Day: January 8, 2026

NEW YORK — Just as Democrats are finding their footing by focusing on affordability, their differences on Israel are threatening to tear them apart.

Spurred by polling that shows support for the Jewish state slipping among voters nationally, congressional challengers are lining up across the country to take on stalwart Israel supporters in an attempt to energize left-leaning voters. But the deluge of Democratic primaries being waged in some part over this issue also threatens to exhaust resources, muddy the party’s messaging and bloody candidates ahead of the general election.

Pro-Israel Democrats believe supporters should mobilize with urgency to confront this crop of challengers.

“The main, centrist Democratic Party as a whole is doing a terrible job managing this whole process,” said Mark Botnick, a former advisor to ex-New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who contributed more than $10 million to efforts opposing Zohran Mamdani’s successful mayoral campaign. “That’s not to say the Israeli government has made it easy for them. It’s fine for someone to be against their policies, but it’s very different to be against the existence of the Jewish state, which in my eyes is antisemitism. The party has done an abysmal job of getting up and saying that.”

Next year’s midterms are pivotal: Democrats locked out of power in Washington need only net three House seats and four in the Senate — a tougher task — in order to seize control over either chamber.

Pro-Israel incumbents are facing challenges in New Jersey and New York, while primary battles in Michigan and Illinois are also being prepped by pro-Palestinian candidates. The coming contests have put Democrats on edge. As they try to win back power in the closely divided House, they are desperate to avoid messy primary races.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is mobilizing too — months before the first vote is cast — to identify potential incumbents who need shoring up as the primary fields take shape.

“Our 6 million grassroots members understand the stakes in the upcoming midterms, and that is why they are deeply motivated and engaged to help elect pro-Israel candidates and defeat detractors,” said AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann.

The Democratic Majority For Israel’s political action committee got an early jump on the cycle as well — so far endorsing 26 Democratic House incumbents across the country, an initial slate that includes lawmakers in Illinois, California, Pennsylvania and Ohio. The group’s board chair, Brian Romick, called it a “critical moment for the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

Primary bids fueled by opposition to Israel are complicating Democrats’ path to victory next year, despite signs of increasingly favorable political terrain following wins in Georgia, Virginia and New Jersey. The efforts underscore the yawning chasm facing Democrats over Israel more than two years since the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas and a devastating war in Gaza that has killed thousands of Palestinians. Jewish Democrats are alarmed by what they consider open antisemitism among far-left candidates encouraged by Mamdani’s success in the New York City mayoral race.

AIPAC-backed Rep. Rob Menendez in New Jersey appears likely to draw a challenge from Mussab Ali, a former local school board president with a strong social media following. Ali, like Mamdani, began criticizing Israel within weeks of the Oct. 7 attacks — early compared to most people with hopes of running for office.

Michigan’s open Democratic Senate primary offers another microcosm of the party’s evolving dynamics on the issue. The three-way brawl pits a sitting representative backed by the pro-Israel lobby against a former booster of the “uncommitted” movement to pressure a Gaza ceasefire and a progressive state lawmaker who’s shifted away from Israel.

The Middle East crisis is also reshaping the contours of at least two House Democratic primaries in Illinois — home to large Jewish, Middle Eastern and Muslim communities. Statewide the tensions are apparent as well in the U.S. Senate contest to replace retiring Democrat Dick Durbin.

And in New York City, home to the nation’s largest Jewish population, left-leaning challengers backed by the Democratic Socialists of America are eager to unseat Israel-supporting incumbent Reps. Dan Goldman, Grace Meng, Ritchie Torres and Adriano Espaillat.

That includes a Mamdani-endorsed challenge to Goldman by former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander — a primary that promises to be a marquee intraparty fight over the issue.

If successful, candidates willing to criticize Israel stand to remake a Democratic Party that has historically backed the Jewish state since its 1948 founding — a path some party officials acknowledge already may be too difficult to alter after the war isolated the country. The challenges by Israel critics, too, highlight growing Muslim populations and commensurate political strength in pockets around the country.

