Category: Politics

Donald Trump said Thursday a Republican senator who is crucial to the party’s chances of keeping the Senate this year should “never be elected to office again.” Susan Collins has seen it before.

Trump issued the Truth Social broadside against the longtime Maine senator and four other Republicans on Thursday after they voted with Democrats to rein in his powers to carry out future military actions against Venezuela, a sharp rebuke of the White House’s unilateral outlook following the capture of Nicolás Maduro.

The president’s online salvo comes as the Maine senator navigates a tough reelection in a blue state that Trump lost by 7 points in 2024. Her bid will rely on a coalition that includes independents and Democrats, many of whom have backed her in the past because of her breaks from Trump and other GOP leaders. But she also needs to turn out Trump’s MAGA base in a year he won’t be on the ticket to juice turnout — a tougher challenge if they’re actively feuding.

Collins told reporters after Trump’s post that she guessed Trump “would prefer to have Gov. Mills or somebody else with whom he’s not had a great relationship” than her — alluding to a confrontation between Maine Gov. Janet Mills and Trump when the governor visited the White House last year. Mills, who is now running to challenge Collins, told Trump she would sue to fight his administration’s actions to restrict transgender youth from sports.

Trump’s attack on Collins was met with laughs from Democrats who said that they, too, would like to see Collins never elected again. She is their top target on a tough Senate map, and if they have any hopes of flipping the upper chamber they need to defeat the shrewd senator.

Mills painted the vote as one of election-year political expediency.

“Susan never does the right or hard thing the first time when it’s needed most — only when it serves her politically. She is always a day late and a dollar short,” Mills said in a statement to POLITICO. “To the President, I say ‘See you in the Senate!’ Wait until you see what I’ve got in store for your MAGA agenda.”

The campaign of Graham Platner, the other prominent Democrat challenging Collins, did not respond to requests for comment.

Trump’s anger at fellow Republicans has been enough to drive others from office. There is no indication so far the White House is serious about finding a primary challenger to Collins, and they are quickly running out of time if they were to try to do so. But any sustained animosity from Trump toward Collins could still spell trouble for her reelection.

A source close to the Trump administrations granted anonymity to speak candidly told POLITICO that the general thinking is Republicans will hold the Senate with or without Collins, but didn’t predict a sustained campaign against her: “Like a lot with the president, this is a moment in time, and what is said today does not necessarily hold for tomorrow.”

This is far from the first time Trump has gone after Collins. And criticism from the president ahead of her last reelection bid in 2020 was not enough to tank her.

“Trump has caused no end of problems for Sen. Collins,” said Mary Small, a Republican former state lawmaker in Maine and Collins ally. “I think she’d be in the 70th percentile right now of approval rating if we didn’t have Donald Trump as president. So she’s had to walk a very cautious line.”

Still, blowback from voters loyal to Trump in Maine might be offset by independents and Democrats who appreciate Collins setting her own path, Small said.

“Republicans have never been able to elect someone just on their own,” she said. “She has to have independents support her to get elected, and Democrats.”

Some who’ve been in similar spots say that’s not so easy to manage.

Mike Coffman, the Aurora, Colorado mayor and former five-term GOP congressman, empathized with Collins’ tricky electoral position. Coffman kept Trump at arm’s length during his 2018 reelection bid in hopes of siphoning Democrat support in his swing district, but it wasn’t enough: He lost that race to Democratic Rep. Jason Crow by 11 points in a state that voted for Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton two years prior.

“That’s very hard to navigate,” Coffman said of Collins’ relationship to the president. “Because when you distance yourself from Trump you might pick up some support in the middle but you’re going to lose the hardcore Trump supporters whose loyalty is to Trump and not to the Republican Party.”

In Trump’s first term, Collins broke with Senate Republicans to help sink the attempted Affordable Care Act repeal. Then, weeks before the 2020 election — the toughest reelect campaign of her career — Trump blasted her for not supporting his nomination of Amy Coney Barrett to the Supreme Court. (Collins argued the winner of the 2020 presidential election should get to appoint a new justice.)

