A surprising twist in a New Jersey primary race showed how questions about Israel continue to roil American politics in unpredictable ways.
Feb. 6, 2026
[gift article]
The group’s allied super PAC spent at least $2.3 million against former Representative Tom Malinowski, who has said that he “would not deny anything Israel needs to defend itself” but left open the possibility of placing limits on aid.
It ran negative ads against him, sending a message that it was willing to punish Democrats seen as insufficiently supportive of Israel. And with the race still uncalled on Friday, Mr. Malinowski was indeed trailing narrowly. But the candidate leading him was not one of the other moderates in the race, but an outspoken critic of Israel: Analilia Mejia, a left-leaning political organizer who has said she believed the country committed genocide in Gaza.
The folks who refused to vote for Kamala over the genocide were politically irrelevant — a fact that sends to infuriate them and those who want to blame them. You are completely right, of course, but they didn’t cost Kamala the election by themselves. It was rural swing state voters who could give a fuck about the Palestinian genocide assuming they didn’t celebrate it.
Why exactly the vote went the way it did, I can’t say. I think it was pure economics. But no one gave a shit about the genocide in the states that decided the election. (Not strictly true of course because Detroit has the largest Palestinian population in the US, I believe, and there are people who care about it everywhere including myself, but in any event they didn’t swing Michigan.)