Foreign affairs has divided Democrats before. Opposition to the war in Iraq helped Barack Obama stand out as a state senator in Illinois, while higher-profile pro-war Democrats — like Hillary Clinton — saw their electoral fortunes sink when support for the war became a disqualifying issue among Democrats.

Israel — and increasing hostility from the left toward it — has conjured deep-seated emotions among Democrats watching the situation unfold with disbelief. Taken together, there’s a pervasive worry among Jewish political leaders that shifting political winds in the United States will have long-term consequences for Israel — and Jews — in the decades to come.

“The whole democratic socialist movement has become very anti-Israel, which I don’t understand at all,” said David Weprin, a Queens state lawmaker. “I grew up with Israel being a very progressive country, a democratic country, one that tolerates everyone. It’s definitely something that I find disturbing.”

Democrats’ divisions over Gaza are perhaps nowhere more pronounced than in Michigan, where disparate views of Israel continue to roil state politics and where Democrats are grappling with how to re-engage Arab American voters who shifted toward Trump last year.

In Michigan’s marquee Democratic Senate primary, DMFI PAC endorsed Rep. Haley Stevens, who’s viewed as the establishment pick and who represents a substantial Jewish population. Stevens described herself as a “proud pro-Israel Democrat” in accepting DMFI’s support. She also said she’d fight in the Senate to “support Israel’s security [and] ensure the ceasefire holds in Gaza.” AIPAC’s PAC, which has funneled millions toward Stevens in the past, has yet to issue an endorsement this cycle but features her prominently on its website.

Her opponents have taken far more critical stances toward Israel.

Abdul El-Sayed, a past gubernatorial hopeful who backed the “uncommitted” movement during the 2024 presidential primary but later endorsed Vice President Kamala Harris, has described Gaza as a Rorschach test for Democrats’ values. He has repeatedly criticized Israel’s military actions and the U.S. dollars funding them — and has used those stances to draw contrasts with rivals.

El-Sayed was the first in the race to call the conflict in Gaza a genocide, a stance state Sen. Mallory McMorrow later adopted. McMorrow also joined El-Sayed in rejecting support from AIPAC. And both said they would have voted in favor of resolutions from Sen. Bernie Sanders blocking weapons sales to Israel — legislation Stevens said she would have voted against.

McMorrow, whose husband is Jewish and whose daughter was the target of death threats after the Oct. 7 attacks, has shifted on Israel in a way that reflects the broader transformation occurring within the Democratic Party. She initially declined to call the war a genocide, but changed her stance in October after a September United Nations report claiming Israel had committed one.

El-Sayed has indirectly criticized McMorrow for being a late adopter of his positions as the two progressives compete for the same slice of voters, including younger voters for whom Gaza remains an animating issue.

The primary will also provide an early test of whether Michigan Democrats have been able to reengage Muslim voters, like those in Dearborn who have historically backed Democrats but who split their tickets last year between Trump and Democratic Sen. Elissa Slotkin.

“The politics around Israel-Palestine have changed dramatically over the last few years,” said a Democratic strategist who’s worked on Michigan races and was granted anonymity to speak candidly about the Senate primary’s dynamics. “For 2026 and beyond, it’s less about candidates reacting and more about what they believe on the issue as a matter of core values. Just claiming to support a two-state solution isn’t going to cut it anymore.”

Tensions over Israel are also simmering in a pair of Illinois House races and the U.S. Senate contest.

The House seats are currently held by Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who is retiring, and Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, who is running for the U.S. Senate seat now held by Durbin.

State Sen. Laura Fine, one of the top candidates vying for Schakowsky’s seat, has been the beneficiary of a supportive AIPAC email — even though the organization has yet to endorse or donate to her campaign directly. Other high-profile candidates among the 17 in the Democratic primary include the left-leaning suburban Mayor Daniel Biss and social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh. Biss is Jewish, and Abughazaleh is Palestinian-American.