Collins still sailed to victory a few weeks later, winning 52 percent of the vote statewide while Trump won just 44 percent.

Democrats are hopeful that the 2026 midterms won’t let her replicate that success. Collins has not had to run for reelection in a midterm with a Republican president since 2002. Trump’s approval rating was 19 points underwater in a Maine poll last month, while Collins didn’t fare much better, at 17 points underwater. That same poll found her tied with both Mills and Platner in hypothetical general election matchups.

When Collins voted in 2021 to convict Trump in his second Senate impeachment trial, she avoided some of the blowback that other GOP senators encountered: Maine Republicans opted not to censure her. No primary challengers have emerged ahead of her 2026 run, with some in the state acknowledging that any alternative to Collins was far more likely to be a Democrat than another Republican.

That hasn’t stopped Trump from criticizing Collins. Just last summer, he posted on Truth Social that Republicans should typically vote “the exact opposite” of the Maine senator, while White House officials privately discussed who they might want to replace her if she opted not to run again.

Former GOP Sen. Mark Kirk, who distanced himself from Trump before losing a Senate race in blue-leaning Illinois in 2016, said he thinks Collins’ longtime popularity in the state will outweigh any attacks from the president. He recalled joking with Collins during a congressional delegation trip overseas about her winning one of her Senate primaries by a “North Korean percentage.”

“Susan Collins has reached that state of nirvana that all of us in the Senate want to reach, to be synonymous with her state,” Kirk said.

“People will say ‘Well, if Donald Trump’s against her, then I’m gonna vote for her,” he added. “My guess is on edge, he will have actually helped her with this.”

Alex Gangitano contributed reporting to this report.

​Politics

December 2025 POLITICO Poll results on economy, tariffs, taxes, energy, and more​Politics

Every week political cartoonists throughout the country and across the political spectrum apply their ink-stained skills to capture the foibles, memes, hypocrisies and other head-slapping events in the world of politics. The fruits of these labors are hundreds of cartoons that entertain and enrage readers of all political stripes. Here’s an offering of the best of this week’s crop, picked fresh off the Toonosphere. Edited by Matt Wuerker.​Politics

The Department of Homeland Security in September 2025 said that 2 million undocumented immigrants had been forced out of the United States since the start of Donald Trump’s second presidency.

Through its use of the Alien Enemies Act, a wartime law from 1798, the Trump administration has bypassed immigration courts and the right to due process to more easily detain and deport immigrants.

The Trump administration has, in part, reached these numbers by arresting immigrants in courthouses and at their workplaces. It has also conducted raids in schools, hospitals and places of worship.

And the Supreme Court in September, in its Noem v. Vasquez Perdomo decision, lifted a federal court order that barred agents with Immigration and Customs Enforcement from racially profiling suspected undocumented immigrants. For now, ICE agents can use race, ethnicity, language and occupation as grounds for stopping and questioning people.

This form of targeting has disproportionately affected Latino communities, which represent 9 in 10 ICE arrests, according to a UCLA study published in October.

Targeting immigrants is a centuries-old American practice. In particular, Asian Americans have drawn parallels between the attacks on Latinos today and the forced relocation and incarceration of Japanese Americans during World War II.

Notably, the passage of the War Brides Act, passed just three months after the end of WWII, in December 1945, broke with the nation’s centuries-long practice of exclusionary immigration policy. The act allowed American servicemen to bring their non-American spouses and children to the United States. The measure seemed to inaugurate a new era of inclusive immigration policy.

As a feminist studies scholar and author, I know the War Brides Act forever altered the nation’s racial demographics, increasing both Asian migration to the U.S. and the birth of biracial children.

On the 80th anniversary of the War Brides Act, I’ve also noticed an alarming contradiction: Although America may be more multiracial than ever before, the U.S. immigration system remains as exclusive as it has ever been.

