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<\/a><\/p>\nDemocratic supporters of Sen. Jon Ossoff (D-GA) hold signs and flags during a midterm election night watch party at The Hyatt Regency on November 3, 2026 in Atlanta, Georgia. (Photo by Megan Varner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
A combination of disenchantment with Israel and an increase in rhetoric much of the Jewish community sees as antisemitic has come to define what may be the bleakest elections in recent history for the Jewish community.<\/p>\n
Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Jewish Democrat, handily won reelection Tuesday night, a signal of how poorly Trump was faring in swing states he won in 2024. Ossoff is an avatar of where Jewish Democrats seem to be heading: He counts himself as pro-Israel, but favors restricting some weapons sales and is critical of the current government.<\/p>\n
Ossoff is considered a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. But two other potential Jewish Democratic competitors also handily won their races on Tuesday night, and the strong showings will help all three make their case for the highest office. Gov. J.B. Pritzker in Illinois and Josh Shapiro in Pennsylvania cruised to victory. Another Jewish candidate for governor, Colorado Attorney General Phil Weiser, also won his race, according to AP projections.<\/p>\n
Still, there have been many aspects of the 2026 midterms that haven\u2019t sat well with Jewish voters and political activists.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis campaign season has been deeply painful for the American Jewish community,\u201d Ted Deutch, the former Democratic congressman who is now the American Jewish Committee CEO, said in a post on X that summarized the anxiety many in the mainstream Jewish community are feeling.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have been told we don\u2019t belong in political spaces,\u201d he said. \u201cWhen we\u2019ve spoken out against candidates trafficking in antisemitism, we\u2019ve been brushed aside. We have been told that if we embrace any connection to the state of Israel or express our Zionism, we cannot be allies.\u201d<\/p>\n
The first exit polls published, by NBC News, showed a 67% to 32% split among Jewish voters favoring Democrats \u2013 a partisan split that\u2019s been typical for Jewish voters in recent political cycles, suggesting Democrats have not yet lost one of their historically most loyal constituencies.<\/p>\n
Much of the angst was concentrated in Michigan, where the anti-Israel posture of the state\u2019s Democratic Senate nominee, Abdul El-Sayed, has seeded turmoil in the Jewish community there as well as among Democrats nationwide.<\/p>\n
Democrats looked set to flip the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives and the Senate may also come under their control. If those changes take place, the cohort of Democrats who are stridently critical of Israel will expand from what has since 2018 been a handful to a substantial minority in the party. <\/p>\n
Democrats who reject Israel\u2019s existence as a Jewish state, moreover, could multiply from a single lawmaker in the House \u2013 Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who won reelection Tuesday \u2013 to as many as four in the House and one in the Senate, Michigan\u2019s El-Sayed. Even more may favor restrictions on weapons sales to Israel, including defensive weapons, among them the Iron Dome anti-missile system that has proven critical to protecting Israeli civilians. Also likely to increase are the number of Democrats who call Israel\u2019s war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip a genocide. Hamas launched the war with deadly raids and mass abductions inside Israel on Oct. 7, 2023.<\/p>\n
In New York, strident Israel critics Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier \u2013 a leader in the Columbia pro-Palestinian student protests \u2013 easily won their districts. But so did Micah Lasher, a conventional pro-Israel Jewish Democrat who is replacing his mentor, long-time Jewish Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler. And Rep. Ritchie Torres, a staunchly pro-Israel Democrat, was reelected.<\/p>\n
The vast majority of Democrats still remain supportive of Israel, but increasingly with significant qualifications \u2013 favoring limits on the sale of offensive weapons, for example. That’s likely to become the norm if the Democrats do as well as polls have predicted. The best known representative of this outlook is Ossoff. Others include Daniel Biss, who won a bid to replace retiring Jewish Democratic Rep. Jan Schakowsky in her Chicago-area district, and Brad Lander in New York, who bested incumbent Jewish Democratic Rep. Dan Goldman in the primary and who cruised to election on Tuesday.<\/p>\n
Republicans, for their part, remain overwhelmingly pro-Israel, but there are signs that conservative figures who are sharply critical of Israel are growing in influence. Significantly, Trump on Tuesday morning said that defense assistance for Israel would soon end because it has become an electoral burden on Republicans.<\/p>\n
In Florida, sitting Republican Sen. Ashley Moody defeated the Israel-critical Democratic state representative and democratic socialist Angie Nixon. Moody was formerly the state attorney general and was appointed to the Senate by Gov. Ron DeSantis in January 2025 after Marco Rubio vacated the seat to become secretary of state. <\/p>\n
Moody, who was endorsed by the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC and President Donald Trump, is a staunch supporter of Israel who has said she wants the U.S. to be \u201cthe most pro-Israel country in the world.\u201d She also said that she \u201cworked to make Florida the most pro-Israel state in the nation\u201d as attorney general.<\/p>\n
Jews have also been troubled by the emergence of Republicans who maintain associations with people widely considered to be unabashed antisemites, among them Mike Collins, who lost to Ossoff.<\/p>\n