The district spans Chicago and Evanston — home to Northwestern University — and includes suburban communities with significant Jewish, Muslim and Arab populations.

In the district now held by Krishnamoorthi, candidates Junaid Ahmed and Yasmeen Bankole have both made Gaza a campaign priority and are running against former Rep. Melissa Bean, who hasn’t been endorsed by AIPAC but is viewed as a more moderate candidate.

In New Jersey, Menendez is attempting to strike a balance in a district that has significant Arab and Jewish voters. While he supports Israel, he has also called for a two-state solution and has chastised colleagues for Islamophobia, including “vile rhetoric” directed at Mamdani.

“My record of delivering for all of our residents and standing up to the Trump Administration speaks for itself. The same is true for my approach to the Middle East, from advocating for the release of the hostages, to surging humanitarian aid to Gaza, to working towards a lasting and durable peace for the region,” he said in a text message. “I look forward to having that conversation and will forcefully push back on any attempt to misrepresent my record.”

As support for Israel has weakened, Menendez’s likely challenger Ali believes pro-Israel politics can be disqualifying for incumbent Democrats.

“Eventually, politicians who think that they can hide behind talking points will be outed,” Ali said. “You’re seeing that right now with a bunch of people challenging AIPAC’s influence.”

Mamdani’s meteoric rise has fueled far-left challenges to incumbent Democrats across the Big Apple. Several Democrats have expressed interest in running against pro-Israel Democrat Dan Goldman. In the Bronx, former Democratic Committee Vice Chair Michael Blake has predicated his campaign on running against Torres’ stridently pro-Israel views.

The dynamic facing the party is a reversal from the 2024 cycle, when moderate Democrats backed by millions of dollars in support from AIPAC ran to oust anti-Israel lawmakers. The Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent more than $11 million on races across the country during the 2024 election as well, with 80 percent of its endorsed candidates winning their races.

In New York City’s suburbs, Rep. George Latimer successfully defeated incumbent Democrat Jamaal Bowman after a bitterly fought race featuring plenty of rhetoric about Israel.

Latimer, who was among the incumbents recently endorsed by DMFI, said in an interview he expects another left-flank primary challenge next year, driven in part by opposition to Israel. Prominent Jewish leaders in New York, though, are skeptical the posture makes much sense when most voters are focused on pocketbook concerns — an issue effectively leveraged by Mamdani.

“Everybody in America wants to be Zohran Mamdani, but there’s only one Zohran Mamdani,” said David Greenfield, a former city councilmember and head of The Met Council, a Jewish charity. “The reason he won is not because of Israel, he won because of affordability.”

​Politics

Republicans want a big Supreme Court redistricting win. They’re losing hope it will help them in the 2026 midterms.

The Supreme Court’s decision in Louisiana v. Callais could weaken the Voting Rights Act and open the door to redrawing congressional maps, particularly across the South. Court watchers expect at least a partial win for conservatives that could let the GOP draw more seats for themselves by erasing Black- and Hispanic-majority districts.

But while that decision could theoretically come as soon as when the court returns on Friday, many experts think the case is more likely to be resolved with the flurry of decisions the court typically releases in late June.

The window of opportunity for new maps going into place before this November’s elections is rapidly closing, as states would need ample time to change deadlines, shift election calendars, vet signatures and print and distribute ballots. And the longer it takes for the Supreme Court to issue a ruling, the harder it will be for state-level Republicans to throw their maps out and draw new ones before this fall’s elections.

“It can get very complicated and very sticky, and that is not fast work,” said Tammy Patrick, the chief programs officer for The Election Center, a nonpartisan consulting firm that works with state and local election officials. “That is time-consuming, very methodical and detail-oriented work that needs to have sufficient time.”

Some state-level Republicans have already given up hope. In Louisiana, the plaintiff in the Supreme Court case, some state officials believe it’s already too late and that the state will have to use its current map in its 2026 elections regardless of the Court’s decision, as the candidate qualifying period opens next month. Louisiana Republicans pushed back its 2026 primary election dates from April to May during a special session late last year, in hopes the Court would rule by the end of 2025 and give them time to install a new map. But the shift still wouldn’t be late enough for a late-term SCOTUS ruling.

