Israel, after a long, devastating war in Gaza, has become so unpopular among many voters in the Democratic base that major candidates in top primaries are using even small connections to the country’s political leaders to hit their opponents.

One Illinois Democratic operative involved in this year’s primaries has dredged up a 2019 trip that Illinois U.S. Senate candidate Juliana Stratton took to Israel to meet with the then-leader of the Israeli opposition Tzipi Livni. The operative, who was granted anonymity because they feared getting blacklisted from future political campaigns, went even further back citing a decade-old plus arrest warrant a British court issued related to a weeks-long conflict with Gaza that started in December 2008. And one of Stratton’s opponents has gone on the record criticizing the trip.

Livni, of course, is one of Netanyahu’s top critics and is solidly on the left in Israel. She is a vocal advocate of a Palestinian state aside a secure Israel despite support for a two-state solution in Israel falling precipitously in recent years. And she has met with numerous Democratic politicians over the years, including Joe Biden in 2010, Barack Obama in 2013 and a congressional delegation led by Nancy Pelosi in 2018.

Despite that record, Illinois Senate primary opponent Rep. Robin Kelly (D-Ill.) said that Stratton’s 2019 meeting with Livni raises questions about her leadership.

“Illinois voters believe that judgement matters,” she said in a statement to Blue Light News when asked about Stratton’s Livni meeting. “Juliana Stratton owes them an explanation.”

Kelly sees her stance on Livni as one of her progressive bona fides.

“When I first ran for office I made a promise that nothing would compromise my ability to look myself in the mirror each day, and I’ve spent my career standing up and speaking out against injustice,” she said. “I’m the only candidate to call what happened in Gaza a genocide, reject AIPAC money, and refuse ICE-contractor cash.”

Kelly’s views on Israel’s conduct in Gaza have also shifted since she entered the Senate race in May. Kelly and Stratton, who is backed by Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, are facing Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (D-Ill.), the frontrunner in the March 17 primary. Less than a year ago, Kelly even accepted donations from pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, and she’s been to Israel numerous times as part of congressional trips. In January, Kelly said she wouldn’t take AIPAC money again.

Even tangential ties to the longtime U.S. ally are likely to become campaign issues across the country as the conflict with Iran intensifies into a regional conflagration. All three candidates following the strikes on Iran were quick to condemn the joint U.S.-Israeli action, citing what they believed was Trump’s overreach and swift action without congressional approval. Other Democrats have voiced concern that Trump’s decision could plunge the U.S. into another protracted war in the Middle East.

A Gallup poll released Friday found that around two-thirds of Democrats sympathize more with the Palestinians with only around 20 percent saying they are aligned with Israelis, down from half of Democrats being pro-Israel in 2016. Nearly 50 percent of Democrats even had an unfavorable view of the Israeli people, while the same amount had a favorable view, according to a Pew poll taken in September.

Stratton is not the only Democratic candidate who has been criticized by rivals for ties to Israel. In the Michigan Senate race, Abdul El-Sayed has blasted rival Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) for being a vocal advocate of Israel and protesters have shown up to her office to denounce donations she’s received from AIPAC. Rep. Jasmine Crockett (D-Texas), whose Senate primary is Tuesday, has also been forced to defend herself for voting to fund defensive weapons for Israel.

Stratton, the current lieutenant governor of Illinois, went to Israel as part of the “2019 Influential Women in Leadership Delegation” organized by the America-Israel Friendship League and the Israeli Ministry of Foreign Affairs. A video from the organization shows her meeting with Livni, the former vice prime minister and foreign affairs minister.

In 2009, a British court issued an arrest warrant for Livni over accusations of war crimes in Gaza for her role during Operation Cast Lead. She was a member of the Israeli war cabinet during the conflict, which Palestinian authorities and an Israeli human rights organization said killed hundreds of Palestinian civilians.

She was supposed to give a speech in London at the time but later cancelled her trip. The warrant was withdrawn after the court found out that she wasn’t in the U.K. and the British government formally apologized to her for the arrest warrant.

She also had told Palestinian counterparts in 2007 during negotiations that even though she was the justice minister, “I am against law – international law in particular” and that “Palestinians don’t really need international law.”

Livni’s office has said she was “proud of all her decisions regarding Operation Cast Lead” and that the conflict achieved its objectives to protect Israel and restore Israel’s deterrence from Hamas rocket attacks from Gaza.

The America-Israel Friendship League, the Israeli Foreign Affairs Ministry and Livni didn’t respond to requests for comment.