Republicans now hold 53 seats in the 100-seat Senate, while the Democratic bloc has 47 members, including two independents who caucus with the party. Democrats need a net gain of four seats to seize control. Among the most closely watched races \u2013 where both parties have a good shot at winning \u2013 are those in Alaska, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Ohio, Texas, Georgia, North Carolina, New Hampshire and, in a sign of the woes that Republicans could face Tuesday night, Kansas. Democrats are defending seats in Georgia, Michigan and New Hampshire and seeking to flip Republican-held seats in the other seven states. Additionally, the Minnesota race could give progressive Israel critic Peggy Flanagan a seat. <\/p>\n
Michigan\u2019s Senate contest, in particular, has been among the most closely watched of these races and has strained Jewish relationships with the Democratic Party.<\/p>\n
At its center is El-Sayed, the former county health director and Democratic nominee whose anti-corporate, Medicare for All candidacy has become a new rallying cry for the national progressive movement. <\/p>\n
But his uncompromising stances against Israel \u2013 including his refusal to say at a recent debate whether it or Iran is a bigger threat to the United States \u2013 have also made him a cause for concern among pro-Israel groups. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has worked to defeat him and has backed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. <\/p>\n
In Maine, Democratic candidate and strong Israel critic Troy Jackson, a former Maine Senate leader, is taking on Republican incumbent Sen. Susan Collins, who has held the state\u2019s U.S. Senate seat for 29 years.<\/p>\n
Jackson opposes \u201cgiving a blank check\u201d to Israel, saying that he does not want \u201cany more offensive weapons going to murder people in Palestine.\u201d He has also accused Israel of committing genocide in Gaza. Collins, a GOP moderate, has been a staunch supporter of Israel throughout her Senate tenure.<\/p>\n
In Texas, Democratic state Rep. James Talarico, a progressive who is making the Senate contest in traditionally Republican Texas competitive, is facing off against former state Attorney General Ken Paxton, a Republican.<\/p>\n
Paxton, a hard-line Trump ally, strongly supports Israel, opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement and has spoken out against antisemitism. Impeached by the Texas House of Representatives in 2023, he was acquitted by the Texas Senate months later. <\/p>\n
Talarico, for his part, is a Presbyterian seminary student who recognizes Israel\u2019s right to defend itself and condemned the Oct. 7, 2023, Hamas attacks. But while Talarico supports U.S. defensive aid to Israel, he opposes sending Jerusalem offensive weapons.<\/p>\n
In the House, Democrats need a net gain of three seats to secure a narrow majority of 218 seats in the 435-member body.<\/p>\n
Among the competitive races is Wisconsin\u2019s 3rd District, where Democratic challenger Rebecca Cooke is attempting to win back for Democrats a historically Democratic seat that flipped in 2022 with Republican Rep. Derrick Van Orden\u2019s electoral victory. <\/p>\n
Cooke has said that she does not \u201cthink that we should send more military aid to the Netanyahu government invasion,\u201d according to Jewish Insider. She is backed by J Street, while Van Orden has the support of the rival AIPAC lobby group.<\/p>\n
Van Orden, who attended President Donald Trump\u2019s Stop the Steal rally in Washington on Jan. 6, 2021, is a vocal supporter of Israel and backs military funding for the country. He traveled there following Hamas\u2019 Oct. 7, 2023, attack.<\/p>\n
A number of races also feature DSA candidates who oppose any military funding for Israel, such as New York\u2019s 7th and 13th Districts, where the Democratic candidates Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier have both accused Israel of genocide in Gaza. California\u2019s 34th District, Colorado\u2019s 1st, Michigan\u2019s 13th and Pennsylvania\u2019s 3rd also feature DSA candidates. In Michigan\u2019s 7th District, the progressive Democratic candidate William Lawrence wants to end military aid to Israel. <\/p>\n
And there are also Republican candidates who have given some Jewish voters pause. In Texas\u2019 23rd District, Democrat Katy Padilla Stout is seeking to flip the seat in a race against Brandon Herrera, a Trump-backed hard-right influencer with a history of alleged antisemitic remarks.<\/p>\n
Herrera has previously said he would \u201cabsolutely vote against\u201d funding for \u201cforeign conflicts,\u201d including aid to Israel. He has shared jokes about the Nazis online, admitted to owning a copy of Mein Kampf and said that Jews \u201ckilled\u201d Jesus, drawing harsh opposition from Jewish organizations.<\/p>\n
Then there are the House races with strongly identified Jewish candidates, especially in Florida\u2019s 25th District, where voters can choose between two Jewish pro-Israel politicians, incumbent Democratic U.S. Rep. Jared Moskowitz and former Republican Boca Raton Mayor Scott Singer. <\/p>\n
Florida redistricted the state to favor Republicans, endangering, among others, Jewish Democrats Moskowitz and Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, one of the party\u2019s most prominent pro-Israel Democrats. Wasserman-Schultz as a result opted to run in a different, Democratic-leaning, district, winning the primary in August. The Associated Press called a win for her early on Tuesday evening.<\/p>\n
Rep. Lois Frankel, another Florida Jewish Democrat, easily retained her district in the state\u2019s southeast. Rep. Randy Fine, a firebrand Republican who has drawn fire for commentary seen as Islamaphobic, also won reelection.<\/p>\n
In Virginia, Rep. Eugene Vindman, a Jewish Democrat who played a key role in Trump\u2019s first impeachment in 2019, retained his seat in a swing seat in the exurbs of Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n