Some national Republicans, however, say there’s plenty of time to take on a redraw before November, arguing the Legislature can move the deadlines in order to redraw before elections are underway.

At the center of the Supreme Court case is Section 2 of the VRA, a provision that broadly outlaws discrimination in elections on the basis of race and has led to the creation of majority-minority districts, where Black, Latino or Asian voters make up a majority of the population.

Republicans have long argued such districts violate the Constitution and benefit Democrats. Democrats warn that the elimination of seats drawn to satisfy Section 2 could decimate minority representation in Congress and allow lawmakers to redraw lines in such a way to eliminate as many as 19 Democrat-held, majority-minority districts, many in the South.

Democrats in Blue states could also take advantage of a Section 2 change and redraw, but the party’s options are more limited, both because of geographic limitations and pressure from civil rights and minority groups.

But even as many legal experts expect the court to rule in a way that weakens the VRA, the case’s prominence has led many watchers to predict an end of term ruling in June. At that point, many states across the country will have already held primary contests and there will be no room to undertake redistricting.

“If it’s in any way a big deal, we’re not going to get that decision before June,” said Justin Levitt, a professor of law at Loyola Law School who worked in the Biden White House as an adviser on democracy and voting rights. “It’s really hard for me to see a decision that does anything significant that wouldn’t occasion a major dissent, and it’s really hard for me to see that dissent not taking a fairly long time in the back-and-forth.”

Many southern states where Republicans stand the most to gain have early primaries — seven of the 11 states that belonged to the Confederacy have primaries scheduled before or on May 19 — making the timing even tougher for the GOP.

That doesn’t mean that lawmakers are done gerrymandering before the 2026 election.

At least three southern states — Florida, Kentucky and Virginia — are eyeing redistricting ahead of the 2026 midterms, and lawmakers seem emboldened to attempt it with or without a Supreme Court ruling. In Florida, state House Republicans hope to tackle the issue during the legislative session that started this month, while Gov. Ron DeSantis called a special session in late April, in an effort to wait as “long as feasible” for a Supreme Court decision. And in Kentucky, some Republican lawmakers are weighing a redraw, even though the map would likely be vetoed by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear.

In Virginia, the Democratic-controlled legislature is considering a move independent of a Supreme Court decision that will put redistricting before voters akin to the move in California last year.

But other southern states reliant on a weakened VRA to redraw, like South Carolina and Alabama, may be out of luck. Republicans in the Palmetto State — including Rep. Ralph Norman, who is running for governor — are pushing the legislature to draw out the state’s lone Democrat, Rep. Jim Clyburn. But the state’s candidate filing deadline looms in late March.

Pushing back the filing deadline further in hopes for a Supreme Court decision would scramble the primary calendar and put elections officials in a bind.

“Anytime a state decides to redistrict, it creates a domino effect of administrative issues that need to be addressed,” said David Becker, the executive director and founder of the nonpartisan Center for Election Innovation & Research. “Election officials and voters are able to manage that when it’s once every 10 years. When it becomes once every two years, it might get very, very difficult for that to be managed.”

Utah got a taste of the challenge of shuffling deadlines late last year after a district judge installed a new congressional map in November. The state’s top election official, Republican Lt. Gov. Deidre Henderson, immediately announced her office would move forward with the new map, even as Republican lawmakers fumed and vowed to fight it. “There will likely be an emergency appeal,” she noted on X, “but the process of finalizing new boundary details will take weeks of meticulous work on the part of state and county officials.”

The state’s Republican-controlled legislature went forward with an appeal — which is unrelated to the VRA — after it pushed back the candidate filing deadline by two months for congressional hopefuls during a special session last month, offering itself a window for potential judicial action. Should the legislature — which meets for its scheduled session this month — again adjust the electoral calendar, it would send elections officials statewide into a scramble.