Although Israel has yet to become a leading issue in the campaign, at a recent debate Stratton said she wanted to “see the suffering end” in the region and said that Netanyahu should step down.

Asked about the trip, a Stratton campaign spokesperson said in an email that the Livni meeting was “a group meeting that took place on a delegation trip promoting women in leadership coordinated by a third party – Juliana did not arrange the meeting and was one of several participants.” The spokesperson reiterated that she supports a two-state solution and “wants to see lasting peace in the region.”

This reporting first appeared in Illinois Playbook. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every weekday.

On Jan. 6, 2021, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton declared to a raucous crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters, many of whom were moments away from storming the U.S. Capitol: “We will not quit fighting.”

Five years later, Paxton’s fighting spirit has him poised to unseat a 24-year incumbent.

It’s been a steady journey. As Texas’ top lawyer, Paxton became a hero of the far right by using rapid-fire lawsuits to spearhead their most important causes, from expanding religious influence in schools to attempting to overturn the results of the 2020 election. He presented himself as a foil to the Obama and Biden administrations, filing more than 100 lawsuits over issues like immigration and environmental regulations. And he continues to steer the power of his office toward investigating alleged election irregularities, particularly in Democratic-led cities like Houston.

On Tuesday, the MAGA grassroots that fueled his rise will reach its apex of influence so far: Paxton is well-positioned to finish first against John Cornyn in the GOP primary for his Senate seat, despite being saddled with tons of political baggage and targeted by millions of dollars in attack ads.

The bare-knuckle Senate primary is likely headed to a runoff, dragging out the party’s own angst over generational change.

For the far-right in Texas, Paxton’s arc shows the ascendent strength of their movement, which has pushed Republican leaders toward adopting increasingly conservative positions. For Cornyn, it means the potential end of his long career in the Senate, and the near-extinction of establishment Republicans within the party.

“Ken Paxton is more than just an attorney general that’s been MAGA. He is a symbol of the heart of the grassroots MAGA movement,” said Steve Bannon, the former senior adviser to Trump and War Room host who has been broadcasting his popular show from a rented ranch in North Texas in the days leading up to the election.

“He’s resilient because folks here know he has fought the good fight for years and years and years,” Bannon said. “He has resilience because people know where his heart is, and he’s a fighter.”

Cornyn is in serious trouble

The MAGA movement is tenacious in protecting its own and knifing its Republican rivals. Paxton has survived an impeachment by the GOP-controlled state House, a federal securities fraud investigation and slew of ethics complaints. Three months after beginning his Senate campaign last year, Paxton’s wife filed for divorce, alleging an extramarital affair. His competitors — including Cornyn, who has said Paxton is too unethical to serve in public office — have hammered his trail of scandals.

And still he’s the front-runner.

Paxton has continued to lead in polling — from even before he launched — despite a concerted effort by Republicans in Washington to boost Cornyn.

“Ideally you want a saint to be your elected leader, and that is something we all hope and pray for one of these days,” said Bo French, former chair of the Tarrant County Republican party, who is running for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission. “But until that happens, we need people who are going to be warriors for the cause. And he is seen and beloved among Republican primary voters in Texas as a warrior.”

Cornyn knows the strong headwinds he’s facing, conceding that the composition of primary voters doesn’t reflect his usual base of support. Many Texas Republicans remain angry with the senator for voting in favor of a bipartisan gun control package after the Uvalde school shooting that left 19 children and two teachers dead. Cornyn was famously booed onstage at the Texas GOP convention in 2022.

“If only the most radical people show up in the primary … then I think that’s going to be a challenge,” Cornyn said in an interview Saturday with CBS. His other primary opponent, Rep. Wesley Hunt, who is also running a campaign appealing to the far right, said on X that Cornyn’s comments show he has “lost touch with the people you’re supposed to represent” and “your contempt for the voters of Texas is exactly why your career is coming to an end.”

Trump has not endorsed in the race, throwing a wrench into any MAGA pickup Cornyn could get — or that could put Paxton over the line. At an event in Corpus Christi last week, Trump said he had “pretty much” decided who to support, but did not reveal that pick.

Democrats believe Paxton’s baggage makes him beatable in the general election, a view shared by many national Republicans, including Senate Majority Leader John Thune, who is working to keep Cornyn in the GOP caucus.

Kendall Scudder, chair of the Texas Democratic Party, said Paxton jeopardizes Republicans at every level of the ticket. “Every one of these top-tier Republicans in the state is wildly unpopular, and they’ll be led by Ken Paxton,” he said. “That’s what puts a lot of these different seats in interesting hands.”

