As staunch Israel critics notch wins across the US, these candidates could be next

JTA — A wave of left-wing candidates who are sharply critical of Israel — or outright opposed to its existence — have won their Democratic primary this year and are set to head to Congress. Who else of like mind could join them in the coming months?

Several candidates who fit the bill have benefited from the endorsement and vast volunteer infrastructure of the Democratic Socialists of America. Others’s candidacies are simply resonating for the growing number of Democratic voters who think the US government is too supportive of Israel. Meanwhile, some Jewish groups and other critics have been concerned that those politicians’ campaign rhetoric in this election cycle has at times veered into antisemitism.

Last week’s New York City results showed the power of Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s endorsement and alarmed some Jewish leaders who watched as two pro-Israel incumbents lost their seats to critics of Israel. Some onlookers questioned whether those victories could be replicated in other parts of the country. Melat Kiros’ decisive win in Tuesday’s Colorado Democratic congressional primary for another deep blue district representing Denver answered that question with a resounding yes.

With just over two months left in the primaries, here are the upcoming races featuring left-wing insurgents whose results may hinge, at least in part, on sentiment toward Israel, Zionism and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee lobbying group, known as AIPAC.

Arizona’s 4th Congressional District (primary on July 21)

Democratic Rep. Greg Stanton is facing a primary challenge from activist Kai Newkirk in Arizona’s 4th District, which covers parts of Phoenix and Maricopa County.

Stanton, who took office in 2018, is pro-Israel and has picked up the endorsement of AIPAC — support that Newkirk, whose activism has largely focused on campaign-finance reform, has blasted.

Newkirk’s platform includes imposing a complete arms embargo on Israel and ending all military subsidies to the Jewish state, which he accuses of committing genocide. He identifies as a democratic socialist (though he’s not endorsed by the DSA), and is backed by a number of progressive organizations, including Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ group Our Revolution and the anti-Israeli group Track AIPAC.

“Kai is Israel Free and has fought to get money out of politics his whole life,” wrote Cenk Uygur, the host of the Young Turks, who has spread conspiracy theories about Israel.

Newkirk spoke out against last year’s killing of two Israeli Embassy staffers outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washington, D.C.

“I stand always with my beloved Jewish siblings against the scourge of antisemitism just as I will never stop in the nonviolent struggle to end the genocide in Gaza, release all hostages, and open the way to just, lasting peace,” he wrote at the time.

Missouri’s 1st Congressional District (August 4)

Former Missouri Rep. Cori Bush is running for Congress in St. Louis again, two years after AIPAC’s super PAC spent millions to oust the far-left former “Squad” member from the House. Bush, who was first elected to Congress in 2020, will now take on incumbent Rep. Wesley Bell for the second time in a row the Democratic primary.

Bush, who supports the movement to boycott Israel, has alarmed a number of Jewish leaders in St. Louis over her positions on Israel.

She has expressed reluctance about calling Hamas a terrorist group, saying in a 2024 interview that racial justice protesters in Ferguson were also called terrorists. Bush was one of two members of Congress to vote against a measure to deny entry into the United States to Hamas terrorists who perpetrated the Oct. 7 massacre.

Her opponent, Bell, a supporter of the US-Israel relationship, has the backing of a number of Jewish and pro-Israel groups, including AIPAC, the Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and the Jewish Democratic Council of America, as well as the Congressional Black Caucus.

Bush, meanwhile, has been endorsed by Sanders, former New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman — who was ousted the same year as Bush in a race with heavy spending by AIPAC — St. Louis’ DSA chapter and the anti-Zionist group Jewish Voice for Peace.

Missouri’s 4th Congressional District (August 4)

Tenant organizer and radio host Hartzell Gray is running with the DSA’s backing in a Democratic primary in hopes of supplanting AIPAC-backed GOP congressman Mark Alford in the November general election in a solidly Republican district that includes some of Kansas City and its suburbs.