“The questions we would be asking are, you know, how much time do we have to program our ballot? What are the new dates? What would we communicate with voters?” said Nikila Venugopal, the Salt Lake County chief deputy clerk. “We haven’t heard any plans to do so at this point, and we’re moving forward with the assumption that the elections will be held as planned.”

​Politics

Perhaps no one outside of Venezuela or Cuba should care more about the U.S. capture of nominal President Nicolás Maduro than the Islamic Republic of Iran’s supreme leader, Ali Khamenei.

Khamenei and his regime are in trouble, and it’s not clear how they would survive should the Trump administration decide to support the millions who want a new government system without Khamenei and his ilk.

Iran has no state allies that would be willing to intervene militarily on its behalf. Further, its once-powerful network of partner and proxy militias – Lebanese Hezbollah, the Houthi rebels in Yemen, and other members of the Axis of Resistance – has been rendered incapable or reluctant to get involved. And Iran’s economy is in shambles in the midst of an ongoing water crisis with no relief in sight.

Further, the Iranian people have again taken to the streets to air their grievances against harsh economic conditions as well as government corruption, mismanagement and hypocrisy, echoing similar conditions to Venezuela in recent years.

Lastly, President Donald Trump has returned his attention to Iran. On Jan. 2, Trump warned Khamenei that if his forces violently suppress protesters, Iran would be “hit very hard” by the U.S.

Trump’s warning and show of solidarity will likely embolden protesters, which will almost certainly cause Iran’s internal security to crack down harder, as has happened in the past. Such U.S. intervention could lead to the overthrowing of the ayatollah, intended or not. Furthermore, Maduro’s fate demonstrates that the Trump administration is willing to use military force for that purpose if deemed necessary.

As an analyst of Middle East affairs focusing on Iran, I believe that these conditions place Khamenei’s regime under greater threat today than perhaps any other time in its 46-year history.

Growing threats, internal and external

If Khamenei hopes to survive politically or mortally, I believe he has three options.

First, he could capitulate to U.S. demands to halt Iran’s nuclear enrichment program. Second, Iran could sprint toward a nuclear bomb. Lastly, he could flee.

In hopes of restoring deterrence, Khamenei could also continue rebuilding his country’s military capabilities, which were significantly degraded during the June 2025 12-day war in which Israel and the U.S. aimed to destroy Iran’s nuclear capability.

Israel is eager to stifle Iran’s reconstitution plans, protests are spreading and growing more intense, and Trump – through hostile rhetoric and offensive military action – has put Khamenei on notice.

Khameini’s problems aren’t his alone. The revolutionary theocratic system of government that he leads is in danger of falling. And his military and internal security apparatus may not have the time or ability to address its growing and interrelated internal and external threats simultaneously.

There are two fundamental factors analysts like me consider when assessing enemy threats: offensive capability to inflict damage and hostile intentions to use these capabilities to harm enemies.

Determining offensive capability involves evaluating the quality of a country or organization’s complete arsenal – air, ground, maritime, cyber and space capabilities – and how trained, disciplined, integrated and lethal their forces might be. Determining intentions involves evaluating if, when and under what conditions offensive capabilities will be used to achieve their goals.

If states hope to survive when they come under such pressure, their defense strategy should account for differences between their own military capability and the enemy’s, especially if enemies intend to attack. Or states need to convince enemies to be less hostile, if possible.

Maduro’s mistake was his inability to defend against a far superior U.S. military capability while believing that U.S. leaders would not remove him from office. Maduro gambled and lost.

Bad choices

Iran’s supreme leader faces a similar conundrum: First, there is no foreseeable path that allows Tehran to produce or acquire the military capabilities necessary to deter Israel or defeat the United States, unless Iran develops a nuclear weapon.

And decades of mutual hostility, the memory of Iran’s once-clandestine nuclear weaponization program and recent Iranian lawmaker calls to develop nuclear bombs minimizes the prospect that U.S. leaders view Khamenei’s intentions as anything but hostile.

