On Tuesday, voters across five U.S. states headed to the polls for Democratic Party primary elections, and while candidates debated a range of domestic and national security issues, the ongoing conflict in Gaza and U.S. policy toward Iran emerged as the most contentious fault line reshaping campaign outcomes. Although results varied widely from state to state, the contests left a mixed picture of how Democratic voters are responding to candidates’ stances on these explosive foreign policy questions.
The most closely watched and consequential result of the night unfolded in Michigan, where progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, former director of the Wayne County Health Department, edged out incumbent U.S. Representative Haley Stevens by a razor-thin one-percentage-point margin to secure the Democratic nomination for the state’s open U.S. Senate seat. El-Sayed secured 48.5% of the vote to Stevens’ 47.5%, capping a campaign that centered not just on progressive healthcare reform, but also on hardline shifts in immigration and foreign policy. El-Sayed campaigned on a promise to cut off U.S. military aid to Israel, abolish U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement, and end what he framed as the Trump administration’s unauthorized war against Iran, warning that the conflict puts American lives at unnecessary risk by expanding regional instability without congressional approval.
In contrast, Stevens ran a campaign highlighting Israel’s right to self-defense and argued in favor of continuing U.S. taxpayer-funded military support for the country. She drew heavy endorsements from mainstream Democratic Party establishment figures and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful pro-Israel lobbying group, and adopted a hawkish position on Iran’s nuclear program and regional influence. El-Sayed’s unapologetic criticism of U.S. policy in the Middle East struck a particular chord with the large Arab American and Muslim voting bloc concentrated in Wayne County, which includes Detroit, Dearborn, and Hamtramck. Though former President Donald Trump made unexpected gains among Wayne County voters in the 2024 presidential election—even earning an endorsement from Hamtramck’s Yemeni American mayor—former Vice President Kamala Harris still carried the county by a comfortable margin in that contest.
In Missouri, the Democratic establishment delivered a clear win over anti-Israel foreign policy critics. Incumbent U.S. Representative Wesley Bell, a former St. Louis County prosecutor, defeated former congresswoman Cori Bush by a lopsided 22.3-point margin, with 59.2% of voters backing Bell to Bush’s 36.9%. The result blocked Bush’s bid to return to Congress after she lost the same seat in the 2024 election. Bush was one of the most prominent and outspoken congressional voices calling for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, and she centered her entire campaign on her opposition to what she framed as Israeli genocide in Gaza and U.S. aggression toward Iran. Bell, by contrast, ran on a platform of unwavering, ironclad support for Israel and secured formal backing from AIPAC.
In Kansas, Democratic primary voters nominated state Senator Cindy Holscher for the open U.S. Senate seat, while Republicans selected state Insurance Commissioner Vicki Schmidt to face her in the general election. The matchup sets up one of the most competitive Senate races of the cycle in a state that has been dominated by Republican control for nearly a century. Unlike the closely fought contest in Michigan, foreign policy played almost no role in Kansas’s Democratic primary, with candidates instead focusing their platforms on rural development, agricultural policy, and abortion rights.
Virginia’s Democratic primary saw only one candidate on the ballot: former state governor and incumbent Democratic Senator Mark Warner, who leaned into his decades of experience on the Senate Intelligence Committee and framed his campaign around a focus on national security. Warner is a well-known staunch supporter of Israel and has received consistent backing from AIPAC. He has criticized the Trump administration for failing to consult Congress before launching military action against Iran, while also warning that Iran’s nuclear program poses a major ongoing threat to U.S. and global security. On the Republican side, voters picked retired Army Major General Bert Mizusawa, a former campaign advisor to Donald Trump, out of a crowded field of GOP candidates. Virginia has not elected a Republican to the U.S. Senate since 2002, making Warner a narrow favorite in the general election.
Finally, in Washington state, incumbent Democratic Congresswoman Marie Gluesenkamp Perez successfully fended off a primary challenge from progressive candidate Brent Hennrich. Gluesenkamp Perez was endorsed by AIPAC, while Hennrich built his entire primary campaign around opposition to the lobbying group’s influence over U.S. politics. This report was produced by Middle East Eye, an outlet that provides independent, in-depth coverage of the Middle East, North Africa, and global affairs connected to the region.