The anti-Israel segments of both political parties took some solace in Tuesday’s election results, even though the New York City mayoral race was the only one in which the Jewish state really featured as a campaign issue.
The Democrats had a massively successful Election Night. Some conservatives believe this was enabled by the intramural debate over Tucker Carlson and the performative Nazi lawn ornaments he platforms like Nick Fuentes. To be clear, these conservatives are blaming the anti-Nazi wing of the movement for supposedly losing sight of what’s really important: owning the libs.
Meanwhile, Democratic primary candidates are seeking to reverse the success that moderates had knocking anti-Zionists out of Congress in the last cycle. Wesley Bell, a Missouri congressman who defeated the Squad’s Cori Bush, now faces a rematch with Bush.
And Michael Blake, a Democrat who likes to run for office (any office) has declared his intention to challenge Rep. Ritchie Torres in the party primary. Blake is not an impressive candidate, no matter which office he’s running for. (He also ran for New York mayor.) But the ability of the Palestine-whisperers to take out more experienced, policy-focused incumbents—especially in New York—can’t be dismissed.
One lesson Blake appears to be learning from Zohran Mamdani’s victory is that one can now wear one’s anti-Zionist obsession on one’s sleeve. Blake intends to make his candidacy against Torres entirely about Torres’s support for the Jewish state, and he has produced a bonkers announcement video to that end.
Blake’s video begins with a progressive influencer who defended the man who murdered two people at the Capitol Jewish Museum. It then moves to Blake saying “Since 2021, Richie Torres has represented New York’s 15th congressional district, the poorest congressional district in America. In 2025, Richie has nearly $15 million on hand, largely from AIPAC, while many of his constituents barely have $15 to get by.”
This is a rather extreme version of an already-despicable argument: that Jewish money is a reason for non-Jewish misery. Then we see some rich white celebrities calling Torres a sellout—always a classy move. At one point, the video puts dollar signs over Torres’s eyes while playing clips of internet users complaining about Torres’s support for Israel.
We see a clip of former Rep. Jamaal Bowman, an anti-Zionist nutjob who lost his spot in Congress to a normal Democrat, calling Ritchie Torres a “wack motherf***er.” (That remark happened to be from June in response to DropSite News, the clearinghouse for Hamas talking points, begging Bowman to primary Torres.) After Bowman’s clip, it’s back to Blake saying “Ritchie Torres cares more about Bibi than he cares about the Bronx.” As this line is recited, the video puts a picture of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and a picture of Ritchie Torres next to each other. Torres’s picture has hearts superimposed over his eyes as he “looks” at Bibi, an unsubtle dig at the fact that Torres is openly gay.
And on it goes. The ad is two full minutes of cartoonish innuendo and dog whistles.
It’s worth pointing out that Torres, while certainly pro-Israel, also fights anti-Semitism within his own party. That is what makes him such a target. It also means this Torres-Bibi stuff is a red herring. (Torres has strongly criticized Netanyahu.) When Torres talks about anti-Semitism, he is fighting for his Jewish constituents in the Bronx. Torres’s critics—apparently Blake included—see Jews as foreigners even in America. So they pretend his support for Jewish civil rights is solely about Israel.
If this is how Blake is launching his campaign, I can only imagine how ugly his tactics are going to get. Buckle up.
