Democrats’ divide over Israel erupts after attacks on Iran

The United States’ attack on Iran is stirring up an already-roiling Democratic debate over Israel, just as primary season kicks off.

The joint U.S.-Israel military operation has put the countries’ relationship squarely at the center of the national political debate — and the role of its big-spending allies like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which praised President Donald Trump’s strikes, front-and-center in the Democratic primaries where the group is spending.

A heated House race in North Carolina whose election is Tuesday, several contests in Illinois two weeks later and an already stormy Michigan Senate primary have been impacted by tensions over Israel’s war in Gaza and fury over heavy spending by pro-Israel organizations.

“Palestine has become a litmus test in the party,” said Matt Duss, a former foreign policy adviser to Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) and executive vice president at the progressive think tank Center for International Policy. “You see this in both the Michigan and Illinois primaries, where candidates are being pushed to acknowledge that Gaza is a genocide and to pledge not to take AIPAC donations. That was definitely going to continue as we move toward the 2028 presidential primary. This war [in Iran] will amplify it even more.”

AIPAC’s involvement has already upended multiple elections in Illinois, where groups aligned with the lobbying group have spent close to $14 million on four House races ahead of the state’s mid-March primary. In Tuesday’s North Carolina primaries, Israel has been a hot topic in Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee’s reelection bid. And Middle Eastern politics loom large in Michigan’s blockbuster three-way Democratic Senate race, where there have already been sharp divisions between the candidates over Israel. Elected officials and operatives there have been fretting for months about how AIPAC could turn the race on its head and pave a way for a Republican victory for the first time since 1994.

“The war [in Iran] accentuates the risk that AIPAC's intervention will result in electing the most anti-war, anti-Israel progressive of the available candidates in some of these districts — just as it did in mine,” said former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), who recently lost a hotly contested House primary to now-Rep. Analilia Mejia, a much sharper critic of Israel, after AIPAC spent more than $2 million against him in a failed bid to elevate a more unabashedly pro-Israel candidate.

AIPAC isn’t backing down. In a statement Saturday, the group hailed the U.S.-Israel-led strikes as “decisive action against the terror-supporting regime in Iran.” Its super PAC, United Democracy Project, had nearly $100 million in the bank at the end of January and plans to be active in dozens of races this year, including both Democratic and Republican primaries.

“Anti-Israel candidates should be on notice that we are looking closely at their races,” United Democracy Project spokesperson Patrick Dorton said in an interview. “Our goal is to elect the biggest possible bipartisan pro Israel majority in Congress, no matter which party is in control, and we are singularly focused in this election year on electing a pro-Israel majority in Congress.”

Maurice Mitchell, national director of the Working Families Party, said that Democrats are “gonna have to answer for” AIPAC support in primaries. “Any of those Democrats that take AIPAC money, they’re going to have a reckoning,” he said. “How can they stand for peace and the billionaire backers that are supporting them are advocating for this war?”

The Iran strikes did not initially split Democrats as deeply as Israel’s war in Gaza has over the past few years, with most in the party accusing Trump of embroiling the Middle East in conflict, even as disagreements emerged on what comes next.

“I don’t think anyone wants to be seen on the side of Iran, and I think Democrats are generally united on the idea that the president needs to explain to the American people, what the strategy is, what the endgame is,” said Brian Romick, president of Democratic Majority for Israel, a group that supports pro-Israel Democrats.

Several Democratic strategists said it’s too early to predict how much Iran will be on voters’ minds over the next few months, let alone for the next presidential election.

“We know Trump ran against wars just such as these, and the close collaboration with Israel on it may play into ongoing debates in the primary,” David Axelrod, a longtime Democratic strategist, wrote in a text. “But the unknown is the length and level of loss this will entail. The longer, the more costly, the deeper the debate will be.

In Illinois, AIPAC-aligned groups have already spent heavily

Perhaps nowhere on the map does Iran loom larger than in Illinois, whose March 17 primary is just weeks away.

Democratic strategists in the state expect the attacks on Iran to call attention to the role of Congress and the broader implications of partnering with Israel.

"Now this isn't just about Israel and Gaza,” said an Illinois political consultant granted anonymity because they're working on multiple local campaigns. “This is about standing with Israel to wage a broad war in the Middle East that has a lot more ramifications.”

