JTA — California state Senator Scott Wiener handily won his primary race to replace retiring former US House speaker Nancy Pelosi in Congress on Tuesday, in a race that saw his relationships with the local Jewish community tested.
He will face San Francisco Supervisor Connie Chan, who placed second with Pelosi’s endorsement, in November’s general election, which under state law will be held between the top two vote-getters regardless of party.
Saikat Chakrabarti, a progressive former aide to Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who ran to Wiener’s left on Israel and who campaigned with the anti-Israel influencer Hasan Piker, failed to make the ballot.
With 50% of votes tallied as of Wednesday morning, the Associated Press called the race for Wiener and Chan. Wiener took 41% of the vote, with Chan at 28% and Chakrabarti a distant third at 15%.
“Tonight, the voters sent a clear message: they’re ready for a new vision on housing affordability, ICE accountability, smart guardrails on AI, single payer healthcare, and affordable clean energy,” Wiener wrote on X in a victory statement that did not mention Israel. The senator said he would tackle “rising authoritarianism” and “defend immigrants and trans people” if elected to Congress. In his victory speech, Wiener decried US President Donald Trump’s “disastrous wars.”
Get The Times of Israel’s Daily Edition
by email and never miss our top stories
By signing up, you agree to the terms
Over the course of the campaign, Wiener, like his two top rivals, concluded that he believed Israel had committed genocide in Gaza. His remarks upset his local Jewish constituents and cost him the leadership role with the statehouse’s Jewish caucus, but some local Jews still urged their community to back him.
“It is a hard year to be a lefty Jew running for Congress,” Wiener told news outlets during the campaign.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and her then-chief of staff Saikat Chakrabarti walk back together after joining other members of the freshman class of Congress for a group photo on Capitol Hill in Washington, November 14, 2018. (AP Photo/Pablo Martinez Monsivais)
The race was roiled in its final day by disputed reports that pro-Israel PACs, including AIPAC and Democratic Majority For Israel, were secretly funneling money to Chan via an elaborate shell game. A person familiar with DMFI’s thinking denied the reports to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency and said the group’s PAC wasn’t spending for Chan. A representative for AIPAC did not return a request for comment.
Candidates backed by Jewish and pro-Israel groups had a mixed record in other House primary races in the state.
A pro-Israel challenger to progressive Rep. Ro Khanna, entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal, was lagging far behind two GOP challengers in the 17th District as of Wednesday morning. The AP has yet to call a second-place finisher, but Khanna’s lead positions him to potentially avoid a runoff.
In the 14th District to replace disgraced Rep. Eric Swalwell, entrepreneur Rakhi Israni (who had the backing of Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action) was similarly trailing far behind other candidates. State Sen. Aisha Wahab, the daughter of Afghan refugees who has worked with Jewish groups on refugee issues while also taking a tough line on Israel, clinched the top spot with more than 34% of the vote.
DMFI-backed San Diego council member Marni von Wilpert bested her Democratic rival Ammar Campa-Najjar — the grandson of a Palestine Liberation Organization founder — in the 48th District primary, and will go on to face Republican Jim Desmond, the top vote-getter, in the general.
The 22nd District primary race in the Central Valley, in which DMFI had spent heavily in favor of moderate state assembly member Jasmeet Bains, remained too close to call Wednesday morning between Bains and progressive school board member Randy Villegas. The race, seen as a bellwether for Democrats nationally in a district they hope to flip, turned ugly as DMFI-backed attack ads drew on Villegas’s alleged role in a school district sexual assault settlement. Bains had walked back her stance that Israel committed genocide after DMFI got involved in the race. Villegas was ahead at press time.
Discover Israel’s most beloved poet
She died more than four decades ago, but Leah Goldberg remains a magnetic and enigmatic figure: Israel’s most beloved poet, a powerful woman who lived with her mother and never married, who reinvented herself from the ashes of World War I through her magical writing.
You can screen ‘The Five Houses of Leah Goldberg’ June 4-11. Join The Times of Israel Community today to support our work and watch this and other outstanding documentary films in our DocuNation series.
Already a member? Sign in to stop seeing this
You’re a dedicated reader
That’s why we started the Times of Israel – to provide discerning readers like you with must-read coverage of Israel and the Jewish world.
So now we have a request. Unlike other news outlets, we haven’t put up a paywall. But as the journalism we do is costly, we invite readers for whom The Times of Israel has become important to help support our work by joining The Times of Israel Community.
For as little as $6 a month you can help support our quality journalism while enjoying The Times of Israel AD-FREE, as well as accessing exclusive content available only to Times of Israel Community members.
Thank you,
David Horovitz, Founding Editor of The Times of Israel