The Israeli war on Gaza that has resulted in at least 73,000 Palestinian deaths, more than half of whom have been women and children, has made Democrats in general much more critical of Israel and sympathetic toward the Palestinian people than in prior years. Indicative of this sentiment, on July 15, 2026, 103 Democrats in the House of Representatives voted in support of cutting $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel. Although the measure was defeated, nearly half of the House Democratic caucus supported the measure (98 voted against, and 10 effectively abstained). In 2024, a similar vote in the House garnered the votes of just 37 Democrats, underscoring how far support for arming Israel has plummeted in just two years.
These changing views have allowed democratic socialists in the United States, who have been more consistently critical of Israel, an opportunity to win several recent Democratic Party primaries by appealing to young progressives who are angry about their economic futures, the corrupting influence of big business in politics, and elements of US foreign policy. Although some Democratic Party leaders are alarmed at these left-wing primary victories, believing they will hurt the party’s chances to win the House of Representatives in the November mid-term elections, other Democrats are supportive of the trend, which is re-energizing the party’s base. Israel and Palestine are now central faultlines in the struggle for the future of the Democratic Party.
Rebirth of Socialism in the United States
Although socialists are not new to the American political scene—in 1912 socialist presidential candidate Eugene Debs received 6 percent of the popular vote, and by 1914, two socialists had been elected to Congress—they were never able to move beyond being a small political faction.
Several factors have now led to a rebirth of the socialist movement in the United States, even though it remains a small fraction of the electorate. Growing economic inequality and the corrupting influence of big business on politics, highlighted by charismatic self-declared democratic socialist politicians such as Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, have made socialism more acceptable in the eyes of younger Americans who are finding homeownership, stable employment, and other components of the American Dream increasingly unattainable. The Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), a grassroots organization of left-wing activists founded in 1982, reports a membership of more than 120,000, fueled by its outreach to young people, and often fields or endorses candidates in races for elected office.
Growing economic inequality and the corrupting influence of big business on politics have made socialism more acceptable in the eyes of younger Americans.
A 2025 poll conducted by the Heartland Institute and Rasmussen Reports found that 53 percent of Americans aged 18 to 39 would like to see a democratic socialist elected president in 2028 and are in favor of nationalization of “major industries like health care, energy and big tech” to give “more control and equity to the people.” More recently, in polls conducted between June and July 2026 by the Economist/YouGov and the Washington Post/Ipsos respectively, 36 percent to 46 percent of voters aged 18 to 30 said that they would be open to voting for a democratic socialist.
It is not just domestic issues that are driving young people to support socialist positions. Young Americans’ sentiments toward Israel and Palestine are shifting. According to a February 2026 Gallup poll, 53 percent of young Americans aged 18 to 34 say that they sympathize more with Palestinians, while only 23 percent say they sympathize more with the Israelis—a reversal from as recently as 2018, when 21 percent sympathized more with Palestinians and 59 percent sympathized more with Israelis.
The DSA is generally in line with this broad shift. Its position is to “recognize the rights of the Palestinian people, including the right of return, the right to resist military occupation, and the right to self-determination in a free Palestine with Jerusalem as its capital.” It also calls for the “end of all military and economic aid to Israel” and for the “[prosecution of] US and Israeli leaders responsible for the genocide in Gaza.”
Recent Primary Victories
The June 23, 2026, victories of democratic socialists in New York’s Democratic Party primaries indicate rising support for progressive causes. Two of the winners, Claire Valdez and Darializa Avila Chevalier, are DSA members who beat longstanding Democratic incumbents, while former New York City Comptroller Brad Lander used to be a DSA member and still holds some democratic socialist positions. All three went on record espousing strongly negative views toward Israeli policy. Chevalier said: “I’m running to invest our taxes in our babies here at home, not in bombs to kill kids abroad.”
In New York’s 10th Congressional District, Lander went up against Congressman Dan Goldman. While both are Jewish and critical of the Netanyahu government, Lander sharply criticized Goldman for not supporting legislation to block military aid to Israel, for catering to pro-Israel lobby groups, and for not calling the war in Gaza a genocide. Lander won by a landslide, beating Goldman 66 percent to 34 percent. Calling himself a “liberal Zionist,” and having resigned from the DSA for how it responded to the October 7, 2023, Hamas attack on Israel, Lander was able to gain the support of progressive Jewish organizations while supporting Palestinian rights. He stated that “I will be one of the Jewish members of Congress most willing to stand up for Palestinian human rights, and I will stand firmly against bigotry aimed at Jews. Those are not different jobs. They are the same job.”
Three-quarters of Democrats want to reduce or end military support for Israel, and 40 percent want to eliminate military support to this state entirely.
Given that these primary winners are in solidly “blue” districts, meaning their constituents usually support the Democratic ticket, they are likely to prevail against their Republican opponents in the November mid-term elections. Such strong criticism of Israel would have been unthinkable just a few years earlier and is indicative of the shifting sentiments in the Democratic Party base. A mid-July 2026 Washington Post-Ipsos poll indicated that three-quarters of Democrats want to reduce or end military support for Israel, and 40 percent want to eliminate military support to this state entirely.
Welcoming the DSA’s Support Without Being a Member
Although some democratic socialist candidates, such as Valdez and Avila Chevalier, are official DSA members, not all candidates who consider themselves democratic socialists have joined the organization. Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT), for example, has used the term for decades but has never been a member of the DSA. Independence grants these politicians some political maneuverability from the positions of the DSA, which has become more radical in recent years. Some of its more controversial stances include defunding the Department of War and closing all US military bases overseas; demilitarizing police departments and redirecting police funds to public services; granting amnesty for all immigrants regardless of status and ending immigration quotas and visa caps; and abolishing the US Senate.
On the issue of Israel and Palestine, the DSA has called for “full freedoms and self determination of the Palestinian people including the end of Israel’s colonization and occupation of all Arab lands, equality, and the right of all refugees to return to their homes and properties. We affirm, in alignment with AlThawabit (the inviolable rights of Palestinians) and international law, upholding Palestinians’ rights to resist occupation in order to secure justice and dignity.” The DSA also supports the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) strategy on Israel and calls Israeli military actions in Gaza a genocide.
The DSA has called for “full freedoms and self determination of the Palestinian people including the end of Israel’s colonization and occupation of all Arab lands.”
While many members of the Democratic Party might support parts of this declaration, especially on Palestinian self-determination, there are fierce debates within the party about how to position themselves. Some Democrats would likely oppose the DSA’s support for the right of all refugees to return to their homes—including Palestinians expelled in 1948, whose return they might consider as jeopardizing the Jewish character of the State of Israel.
Nonetheless, it seems that even those who are not members of the DSA are happy to have received support from Mamdani, a DSA member who has nevertheless distanced himself from several of its national policies. Mamdani’s endorsement of Lander may have brought out some DSA members to vote for him, even though their positions were not entirely congruous.
Pushback from the Democratic Party Establishment
The victory of several democratic socialists in the primaries has alarmed Democratic Party leaders and longtime establishment operatives such as James Carville, who masterminded Bill Clinton’s successful bid for the presidency in 1992. Carville recently condemned left-wing Democrats for criticizing mainstream party members, adding that “their solution is to beat Democrats like they’re part of the problem,” and calling them “idiots.” Rahm Emanuel, a longtime Israel supporter who was previously chief of staff for President Barack Obama and then mayor of Chicago, also expressed alarm about democratic socialist candidates, despite his own recent criticisms of the Netanyahu government.
President Trump’s low approval ratings are no doubt worrying congressional Republicans as they prepare for November’s mid-term elections. Some have resorted to demagoguery, using democratic socialist candidates to paint the entire Democratic Party as “communist.” Although this charge is spurious, Republicans hope that fears of a left-wing surge will discourage independents from backing Democratic candidates, offering them a chance to retain their slim majorities in the House and Senate.
Many Democratic Party leaders in Congress have ties to AIPAC and are therefore in a quandary.
Many Democratic Party leaders in Congress have ties to AIPAC and are therefore in a quandary. While Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) and House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries (D-NY) have been critical of Netanyahu’s policies toward the Palestinians, they have been trying to thread the needle by differentiating between support for the State of Israel and support for its current far-right government. This strategy has only been partially successful given that nearly half of the Democratic caucus in the House voted to reduce military aid to Israel in mid-July. Mindful of this sentiment, Jeffries told members of his caucus to vote according to their own conscience, even though he would vote against the measure. As Lander said after the vote, the Democratic voting base has shifted and the “Democratic leadership is going to have to catch up.”
Primaries in Colorado, Michigan, and Elsewhere
Nonetheless, the pushback by the establishment is real, especially in Michigan where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, who aligns himself with many democratic socialist positions, narrowly won against the more mainstream Democrat, US Representative Haley Stevens, in the August 4, 2026, Democratic primary for the US Senate. El-Sayed had sharply criticized US military aid to Israel, called Israel’s war in Gaza a genocide, and said that money for Israel would be better spent improving the lives of people in Michigan. Stevens’s campaign, in contrast, received at least $30 million from AIPAC-affiliated groups.
El-Sayed, the more charismatic of the two, ran an effective campaign and undoubtedly garnered substantial support from Michigan’s large Arab-American population, but Stevens received the endorsement of the party establishment, which worried that El-Sayed would be too radical to prevail in the general election against former Republican Congressman Mike Rogers. El-Sayed, by contrast, believes that voter enthusiasm will remain on his side as he emphasizes health care
(supporting Medicare for all) and affordability issues while dismissing such fears. Indicative of current divisions in the Party, Senators Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) bucked the party establishment and endorsed El-Sayed.
In Colorado, democratic socialist Melat Kiros defeated a 29-year incumbent, Democratic Congresswoman Diana DeGette, in a heavily blue district on June 30, 2026, and will likely prevail in the November midterms. Kiros was fired from a law firm a few years ago for publicly criticizing firms like her own that called law students antisemitic for protesting Israeli policies in Gaza in the aftermath of the Hamas attacks. During the campaign, Kiros called for an arms embargo on Israel.
Looking Ahead
Not all democratic socialists will succeed in the primaries. On July 21, 2026, incumbent Congressman Greg Stanton (D-AZ), for example, easily beat his democratic socialist opponent, Kai Newkirk. On August 4, democratic socialist challenger Cori Bush was defeated in Missouri’s Democratic primary by the incumbent Representative, Wesley Bell, who was backed by both AIPAC and the House Democratic leadership. And even if democratic socialists go on to prevail in the November midterm elections, they would still comprise a relatively small group in the Democratic Party. Nonetheless, their victories indicate a profound change, not only on domestic issues but on foreign policy in general, and on Israel and Palestine in particular.
In years past, publicly speaking against Israeli policies would have been a liability that led to almost certain electoral defeat. Now, it seems that AIPAC’s influence within the Democratic Party has been curtailed. During these recent primaries, winners were able to score political points by accusing their opponents of accepting AIPAC-affiliated campaign funds. Yet it would be foolish to dismiss AIPAC too quickly, especially since it actively supports establishment-oriented candidates. Nonetheless, the primary victories have shown that democratic socialists have captured the imagination of activists in progressive-leaning districts and represent a growing force in the United States today.
If Democrats take control of the House of Representatives—which seems probable because of widespread dissatisfaction with the Trump administration—democratic socialists are likely to be a significant pressure group within the party. They will vocally criticize Israel’s war on Palestinians and advocate cutting military aid to Israel, amplifying trends already prevalent in the party. They may influence how Democrats would chair committees, set committee hearings, and select which witnesses to subpoena. In this scenario, the House is likely to scrutinize more sharply Israel’s role in tolerating settler violence in the occupied West Bank, for example, that the Trump administration has glossed over. Reading the tea leaves, Rep. Jeffries—who may become the next Speaker of the House—has said that “meaningful change” may be necessary when the current 10-year aid package to Israel ends in 2028. In the end, the question may not be whether democratic socialists can win Democratic primaries, but how far they can reshape politics within the Democratic Party.
The views expressed in this publication are the author’s own and do not necessarily reflect the position of Arab Center Washington DC, its staff, or its Board of Directors.
Featured image credit: Christopher J. Dean via Shutterstock
