NEW YORK (AP) — When Brooklyn resident Varun Venkatesh stepped into the voting booth during this week’s New York primary, he had one key question on his mind: where do the candidates stand on the Palestinian cause? For the 27-year-old, it served as what he called “a good litmus test for me as a voter.”
Venkatesh threw his support behind Claire Valdez, who had the backing of Mayor Zohran Mamdani, rather than Antonio Reynoso — another progressive who carried the endorsement of the Democratic establishment — because Valdez had “a clear and more consistent stance” on the issue.
Valdez went on to win her congressional primary. Two other insurgent candidates also endorsed by Mamdani claimed victory, and Israel’s war in Gaza played a central role in all three contests. The results have left Democratic leaders wrestling with a pressing question: just how many voters share Venkatesh’s priorities as the party looks ahead to the November midterms and the next presidential race?
The Gaza conflict, which erupted during Joe Biden’s presidency and hurt Kamala Harris’ presidential campaign, continues to divide the party. How Democrats choose to address it will play a significant role in shaping their future direction — and every move risks pushing away some segment of an already fragile coalition at a moment when unity is essential to recapturing Congress.
“The Israel question has become defining,” said Matt Bennett, who heads the centrist Democratic organization Third Way and has frequently warned that progressives risk alienating independent voters. He said some in Mamdani’s circle have embraced “a new level of extremism,” cautioning that “Republicans are very good at weaponizing crazy ideas on the fringe against mainstream candidates.”
Mamdani is unconcerned by those warnings. Governing from the mayor’s office of the nation’s largest city, he has been working to pull the Democratic Party in a new direction. He leveled sharp criticism at the American Israel Public Affairs Committee for what he described as defending “a status quo of immorality” in Gaza. Supporters who gathered to celebrate his slate’s Tuesday victories chanted “Free Palestine.”
The mayor is also making a broader argument: that New York should serve as a model for how Democrats define themselves nationally in the years ahead.
“When does the race for 2028 begin?” Mamdani asked last week while sharing a stage with his endorsed candidates. “It starts now.”
Even by the standards of a party long accustomed to fierce internal battles between its progressive and moderate wings, the argument over Israel has been unusually raw. The U.S.-Israel alliance once enjoyed broad bipartisan support, but the rise of Israel’s right wing under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu gradually eroded that consensus — and the war in Gaza has fractured it further.
Biden faced chants of “Genocide Joe” from pro-Palestinian activists, who then redirected their frustration toward Harris after she took over as the Democratic presidential nominee two years ago.
“She was trying to do the right thing,” said Jamie Harrison, who served as chair of the Democratic National Committee at the time. “It was a hard and awkward place to be in.”
Harrison believes the Gaza war contributed to Harris losing Michigan, a state with a substantial Arab American community. Still, he questions whether it was a decisive national issue then or now.
“It’s one thing to be in New York. But I can tell you that most places, including where I am in South Carolina, it’s not what people are talking about,” he said. “They are concerned about affording gas and groceries and housing.”
Harrison anticipates that Democrats will seek a middle path going forward — one that involves “still supporting Israel’s sovereignty” while also “reducing U.S. aid to Israel and changing the nature of the relationship.”
How difficult that middle ground is to find was on full display in the race for New York’s 10th congressional district.
Brad Lander, the former city comptroller who had Mamdani’s endorsement, defeated incumbent U.S. Rep. Dan Goldman in that contest.
Both men are Jewish, and both have spoken critically of the Israeli government. The key distinction: Lander characterizes the war in Gaza as a genocide, while Goldman does not.
“Our party needs to admit that Joe Biden’s ‘hug Bibi’ strategy was a catastrophic mistake,” Lander declared in his victory speech. “We cannot keep paying for Netanyahu’s wars with our tax dollars. Democratic voters are saying this, loud and clear.”
District voter Ari Rassouli said the incumbent’s position on Israel was “one of the many reasons that I didn’t like Dan Goldman.” Describing the conflict as a genocide, she argued that “a candidate that is in support of that has no place in our democracy at all.”
Speaking with reporters Tuesday, Lander acknowledged that Israel ranked among the top concerns for voters alongside affordability and immigration.
“I like talking to Jewish voters who feel anxiety about the times we live in and say, ‘I have these values, I want to treat everyone like they’re equal and with dignity and created in God’s image. How do we navigate the times we’re in?’” he said.
He added with a smile, “Those are probably the longest conversations at the polls.”