But as the clear weaker party, it is in Tehran’s interest to change Trump’s mind about Tehran’s hostile intent. The way to do that would be by abandoning nuclear enrichment.

In terms of threat analysis, the regime’s oft-repeated chants of “Death to America” and “Death to Israel” perhaps have sent an easily misinterpreted message: that Iran’s hostile leaders intend to destroy the U.S. and Israel. But they simply lack the capability, for now.

President Theodore Roosevelt famously said “speak softly and carry a big stick; you will go far.” Today, he might say that Khamenei is unwise for speaking with such vitriol considering the size of Iran’s stick. The United States and Israel possess military capabilities far superior to Iran’s – as demonstrated by the 12-day war – but they did not then share the same intent. Though both Israel and the U.S. operations shared the objective of neutralizing Iran’s nuclear capability, Israel’s objectives were more broad and included targeting senior Iranian leaders and destabilizing the regime.

To Khamenei’s momentary personal and institutional fortune, Trump immediately called for a ceasefire following U.S. B-2 strikes on Iranian nuclear facilities, delineating the United States’ narrower objectives that at the time did not include regime change in Iran.

But that was before U.S. forces removed Maduro from Caracas and before the outbreak of protests in Iran, both of which coincide with Israel’s signaling preparations for Round 2 against Iran.

Iran without Khamenei?

During Trump’s Dec. 29 press conference at Mar-a-Lago with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, he warned that the U.S. could “knock the hell” out of Iran if the country reconstitutes its nuclear facilities.

This is separate from the ominuous warning that the U.S. could intervene on behalf of Iranian protesters; it would almost certainly differ in scale.

Nevertheless, a potential U.S. intervention could embolden protesters and further undermine and destabilize the Islamic Republic regime. Khamenei has predictably scoffed at and dismissed Trump’s warning.

I believe this is a serious mistake.

Secretary of State Marco Rubio warned on Jan. 3, 2025, that Khameini should not “play games” as Maduro did. Khamenei, Rubio said, should take Trump’s warnings seriously. I agree.

If Iran refrains from violent crackdowns on protesters, there is a chance that anti-government protestors overthrow the government. But the supreme leader’s chances of surviving a popular uprising are probably greater than surviving an unbridled U.S. or Israeli military intent on ushering in a new – post-Islamic Republic – Iran.

Otherwise, Khamenei has to address superior U.S. and Israeli military capability, quickly. But Iran is broke, and even if sanctions were not continuously strangling Iran economically, the country could probably never purchase its way to military parity with the U.S. or Israel.

Alternatively, Iran could determine that it must move quickly to develop a nuclear weapon to mitigate U.S. and Israeli military capabilities and deter future aggression. However, it is extremely unlikely Iran could do this without U.S. and Israeli intelligence discovering the project, which would immediately trigger an overwhelming military campaign that would likely expedite regime change in Iran.

And like Maduro, the supreme leader is utterly alone. None of Maduro’s closest partners – China, Russia, Cuba and even Iran – were willing to fight in his defense, despite weeks of forewarning and U.S. military buildup near Venezuela.

Under these circumstances, it may be impossible for Khamenei to address overwhelming U.S. and Israeli military capabilities. He could, however, reduce the threat by doing what is necessary to ensure the United States’ objectives for Iran remain narrow and focused on the nuclear program, which may also keep Israel at bay.

However, Khamenei would have to demonstrate unprecedented restraint from cracking down violently on protesters and a willingness to give up nuclear enrichment. Due to historical animosity and distrust toward the U.S., both are unlikely, increasing, I believe, the probability of a forthcoming Iran without Khamenei.

Dr. Aaron Pilkington is a U.S. Air Force Senior Analyst of Middle East affairs and a Fellow at the University of Denver’s Center for Middle East Studies. The views expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official position of the Department of War, the Department of the Air Force, or any other organizational affiliation.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation