Would a Democratic Congress change course on Israel?

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Israel felt inescapable in the midterm primaries, especially for Democrats, where centrists and progressives clashed — memorably! — over military aid, Gaza, and (of course) AIPAC.

But with the Election Day almost upon us, the subject seems less prominent. When I Googled “Israel US elections” this morning, all the top results concerned next week’s Israeli parliamentary elections.

In less than two weeks, however, Americans will also head to the polls. They’ll decide which party controls Congress, along with a slew of state and local offices. The stakes are arguably unusually high: Voters will choose whether to check the power of a president who has bulldozed over historical norms and limits. 

As we count down to that momentous and potentially messy day, I’m partnering with my colleague Astead Herndon and Vox’s The Midterms, Actually team for weekly editions on the biggest issues shaping the midterms. We’re breaking down one issue each week and suggesting further reading and races to watch in November.

Previously, we dug into how both parties are changing, the bipartisan backlash to AI and data centers, and the politics of high costs. This week, we’re tackling Americans’ growing disillusionment with Israel — and how that will (or won’t) show up at the midterm ballot box.

Go a little deeper

You know the first part of this story already, because we’ve discussed it quite a lot: Americans’ views of Israel have nosedived over the past 18 months. 

That shift helped shape the Democratic primaries and will likely figure prominently in the coming presidential contest. But how much Israel matters in a general midterm election, to people outside the political left…well, November will really test that.

Voters rarely rank Israel policy among their top priorities. In a poll that the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research conducted earlier this month, about 80 percent of registered voters said Congress should highly prioritize the cost of living during its next term, and roughly 70 percent said the same about ending the Iran war. By comparison, less than a third of voters said they prioritized cutting off aid to Israel. 

There’s another way that Israel factors into US elections, of course — and that’s in fundraising. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) has become one of the biggest spenders in US elections and a repeat flash point in this year’s Democratic primaries. 

But in the general election, even AIPAC has been overshadowed by the GOP’s big-business donors, many of them in tech, who have given Republicans a historic spending advantage in this year’s contests. On Wednesday, the lobbying group actually announced it would no longer endorse political candidates or make direct campaign contributions.

In either case, whatever happens in the midterms won’t likely transform US policy toward Israel. President Donald Trump is still in charge of foreign policy, after all, and even if Democrats take back the House, they’ll have little ability to reverse his agenda. 

But a Democratic majority would gain “new congressional tools to act on Israel-Palestine issues,” Hady Amr, the former US Special Representative for Palestinian Affairs, wrote in a new analysis for Chatham House. Those tools aren’t flashy (think: hearings, funding restrictions, and reporting requirements), but they could certainly set the stage for a broader policy shift under a Democratic president.

Races to watch:

• Florida’s Senate race, where Democrat Angie Nixon has criticized her party’s ties to the pro-Israel lobby;
• Michigan’s Senate race, where Democrat Abdul El-Sayed’s campaign grew out of pro-Palestinian activism; 
• Michigan’s (deeply purple) Seventh District, where progressive William Lawrence has vocally criticized US support for Israel. 

More from Vox: 

• The left is winning the argument on aid to Israel. The next step will be harder.
• The first true swing-state test for the Bernie left
• What American Jews want from the midterms

One link for later

➨ Gather ye roast spuds while ye may. Vegan restaurants appear to be experiencing a downturn of sorts: According to one online directory, the number of establishments fell from 1,717 last October to 1,509 now. But the news isn’t entirely or unambiguously bad. One added pressure on plant-based restauranters, for instance, is growing competition from mainstream restaurants that have started offering vegan dishes. 

Before you go…

• Did you know…that North America’s largest wind farm has more than 900 turbines, each as tall as the Statue of Liberty, and encompasses an area roughly the size of Chicago? It just came online in June. 
• Today’s trivia: What’s the plural of Prius, as in Toyota’s hybrid hatchback car? (You can find this and other brain puzzles in Vox’s daily crossword. Look for the answer in tomorrow’s edition.)
• Yesterday’s trivia: Yesterday we asked after the definition of the word “cartomancy.” That’s the practice of fortune-telling or divination using a deck of cards. Witchy!