![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.crescentcityjewishnews.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/11\/11.04-Schumer.avif\")
<\/a><\/p>\nSenate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) speaks during a press conference with the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee on Nov. 03, 2026, in Washington, DC. (Tom Brenner\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Winning both chambers would position Democrats to cripple President Donald Trump\u2019s agenda and to reshape the U.S.-Israel relationship, seeking to restrict arms sales and to pressure its government to make wartime concessions. A Democratic Congress could also try to restrain any Trump efforts to continue the war against Iran that he launched with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in February.<\/p>\n
An exit poll showed the Jewish vote favored Democrats, as it has historically, but anecdotally many Jewish voters reported holding their noses as they cast their ballots. A combination of disenchantment with Israel and an increase in rhetoric much of the Jewish community sees as antisemitic in corners of the Democratic Party has made the elections perhaps the bleakest in recent history for the Jewish community.<\/p>\n
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. Several Democrats who reject Israel\u2019s existence as a Jewish state will be joining Rashida Tlaib of Michigan, who herself won reelection Tuesday. <\/p>\n
Even more Democrats 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 on the 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
The victorious Israel critics include Melat Kiros, who rejects Israel\u2019s Jewish status and won in Denver. In New York, strident Israel critics Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier \u2013 a leader in the Columbia University pro-Palestinian protests \u2013 easily won their districts.<\/p>\n
Still, the vast majority of Democrats remain pro-Israel, with Micah Lasher, a conventional pro-Israel Jewish Democrat, elected in New York to replace his mentor, long-time Jewish Democratic Rep. Jerry Nadler. And Rep. Ritchie Torres, a staunchly pro-Israel New York Democrat, was reelected.<\/p>\n
But even many of the Democrats who describe themselves as supportive of Israel want significant qualifications on the relationship. Measures like favoring limits on the sale of offensive weapons, for example, are likely to become the norm. <\/p>\n
The best known representative of this outlook is Georgia Sen. Jon Ossoff, a Jewish Democrat, who handily won reelection Tuesday night. Others such Jewish Democrats 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
Ossoff is considered a leading contender for the Democratic presidential nomination in 2028. 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.<\/p>\n
Still, the outcome of the 2026 midterms isn\u2019t sitting well with many 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
Jewish organizations reaction to the Democratic success exposed divisions in the community over how to grapple with the party\u2019s drift away from Israel. Regional Anti-Defamation League offices in the Midwest and Pennsylvania posted bitter rebukes to progressives who are sharply critical of Israel \u2013 Biss in Illinois and Chris Rabb in Pennsylvania. <\/p>\n
\u201cAs Biss moves from campaigning to governing, we expect him to recognize when rhetoric about Israel or AIPAC crosses into antisemitic tropes,\u201d the ADL\u2019s Midwest office said. During the campaign, Biss wore the American Israel Public Committee\u2019s efforts to nip his candidacy as a badge of honor. <\/p>\n
AIPAC\u2019s liberal Jewish rival, J Street, expressed dismay at ADL\u2019s statements. \u201cDaniel Biss is the grandson of Holocaust survivors, the son of an Israeli, and someone with deep, lifelong ties to his Jewish family and to Israel.\u201d J Street said. \u201cTonight of all nights, for the ADL not to welcome his election and congratulate him but instead to lead with \u201cserious concerns\u201d about his approach to antisemitism is \u2013 to put it in Jewish communal terms \u2013 a Shanda,\u201d a word that means scandal in Yiddish.<\/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
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 as well as 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
In the outgoing Congress, Republicans hold 53 seats in the 100-seat Senate, while the Democratic bloc has 47 members, including two independents who caucus with the party. Democrats needed a net gain of four seats to seize control, and signs that they would be successful came early Tuesday when Annie Andrews, a pediatrician, defeated incumbent South Carolina Sen. Darline Graham in a solid red state. Hours later, James Talarico scored a similar stunning flip in Texas, defeating the state\u2019s scandal-plagued Republican attorney general, Ken Paxton. <\/p>\n
Talarico 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
Sherrod Brown, the Ohio Democratic senator ousted in 2024, was the comeback kid, pushing out incumbent Republican Jon Husted. Adam Hamilton, a pastor, bested incumbent GOP Sen. Roger Marshall in Kansas \u2013 flipping the seat for the first time in 94 years. Among the other most closely watched races \u2013 where both parties have a good shot at winning \u2013 are those in Alaska, Iowa, Maine and Michigan.<\/p>\n
At the center of Jewish concern among the Democratic wave 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
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 promted pro-Israel groups to campaign heavily against him. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has worked to defeat him and has backed his Republican opponent, Mike Rogers. There was good news for pro-Israel Democrats in the state: Jeremy Moss, a Jewish Democrat solidly in the pro-Israel camp, won a Detroit-area district.<\/p>\n
In Maine, Democratic candidate and strong Israel critic Troy Jackson, a former Maine Senate leader, took 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 the House, Democrats needed a net gain of three seats to secure a narrow majority of 218 seats in the 435-member body.<\/p>\n
A number of races featured candidates aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America who oppose any military funding for Israel, such as New York\u2019s 7th and 13th Districts, where Valdez and 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. 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. Moskowitz prevailed soon after.<\/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. Elaine Luria, a staunchly pro-Israel Jewish Democrat who lost her costal Virginia district in 2022, won election Tuesday.<\/p>\n