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The US-Israel Alliance Is the Midterms’ Biggest Loser

Irit Tratt

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Michigan Democratic Senate candidate Abdul El-Sayed takes the stage to speak after winning his election during the Michigan Democratic Party Election Night Party held in The Department at Hudson’s in downtown Detroit on Nov. 4, 2026. Photo: USA TODAY Network via Reuters Connect

The Democrats’ anti-Israel evolution appears to be nearing completion following this week’s midterm election results, which showcased a slew of hard-left candidates cruising to victory.

The Muslim-Brotherhood-aligned Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed’s win in Michigan was the most notable in the string of radical victors.

Rabid haters of the Jewish state also notched wins in places like New Jersey and Colorado, where Adam Hamawy (who refused to condemn Hasan Piker’s comments on 9/11) and Democrat Socialist Melat Kiros are among a group of progressives heading to the House of Representatives.

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY), favored to become the chamber’s next speaker of the House, has expressed willingness to accommodate this cadre of firebrands and advance his party’s turn against Israel.

For conservatives dejected about the outcome of Tuesday’s election, the next day was spent dumbfounded over US Vice President JD Vance’s online post, in which he pinned deep GOP losses on the Iran war, while stating that disaffected GOP voters want America to change its relationship to Israel.

Referencing an anonymous pollster, Vance appeared to be circling the anti-Israel waters, curious if the Democrats’ playbook of targeting Israel could be replicated in a GOP space that remains overwhelmingly supportive of Israel.

The US-Israel relationship is entering uncharted political territory, one in which one party’s shift against Israel is a near certainty, while rumblings from a small but vocal isolationist faction in the Republican Party aim to leverage this week’s election catastrophe as a foil to drive a wedge in the US-Israel alliance.

The Iran war is unfairly maligned as the root cause for the GOP’s defeats, with some of Israel’s most ardent defenders claiming that the prolonged battle upset large swaths of the electorate. Yet while the Iran war may have been a contributing factor to Tuesday’s outcome, it was not the driving reason for Democrats’ success.

Polls have cited cost-of-living issues and the “state of democracy” as the top issues Americans were thinking about as they headed into the voting booth.

Despite US President Donald Trump affirming that Israel did not push America into the war with Iran, his attempts at redirecting the anti-Israel tide may have failed to seep into the conscience of younger Americans, the majority of whom a recent poll found are unsure Israel should exist as an independent state.

A youthful electorate that has grown more hostile toward Israel and increasingly gets its news from TikTok lacks the capacity to contemplate the complexities of a months-long battle that cannot be resolved through a singular kinetic act.

President Trump’s announcement immediately before the election that the United States would be ending nearly $4 billion in military assistance to Israel was meant to quell the overwhelming voices on the left– and a few on the right — who are harnessing the aid as a talking point against the Jewish state.

The majority of the money given to Israel is used to purchase American military equipment and reducing US assistance down to zero is a measure that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has openly backed in the past (though the drawdown was supposed to happen over years).

Well-intentioned efforts to lower the anti-Israel fervor are proving insufficient to satisfy the antisemitic appetites of some Democrats, including DSA Congresswoman-elect Daria Aliza Chevalier (NY), who, by declaring that ending “military assistance is not enough” in a post following President Trump’s decision, illustrated that incoming leftists will not cede an inch when it comes to their opposition to the Jewish state.

A widening schism between the US and Israel will appear almost immediately in a Democrat-led House and Senate, whose seasoned colleagues will be eager to appease the more popular and progressive newcomers.

Jeffries intimated as much in his press release commemorating the third anniversary of the Oct. 7 slaughter in Israel, writing that “American policy in the region must change dramatically.”

The hatred of Israel by some Democrats will no longer be limited to campaign speeches.

Instead, Israel can expect to see anti-Israel legislation garnering congressional support, with policies pushing for economic boycotts to sanctioning individuals involved in constructing new “settlements” in Judea and Samaria making their way to the House and Senate floors.

The damaging electoral impact on the US-Israel alliance is also affected by the number of pro-Israel politicians who will not be returning to Congress.

The exit of some of the staunchest champions of the US-Israel relationship includes lawmakers like New York Representatives Elise Stefanik and Mike Lawler. North Carolina Congresswoman Virginia Foxx, who stood on the steps of Columbia University along with Reps. Stefanik and Lawler to show solidarity with Jewish students, may also lose her seat.

They represent officials whose affection for the Jewish state was not only reflected in their votes, but also in the hours they spent on pro-Jewish causes beyond their day-to-day congressional duties.​

As the US-Israel relationship navigates new and chillier waters, mainstream Jewish institutions are laundering similar rhetoric from years ago.

The alliance will soon undergo tremendous strain, yet these same Jewish groups who for years provided political cover for a party that was turning on Israel now offer little in the way of solutions.

A commitment to retain robust endowments and recruit wealthy backers ignores the harder task of empowering Jewish youth and educating young students on the merits behind a strong US-Israel bond.

Exacerbated by America’s demographic shift over the last two decades, the atmospherics surrounding the United States’ approach to Israel are changing.

As small segments on the right dip into the “blame Israel” discourse, Democrats, having paid no political cost for their moves toward radicalism, appear ready to wield their new mandate and sever America’s relationship with Israel.

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Irit Tratt is an American and pro-Israel advocate. Follow her on X@Irit_Tratt.

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