The 2026 midterms just ended Israel’s influence over American politics

As someone who has spent more than 20 years working for U. S. policies to advance Palestinian rights and freedom, this election night was a moment I sometimes feared I’d never see in my lifetime. Today, I believe I will look back on Nov. 3, 2026, as a turning point in the story of our country and the struggle for human rights for every person around the world. For decades, criticism of the Israeli government’s treatment of Palestinians, and the ironclad support provided by the U. S., was considered a third rail in politics. Democratic and Republican administrations alike competed to gloat about which side would provide more funding to Israel, regardless of what that meant for Palestinians, whose lives under Israeli military rule got worse each year. While U. S. public opinion became increasingly supportive of Palestinian human rights and freedom, officials in Washington clung to an old playbook that told them their political future demanded they remain in lockstep with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. They offered platitudes about Palestinians deserving the same rights and freedoms as Israelis. They pledged their support for the two-state solution. Yet year after year, the bombs kept dropping, the land meant for that Palestinian state kept shrinking, and the chasm between what voters wanted and what Congress voted for grew larger. Last week in Michigan, we saw the beginning of the end of that tragic dynamic. Abdul El-Sayed’s victory in the Democratic Senate primary and now the November general election was historic. He overcame a tidal wave of spending from AIPAC, once a kingmaker in Congress. He overcame shameful bigotry from the highest perches of power in our country, including President Trump, Vice President JD Vance and some members of his own party. He overcame a spectacular betrayal from a Democratic member of Congress. But his win was also historic because he proved for the first time that a politics of universal human rights that includes Palestinians is a winning platform in the most critical electoral battleground in our country. Michigan will no doubt again be a decisive state in 2028. Due to a new Democratic primary calendar, it could prove decisive in the contest for the Democratic nominee as well. El-Sayed’s victory has put politicians in both parties on notice because it has made the seismic shift in American public opinion, including in swing states like Michigan, impossible to deny. An August 2026 Fox News poll found that 55 percent of Michigan voters oppose continuing to provide military funding to the Israeli government. Among Democrats, that figure was 70 percent. Among independents, it was 66 percent. Even among Republicans, 35 percent opposed continuing military funding. A poll commissioned by my organization, conducted by YouGov in August, found that 80 percent of likely Democratic primary voters in Michigan believe Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The vast majority of likely Democratic primary voters in the other early-voting states believe this, including 57 percent in South Carolina, 78 percent in Nevada, 78 percent in New Hampshire, 76 percent in New Mexico and 72 percent in Virginia. It is a new political reality that we have seen play out over the last year, beginning with New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani’s election victory. Since then, champions for Palestinian rights have succeeded against the odds, often in the face of millions of dollars spent against them by AIPAC and its allies, to win primaries in California, Florida, New Jersey, Philadelphia, New York City, Denver and Detroit. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that the question of our country’s relationship to Israel and to Palestinians will define the 2028 Democratic primary for president — and potentially the Republican presidential primary as well. Trump recently claimed, without providing details, that he would end annual taxpayer funding to Israel’s military, a sign of how toxic that ritual has become. But voter demands go much further. Democratic contenders in particular will have to grapple with a voter base that strongly supports imposing sanctions and stopping all weapons deliveries to Israel, regardless of whether the weapons are paid for by American taxpayers or the Israeli government. Across party divides, voters are seeing the contradiction between the American people’s interests and the demands of the Israeli government, in part due to Trump’s disastrous decision to launch the Iran war, a longtime goal of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Rising gas prices resulting from the Iran war were top of mind for voters in this midterm election that has cost Republicans both houses of Congress. For Palestinian Americans like myself, this awakening has been long overdue. We have spent decades trying to explain that Palestinian rights are not a far-away concern. They are a question that gets to the heart of our nation’s commitment to universal human rights and the credibility of our democracy. It fills us with grief that it took Israel’s killing of more than 70,000 Palestinians in Gaza, including more than 20,000 children, to force the reckoning that might finally bring about real change. Multiple independent United Nations commissions, and many human rights organizations, have determined Israel’s actions in Gaza constitute genocide. The president of the International Court of Justice wrote in 2024 that Israel’s discriminatory laws and measures against Palestinians are “tantamount to the crime of apartheid.” The American people increasingly agree. El-Sayed’s victory carries a message for Washington: The bipartisan consensus that has so long denied Palestinians freedom and equality is no longer the consensus of the American people. They want leaders now who will chart a new path that takes Palestinian freedom as its north star. For those of us who have spent decades fighting to make that possible, this is not the end of the struggle. It is evidence that the struggle has changed our politics for good. Margaret DeReus is executive director of the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media Inc. All rights reserved. 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