Exclusionary immigration policy

The racial profiling of Latino people by ICE agents today is not unlike what took place during World War II in the U.S.

Following Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor in 1941, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued an executive order authorizing the forced removal of anyone deemed to be a national security threat. Anyone, that is, who was Japanese. From 1942 to 1945, the U.S. government incarcerated approximately 120,000 Japanese Americans in internment camps.

To determine who was a national security threat, the government used overt racial profiling. Similar to today, when the U.S. government often misidentifies Latino Americans as noncitizens, a majority of the Japanese people incarcerated in WWII were U.S. citizens.

Amid the Trump administration’s treatment of immigrants, it’s worth recalling the exclusionary origins of U.S. immigration policy.

The first restrictive immigration law in the U.S., the Page Act of 1875, barred Chinese women from entering the country. The assumption the law was based on was that all Chinese women were immoral and worked in the sex trade.

The Page Act laid the groundwork for the Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882, which banned all Chinese immigration into the U.S. for 10 years. This was the first federal law to ban an entire ethnic group, launching an era of legalized and targeted exclusion.

With the passage of the Immigration Act of 1924, the U.S. created its first border control service, which enforced new immigration restrictions. It also implemented a quota system, which banned or limited the number of immigrants from specific regions, including Asia and Southern and Eastern Europe.

The act stemmed from nativism – the policy that protects the interests of native-born residents against those of immigrants – and a desire to preserve American homogeneity.

The 1945 War Brides Act largely diverged from these previous measures, helping to dismantle the Asian exclusion made commonplace in the 19th and early 20th centuries. From 1945 until 1948, when the War Brides Act expired, more than 300,000 people entered the country as nonquota immigrants, people from countries not subject to federal immigration restrictions.

Exclusionary tendencies

Decades later, in 1965, the U.S. formally abolished the quota system. America opened its doors to those who President Lyndon B. Johnson deemed most able to contribute to the nation’s growth, particularly skilled professionals.

The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 eliminated racial exclusion. As a result, the U.S. population diversified. Immigrants deepened the multiracialism initiated by the War Brides Act.

This trend increased later in the 1960s when the Supreme Court, in Loving v. Virginia, overturned anti-miscegenation laws, which criminalized marriage between people of different races. The justices ruled that laws banning interracial marriage violated the 14th Amendment.

Multiracialism further increased after the Vietnam War. Subsequent legislation such as the 1987 Amerasian Homecoming Act facilitated the entry of biracial children born in Vietnam and fathered by a U.S. citizen.

By the 1960s, however, exclusion was taking on a different shape.

After 1965, immigration policy initiated a preference system that prioritized skilled workers and relatives of U.S. citizens. Quotas related to race and national origin were abolished. Nonetheless, preferences for families and professionals excluded people from Latin America.

For the first time, immigration from the Western Hemisphere was limited. This directly affected migrant workers in the farming and agricultural industries, many of whom were Latino.

Recalling the War Brides Act allows Americans to better comprehend the fiction that undergirds the U.S. immigration system: that immigration policy’s preference for certain immigrants is enough to justify the discriminatory policies which deem some families more valuable than others.

Anna Storti has received funding from the Institute for Citizens and Scholars, the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, and the McNair Scholars Program.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

Minneapolis is once again the focus of debates about violence involving law enforcement after an Immigration and Customs Enforcement officer shot and killed Renee Nicole Good, a 37-year-old mother, in her car.

The incident quickly prompted dueling narratives. Trump administration officials defended the shooting as justified, while local officials condemned it.

The shooting will also likely prompt renewed scrutiny of training and policy of officers and the question of them shooting at moving vehicles. There has been a recent trend in law enforcement toward policies that prohibit such shootings. It is a policy shift that has shown promise in saving lives.

Decades ago, the New York City Police Department prohibited its officers from shooting at moving vehicles. That led to a drop in police killings without putting officers in greater danger.