The MAGA vs. establishment fight has been years in the making

Paxton has endured years of legal and personal scrutiny. He also kept winning.

Texas Republicans have repeatedly reelected both Cornyn to the Senate and Paxton as attorney general, backing the leaders of both wings of the party. But recent elections have shown the growing strength of the MAGA faction.

Paxton’s reelections have been aided by the deep coffers of Texas megadonors like Tim Dunn and the Wilks brothers in addition to his hyper-conservative supporters. In 2022, he was challenged by Land Commissioner George P. Bush — the relativegrandson of former Presidents George H.W. Bush and George W. Bush.

Bush tried to sell conservative voters on his vision to restore integrity to the attorney general’s office at a time when Paxton was facing years of securities fraud investigations and bribery allegations. It’s a playbook Paxton allies say Cornyn is reusing.

Voters seemed to prefer Paxton’s combative style. Paxton thumped Bush by a two-to-one margin in that year’s run-off, the clearest sign yet that voters were siding with the MAGA wing and rejecting the old-school establishment.

In 2022, Paxton agreed to pay restitution and perform community service to settle the securities fraud case, which was brought over allegations that he duped investors in a tech startup. The Justice Department, in the final weeks of the Biden administration, decided not to prosecute Paxton over the remaining bribery charges. That eventually led the GOP-heavy Texas House to impeach him before the Senate voted to acquit.

As scrutiny over Paxton intensified within the Texas Republican Party, he cast himself as a martyr, a victim of spurious probes that not only threatened him, but also the integrity of the MAGA base. For the far-right, Paxton’s impeachment acquittal only further strengthened his parallels to Trump.

The onslaught energized his supporters. State Rep. Gary Gates, a Republican, learned that firsthand when he publicly recanted his vote to impeach Paxton after dealing with blowback from the base.

“There was a certain faction of those that support him that were rather upset,” said Gates, who represents a suburban district outside of Houston. “You have to deal with that political reality.”

Paxton often brags that he was one of the few Republicans to attend Trump’s campaign launch at Mar-A-Lago in 2022, when many in the party had abandoned him following the violent insurrection in the U.S. Capitol.

“When you try to take out somebody like those two guys who have fought for our values, and the whole world is weaponized against them, the people are ride-or-die,” said Aaron Reitz, a former deputy in Paxton’s office who, with his backing, is running to succeed him.

“I hope that the establishment wing of the GOP would learn a similar lesson when they have tried to take out Trump, which is they are not in control of this party,” Reitz said. “The grassroots, the people, are in control of the party, and they have to stop spending their millions.”

How Paxton got here

Paxton’s deep base of support is built in part from his lawsuits against frequent targets of the right — high-profile cases that were splashed on the front pages of local newspapers from Beaumont to Amarillo. Throughout his decade as Texas’ top lawyer, Paxton oversaw the Lone Star State’s transformation into an incubator for ultra conservatives issues, from defending abortion restrictions to warning that Muslims will attempt to introduce Islamic law in Texas.

At a recent campaign event in the Houston suburbs as early voting was underway, Paxton ticked off his courtroom successes to a group gathered at a “safari ranch” in Richmond with roaming peacocks, zebras and goats.

Paxton, speaking to the crowd of about 75 supporters, recounted the beginning of his career, starting with when he decided to run for attorney general during his first term in the state legislature because he viewed former President Barack Obama as “a really epic threat” who relied excessively on executive orders to bypass Congress.

In his first AG race, Paxton rode the wave of the Tea Party insurgency to topple an establishment Republican backed by former President George W. Bush. Paxton told the audience, to chuckles, that he sued Obama 27 times in the 22 months they overlapped.

After Obama left office and Trump took his place, Paxton turned his sights away from the White House and toward Silicon Valley. He sued Google (“who was doing really bad things”), Facebook (“we got a lot of money from them”), Twitter (“before Elon”) and Pfizer (“they lied about the vaccine”).

Then Paxton became fixated on probing voter fraud allegations, making him an instrumental figure in Trump’s unsuccessful efforts to overthrow the results of the 2020 election. He even filed a case directly with the Supreme Court seeking to invalidate election results in Pennsylvania and other battleground states — though the justices rejected his attempt, ruling Texas did not have standing.

When Joe Biden was sworn in, Paxton picked back up his onslaught against the federal government. Then Trump was reelected in 2024, Paxton said, and he “felt like I didn’t have a mission. I’d done my three different missions. I felt like 12 years was enough.”

“And I looked around,” Paxton told the crowd, “and I saw a guy: John Cornyn.”

Adam Wren contributed reporting.