Jersey’s 7th District., Moreover, the progressive camp is not monolithic: Congressman Ritchie Torres is a progressive, but remains a strong supporter of Israel, who enjoys overwhelming backing in New York’s 15th District, currently estimated at 98 percent of voters.
On the Republican side of the aisle, Senator Lindsey Graham, a strong friend of Israel, easily defeated a South Carolina challenger from the isolationist MAGA camp who attacked him, among other things, for supporting foreign aid. Marjorie Taylor Greene, the most abrasive antisemitic voice in the House, resigned her seat in Georgia’s 14th congressional district. In Kentucky’s 4th District, Ed Gallrein, backed by both AIPAC and Trump, defeated incumbent Congressman Thomas Massie, a libertarian Republican who had taken a hostile line toward Israel and the war with Iran. As a “parting gift,” Massie is now trying to revive claims that Israel deliberately attacked the U.S. intelligence ship USS Liberty in 1967. Overall, and partly because of the president’s position at least through early June 2026, anti-Israel figures in Trump’s camp have lost ground within the party.
Meanwhile, the large turnout at New York’s Israel solidarity parade, even though Mayor Mamdani stayed away, underscored the continued depth of support for Israel across much of the Jewish community and beyond it. Israel should work to translate that civic commitment into influence at the national political level.
What Can Israel Do?
Israel faces a worsening political environment in America, much as it does in Europe, where the trend has reverberated across the Atlantic. Some of the deeper drivers of this problem stem from the Democratic Party’s self-image as the defender of the weak, and Israel does not have a simple answer. Still, Israel would pay an even steeper price in its broader relationship with the United States if it were to embrace the idea that the Democrats are “lost” and lash out against the party leaders. Recent events have shown that Israel should not leave responsibility for its security in the administration’s hands alone. After all, it is Congress that controls the purse strings, aid legislation, and the preservation of Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME), mandated by law.
Stemming the negative drift requires action on several fronts:
- Israel’s senior political leadership, the National Security Council, the Foreign Ministry and its relevant divisions (including public diplomacy), and Israel’s missions abroad should treat this challenge as a first-order strategic priority. They should address it through an integrated effort, coordinated closely and continuously with leading figures in American Jewry, and while addressing the sensitivities of the Trump administration and its attitude to Israel following the MoU with Iran.
- Israel should use its intention to phase out the budgetary component of security assistance, Foreign Military Financing (FMF), as a political opportunity. The goal should be to replace it with legislation that more firmly anchors the American commitment to preserving Israel’s qualitative military edge (QME) against possible hostile force combinations. Israel can build cross-party and bipartisan support for this core issue by drawing on the strategic ties it has developed with the U.S. professional defense establishment, especially the Air Force and the intelligence community.
- Israel should deepen discreet dialogue with leading figures in the Democratic center and with progressives who are not hostile to Israel. This dialogue should identify and map the ways in which the special relationship serves the broader American interest, not only the president and his camp. It should also bring renewed attention to the human-rights abuses of the Iranian regime, Hamas’s treatment of Gaza’s population under its rule, and to the anti-democratic conduct of Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. Israel should be aware that such conversations are likely to include criticism of aspects of its own policy and that this is necessary for these Democratic actors to preserve their legitimacy in the intra-party fight against openly anti-Zionist voices.
- Israel should reduce significant and unnecessary points of friction wherever it can, including lawlessness in Judea and Samaria, which resonates widely and dangerously among Democrats and in Europe. It should also engage the U.S. public arena comprehensively, at every level and with the help of local allies, to dismantle the dangerous libel of “genocide” in Gaza. Israel’s current aid policy demonstrates that the opposite is true.
JISS Policy Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family.
