The 2026 midterm elections resulted in what Alice Speri describes as an "unequivocal rejection" of Donald Trump’s brand of politics and a "thumping rebuke" of the US-Israel relationship. Even President Trump seemed to recognize that the relationship had become a "political liability," making an 11th-hour suggestion on election morning that he would cut military aid to Israel at the end of the year because, as he put it, “they don’t need it.”
This suggestion was condemned across the board; pro-Palestinian advocates dismissed it as “desperate,” while pro-Israel ones called it “unserious.” Trump also suggested replacing nearly $4bn in annual military aid with arms sales, a move Speri notes signaled little would change in practice—the funding would continue and it would be harder to track.
The shift in sentiment follows the war in Gaza, which has killed more than 70,000 Palestinians and has been widely described as a genocide. The election results reflect a reshaping of US politics. In the upcoming January session, the US House will include a diverse group of representatives, including an army doctor who went on a medical mission in Gaza, a lawyer who was fired by her firm over a blogpost criticizing Israel’s war, a Jewish lawmaker who was recently detained by Israeli forces while helping Palestinians harvest olives in the occupied West Bank, and a community organizer who participated in a pro-Palestine student encampment and scored one of the primary season’s most stunning upsets under the banner “babies, not bombs.”
A significant shift occurred in Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed became the first Muslim to be elected to the US Senate. His victory came despite more than $40m spent by Aipac in an effort to defeat him and "unprecedented levels of Islamophobic rhetoric and bigotry." During his acceptance speech, El-Sayed stated, “They try to call you hateful if you believe that Palestinian kids should get to grow up in the land of their forefathers without being murdered by our tax dollars. If you believe in equal rights to peace, dignity, and self determination, that’s not hate, it’s love.”