Debates over deadly force are often contentious, but as I note in my research on police ethics and policy, for the most part there is consensus on one point: Policing should reflect a commitment to valuing human life and prioritizing its protection. Many use-of-force policies adopted by police departments endorse that principle.

Yet, as in Minneapolis, controversial law enforcement killings continue to occur. Not all agencies have implemented prohibitions on shooting at vehicles. Even in agencies that have, some policies are weak or ambiguous.

In addition, explicit prohibitions on shooting at vehicles are largely absent from the law, which means that officers responsible for fatal shootings of drivers that appear to violate departmental policies still often escape criminal penalties.

In the case of ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security, its policy on shooting at moving vehicles – unlike that of many police agencies – lacks a clear instruction for officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles where feasible. It’s an omission at odds with generally recognized best practices in policing.

ICE’s policy on shooting at moving vehicles

ICE’s current use-of-force policy prohibits its officers from “discharging firearms at the operator of a moving vehicle” unless it is necessary to stop a grave threat. The policy is explicit that deadly force should not be used “solely to prevent the escape of a fleeing suspect.”

That point is relevant for evaluating the fatal shooting in Minneapolis. Videos show one officer trying to open the door of the vehicle that Good was driving, while another officer appears to be in front of the vehicle as she tried to pull away.

Shooting to prevent the driver simply from getting away would have been in violation of agency policy and obviously inconsistent with prioritizing the protection of life.

ICE’s policy lacks clear instruction, however, for its officers to get out of the way of moving vehicles where feasible. In contrast, the Department of Justice’s use-of-force policy makes it explicit that officers should not shoot at a vehicle if they can protect themselves by “moving out of the path of the vehicle.”

Notably, President Joe Biden issued an executive order in 2022 requiring federal law enforcement agencies – like ICE – to adopt use-of-force policies “that are equivalent to, or exceed, the requirements” of the Department of Justice’s policy.

Despite that order, the provision to step out of the way of moving cars never made it into the use-of-force policy that applies to ICE.

The rationale for not shooting at moving vehicles

Prioritizing the protection of life doesn’t rule out deadly force. Sometimes such force is necessary to protect lives from a grave threat, such as an active shooter. But it does rule out using deadly force when less harmful tactics can stop a threat. In such cases, deadly force is unnecessary – a key consideration in law and ethics that can render force unjustified.

That’s the concern involved with police shooting at moving vehicles. It often is not necessary because officers have a less harmful option to avoid a moving vehicle’s threat: stepping out of the way.

This guidance has the safety of both suspects and police in mind. Obviously, police not shooting lowers the risk of harm to the suspect. But it also lowers the risk to the officer in the vast majority of cases because of the laws of physics. If you shoot the driver of a car barreling toward you, that rarely brings a car to an immediate stop, and the vehicle often continues on its path.

Many police departments have incorporated these insights into their policies. A recent analysis of police department policies in the 100 largest U.S. cities found that close to three-quarters of them have prohibitions against shooting at moving vehicles.

The gap between policy and best practices for protecting life

The shooting in Minneapolis serves as a stark reminder of the stubborn gap that often persists between law and policy on the one hand and best law enforcement practices for protecting life on the other. When steps are taken to close that gap, however, they can have a meaningful impact.

Some of the most compelling examples involve local, state and federal measures that reinforce one another. Consider the “fleeing felon rule,” which used to allow police to shoot a fleeing felony suspect to prevent their escape even when the suspect posed no danger to others.

That rule was at odds with the doctrine of prioritizing the protection of life, leading some departments to revise their use-of-force policies and some states to ban the rule. In 1985, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that it was unconstitutional for police to shoot a fleeing suspect who was not a danger.

Banning that questionable tactic notably led to a reduction in killings by police.

This history suggests that clear bans in law and policy on questionable tactics have the potential to save lives, while also strengthening the means for holding officers accountable.

Ben Jones does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.

​Politics + Society – The Conversation

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

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.”

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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