During a recent interview with the hardline anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker, Gray said that American elected officials, including Alford, are “catering to Israel, not to our folks here at home,” and broke down his views on the issue that he called “very much at the core of who I am.”

“I’m very honest. Listen, Israel’s apartheid ethnostate has been committing genocide to Palestinian people since before the Nakba,” Gray said, using an Arabic term referring to Palestinians’ mass displacement surrounding Israel’s War of Independence in 1948. “They’re committing ethnic cleansing in Lebanon as we speak. We should be ending all ties — all diplomatic ties — with Israel.”

Gray had raised close to $170,000 as of March 31, according to FEC filings, by far the most of the seven Democrats in the running (none of whom are elected officials).

Michigan’s US Senate race (August 4)

The race for an open US Senate seat between former county health executive Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, Rep. Haley Stevens and the trailing State Sen. Mallory McMorrow has been one of the country’s most closely watched primaries, with Israel and AIPAC at its center.

A physician and former public health official, El-Sayed, who led Stevens by 5 percentage points in the latest poll, has made Medicare for all a core plank of his campaign.

He is also a staunchly pro-Palestinian candidate who’s campaigned alongside Piker. A number of major left-wing figures are backing El-Sayed, including Sanders and a handful of Congress’ most outspoken pro-Palestinian members, such as Michigan Rep. Rashida Tlaib and California Rep. Ro Khanna. New York Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez added her endorsement on Thursday.

AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has spent more than $2 million on ads boosting Stevens, who describes herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat.”

In a recent interview with Semafor, El-Sayed called Stevens “a suit with a large AIPAC bank account,” adding that he hopes AIPAC finds “some way to teach her how to string together two coherent sentences.”

Following the attack on Temple Israel in West Bloomfield, Michigan, earlier this year, El-Sayed drew criticism from some Jewish leaders — including the synagogue’s rabbi — for releasing lengthy remarks that linked the attack with Israel’s war in Lebanon, after initially condemning antisemitism in a statement.

Michigan’s 13th Congressional District (August 4)

State Rep. Donavan McKinney could be the next to join the wave of DSA-backed insurgents heading to Congress. He has the backing of major democratic socialists Sanders and Tlaib, as well as Metro Detroit DSA.

Unlike many DSA congressional candidates, McKinney has not made Israel or Gaza a primary focus of his campaign. On his campaign website, AIPAC is not mentioned by name in the section on “getting big money out of politics,” and Israel is not cited in the foreign policy section.

PAL PAC, an anti-AIPAC pro-Palestinian organization, endorsed McKinney. He thanked the group and said that his policies “reflect the growing majority of Americans who want to end US tax funding of weapons to Israel to destroy Palestinian communities, and instead invest resources back into American working families.”

Rep. Shri Thanedar, the incumbent looking to stave off McKinney, is backed by pro-Israel groups AIPAC and DMFl, and has supported military aid to Israel since joining Congress in 2023.

AIPAC mobilized against Thanedar when he ran in 2022 because of legislation he once co-sponsored in the Michigan House that described Israel as an “apartheid state” and urged Congress to end US aid to Israel. Thanedar later walked back his legislation, telling Jewish Insider that it had been an “emotional reaction” to the 2021 conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza and that he would support Israel in Congress.

Michigan’s 7th Congressional District (August 4)

A Democratic primary between three major candidates is unfolding in a swing district in Michigan, with its winner hoping to unseat Republican Rep. Tom Barrett in November.

William Lawrence, 35, is occupying the race’s left lane, with endorsements from Sanders, Khanna and Tlaib. In 2015, he co-founded the Sunrise Movement, a climate advocacy organization that has recently become increasingly vocal in advocating for Palestinians. He left the group in 2020.

Lawrence is facing off against retired Navy SEAL Matt Maasdam and former US Ambassador to Ukraine Bridget Brink, who’s said she resigned because Trump “kept siding” with Russian President Vladimir Putin over Ukraine.

