Local elections across the United States are deepening an unusual political dilemma for Jewish voters, as races in Washington, Oklahoma and Los Angeles are shaped by Donald Trump and by candidates seen as either hostile to Israel from the left or extreme on the right. The starkest case came Tuesday night in Washington, DC, where early results in the Democratic primary for mayor showed progressive council member Janeese Lewis George, 38, with a commanding lead and likely on course to win the general election in one of America’s most Democratic cities.
Lewis George, nicknamed the “Mamdani of Washington,” had about 53% of the vote to moderate Democrat Kenyan McDuffie’s 37%. Final counting will take days because of ranked-choice tabulation and a large number of mail ballots, but she already told supporters, “What seemed like a distant dream is now becoming history unfolding before our eyes.” Trump had warned a week before voting that he strongly opposed a socialist becoming mayor and suggested his administration could take over Washington’s self-rule and run the city directly. Lewis George said that threatening to strip local government based on personal views of candidates was an attack on democracy, and she vowed to stand up to Trump and not surrender city autonomy out of fear.
Her expected victory has alarmed many Washington Jews because a questionnaire from the Democratic Socialists of America, the group that backed Zohran Mamdani, showed her saying she would avoid events promoting Zionism and would not work with the Israeli government or pro-Israel lobbying groups. Jewish leaders called the DSA demands an “antisemitic manifesto.” Lewis George also held private meetings with rabbis but did not directly answer questions about Zionism. The campaign’s political director, Mackia Green, also faced scrutiny after posting after October 7 that Israel was a “fictional country” and “dog, so bad,” while expressing support for BDS and for the Houthis.
In Oklahoma, Republican voters in the heavily red First Congressional District, which includes Tulsa, sent state Rep. Mark Tedford and pastor Jackson Lahmeyer to a runoff at the end of August for Kevin Hern’s open House seat. Lahmeyer, 34, founder of “Pastors for Trump,” is a prominent evangelical ally who got Trump’s endorsement as a “real MAGA warrior,” but he finished six points behind Tedford. His campaign was also hurt by leaked “intimate” text messages to a former fundraiser, which he admitted sending but said were taken out of context, and by later allegations of infidelity, which he said had been addressed privately with his wife, Kendra.
In Los Angeles, progressive council member Nithya Raman, 44, advanced to November’s mayoral runoff against incumbent Karen Bass after a long and volatile count. Raman, an Indian-American urban planner educated at Harvard and MIT, drew intense criticism from many Jews in the city after saying she agreed with claims that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza and, when asked directly, answering “yes” to whether Israel is an apartheid state. She also said Benjamin Netanyahu’s government “does not treat human beings as human beings” and said she would no longer seek the backing of the liberal pro-Israel group Democrats for Israel. She narrowly overtook pro-Israel former reality TV figure Spencer Pratt, after entering the race only hours before the filing deadline. Many Jewish and Israeli residents now say they feel trapped between Bass’s poor governance and Raman’s radical politics.