An AIPAC-aligned super PAC has already spent more than $1 million supporting state Sen. Laura Fine and attacking one of her top primary opponents, Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, in the race to replace retiring Rep. Jan Schakowsky.

Biss and Fine’s other opponents have criticized AIPAC involvement in the race. He issued a lengthy statement Saturday slamming Trump and Netanyahu for “pushing America into another reckless and illegal regime change war.”

A separate AIPAC-linked group is set to target progressive activist and digital strategist Kat Abughazaleh, who is Palestinian American.

In an interview, Abughazaleh said Iran will be a crucial focus in her race’s closing weeks.

“We will be talking about it very vocally and often because this is very much a topic on people's minds,” she said. “ People care about this for a lot of reasons, whether it's our tax dollars, whether it's because you have family in Iran, whether you're just horrified by the humanitarian implications of these strikes, or because you're very afraid of a forever war that you may be moved into against your will.”

War in Iran isn’t the same issue as Israel’s war in Gaza, and in the first hours after Trump launched the operation, Democrats were much more unified in their opposition — including Democrats who have AIPAC’s support.

After the attack, Fine posted on X calling for Trump’s impeachment, warning that he “is leading us into another military conflict to distract from his own failures that puts American lives at risk and threatens to send the Middle East into further chaos.”

Congressional candidates Donna Miller in the 2nd District and Melissa Conyears-Ervin in the 7th, who are supported by AIPAC-aligned committees, respectively called the attacks “reckless” and “immoral” in separate statements. And Melissa Bean, who has support from an AIPAC-aligned group in the 8th District, said “Congress has the sole power to authorize acts of war.”

North Carolina presents an early test

Tuesday’s primaries in North Carolina will give an early indication of how Democratic primary voters may be considering Israel.

Rep. Valerie Foushee (D-N.C.) was first elected to the seat in 2022 with AIPAC help — its super PAC spent more than $2.1 million to boost her to victory. But in 2025, Fousheesaid she would no longer accept the pro-Israel group’s money.

“Check my voting record to see how I have voted and what I have voted for as it relates to the people of Gaza,” she said at a town hall in August.

Dorton, the spokesperson for the AIPAC-aligned super PAC, said Foushee “rejected AIPAC support and we are not involved in or participating in any way in this race.”

But Foushee’s primary opponent, Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam, has attacked Foushee for being insufficiently tough on Israel. A new super PAC created to push back against AIPAC from the left has spent heavily in support of Allam.

Trump’s “illegal and reckless war” in Iran “will inevitably be on voters’ minds as they head to the ballot box on Tuesday,” Allam, North Carolina’s first Muslim woman elected official, said in a statement.

Foushee was also quick to condemn Trump’s “illegal war with Iran.” In a statement, she said her “record and support for legislation to stop arms sales to Israel speaks for itself.”

“It is clear to me and my constituents that the Netanyahu government’s indiscriminate killing of Palestinians cannot continue,” she continued.

Israel was already a major topic in Michigan

The Gaza conflict has already been a major issue in the three-way Democratic battle to succeed retiring Sen. Gary Peters in battleground Michigan, a state with the highest percent of Arab-American residents in the country. More than 100,000 people voted “uncommitted” instead of backing then-President Joe Biden in the 2024 primary over his administration’s support of Israel.

Layla Elabed, one of the founders of the Uncommitted movement who now leads the progressive Arab Americans for Progress, said Democrats “do not want to see their dollars continuing to fund Israel's genocide and now a war on Iran, especially without congressional approval.”

She said Trump’s Iran attack underscores that Democrats need candidates who “stand up to pro-war lobbies like AIPAC, who have poured money from right-wing MAGA donors into our Democratic primaries here in Michigan.”

Rep. Haley Stevens, who has been supported by AIPAC in the past, said in a statement that Trump "has once again put Americans in harm's way without consulting Congress," but warned that a nuclear Iran “would bring even more violence and chaos to the Middle East and the entire world.”

Her foes in the August primary took a different approach. State Sen. Mallory McMorrow said the president “has chosen a war overseas at the expense of everyone back home;” physician Abdul El-Sayed, the most progressive candidate in the field, declared "this war must end” and Trump “must be held accountable.”

Brakkton Booker contributed to this article.