At a candidates’ forum in June, Lawrence was the only participant to refer to Israel’s conduct in Gaza as genocide. Lawrence opposes weapons sales and American military aid to Israel. Though not endorsed by the DSA, Lawrence is a member of the left-wing group.

Wisconsin’s gubernatorial race (Aug. 11)

In the crowded Democratic primary for Wisconsin’s open gubernatorial seat — seen as winnable by either party in November — state Rep. Francesca Hong has established herself as the left-wing candidate, with backing from two DSA chapters in the state.

She introduced statewide legislation earlier this year that would repeal a 2018 law banning state contracts with businesses that boycott Israel. In March, Hong criticized outgoing Gov. Tom Evers after he signed into law the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s definition of antisemitism, which has been widely adopted but criticized by progressive groups for characterizing some criticism of Israel as antisemitism. Hong wrote that adopting it “will compromise free speech across the state and academic freedom at our universities.”

She recently appeared on both Piker’s show and on the stream hosted by Michael Beyer, an influencer known as “Mike from PA” who came under fire after saying that Jewish identity is “a constructed ethnicity, this demonic ethnicity, wholly invented.”

“If Wisconsin is going to be a state that actually values human rights, then we have to ensure that we’re supporting, we’re fighting for the pro-Palestine movement,” Hong said on Beyer’s show.

The race’s most recent polling, conducted in March, had Hong leading with 14% of votes ahead of former Lt. Gov. Mandela Barnes, at 11%. Sixty-five percent of voters were undecided.

Florida’s 25th Congressional District (August 18)

Oliver Larkin, a 34-year-old democratic socialist, has made an effort to compare himself to Zohran Mamdani.

Larkin is up against the staunchly pro-Israel, AIPAC-backed Rep. Jared Moskowitz in the district that includes Fort Lauderdale and Boca Raton. Larkin is being backed by the DSA and advocates for the suspension of US military aid to Israel, which he accuses of committing genocide. His platform also includes the right of return for Palestinian refugees, which backers of Israel argue will spell its end as a Jewish state.

Now, some of the energy generated by the Mamdani-backed candidates’ success in New York appears to be lifting Larkin’s candidacy: His campaign reportedly raised $115,000 in the week after the New York primaries.

November’s general election for the recently redistricted seat is seen as a toss-up. Should Larkin win the primary, his candidacy could serve as a test of how left-wing candidates fare in swing seats as opposed to moderate Democrats.

A recent poll showed Moskowitz with a 32-point lead; 72% of voters were unfamiliar or had no opinion of Larkin.

Massachusetts’s 4th Congressional District (September 1)

Rep. Jake Auchincloss, another staunchly pro-Israel Democrat, is facing a primary challenge from AI and policy researcher Jason Poulos.

Poulos’ platform calls to end US support for Israel by signing onto legislation like the Block the Bombs Act, which restricts certain weapons sales to Israel, and Tlaib’s bill stating that Israel is committing genocide. He also calls for AIPAC and DMFI to register as foreign lobbying groups.

Poulos told the Newton Beacon that Israel was an animating force in his entrance into politics.

“What really was radicalizing for me was watching the United States send tens of billions of dollars in military arms to Israel and watch them participate actively in the genocide of the Palestinian people,” Poulos said. He also said that he sided with the campus pro-Palestinian encampments in 2024 and their aim of lobbying the schools to divest from Israel.

Poulos has slammed Auchincloss for his endorsement from AIPAC. At a recent town hall, Auchincloss said it “concerns” him that there are numerous lobbying groups influencing politics, but only “one group of people get pummeled above all others.”

The next day, Poulos called Auchincloss “comically out-of-touch.”

“The reason why AIPAC is singled out is because it has already poured nearly $50m into congressional races nationwide, is bankrolled by MAGA mega-donors, and is in lockstep with the foreign policy interests of a foreign gov’t,” he wrote.