Good Wednesday morning.

In today’s Daily Kickoff, we look at the Democratic primary in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District, where two moderate Democrats and a far-left activist are in a close three-way race for the seat, and report on comments by Florida Democratic Senate candidate Alex Vindman to the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus calling out rising left-wing antisemitism. We have the scoop on a letter from House Democrats calling on the State Department to pressure Malaysia to reverse its plan to deport Israelis, and cover last night’s tribute by Jewish groups to the late Sen. Lindsey Graham. Also in today’s Daily Kickoff: Dave Portnoy, Salman Rushdie and Sen. Dave McCormick.

Ed note: In observance of Tisha B’av, the next Daily Kickoff will arrive on Friday, July 24. 

We have also launched a new on-demand Live Briefing that you can access throughout the day via our new app (on Apple and Android) and on our website.

Today’s Daily Kickoff was curated by JI Executive Editor Melissa Weiss and Israel Editor Tamara Zieve, with an assist from Danielle Cohen-Kanik. Have a tip? Email us here.

So far, the success of far-left, anti-Israel candidates has been confined to Democratic primaries in deep-blue districts largely in big cities or college towns. The biggest test ahead for the socialist movement is whether it can prevail in primaries outside its geographic base, and more importantly, if such candidates can win general elections in battleground states or districts. 

All of the available evidence and recent history suggests that nominating extreme candidates in enough key races would threaten Democrats’ chances of winning a Senate majority and would dampen the party’s pickup potential in the House.  

Indeed, the victories by radical nominees in recent House primaries — combined with the high-profile collapse of the like-minded Graham Platner’s Maine Senate campaign — are already doing damage to the Democratic Party’s brand.

Looking at the big picture: In poll after poll, Democrats are now underperforming expectations on the generic congressional ballot — and have lost notable ground over Republicans in the last month alone. 

In his analysis of congressional polling, Nate Silver documented that the Democrats’ advantage on the generic ballot in the polling average declined by one point since June, from seven points to six. At this point in the 2018 cycle, the Democrats’ generic ballot advantage was close to eight points, according to Silver’s analysis. 

Democrats still hold a decided edge, but the massive blue wave that could have emerged in this year’s midterms is now looking a bit more modest. That means it’s much more difficult for Democrats to overcome their partisan disadvantage in the red states they need to retake the Senate, while Republicans may have some outside hope that redistricting and enough flawed Democratic candidates could keep the House majority in play.

Read the rest of 'What You Should Know' here.

The Democratic primary in Michigan’s 7th Congressional District — a Lansing-area swing seat key to Democrats’ hopes for taking back the House — has turned into a three-way battle between two moderate Democrats with national security backgrounds and a far-left activist who has emerged as a contender for the nomination despite repeated controversies over extremist comments, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. 

On the campaign trail: Matt Maasdam, a former Navy SEAL, has leaned into his background as a veteran and a military aide to former President Barack Obama who carried the nuclear football. Bridget Brink, a career foreign service officer, is highlighting her service as U.S. ambassador to Ukraine from 2022 to 2025. William Lawrence, the progressive backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), is a co-founder of the Sunrise Movement, which bills itself as leading “the climate revolution” but also embraces other left-wing causes. Adrian Hemond, a Michigan political strategist, said he expects the race to be close, predicting that the three candidates could all finish within several points of each other. 

Read the full story here.

Endorsement watch: Former Secretary of State Tony Blinken endorsed Brink on Monday, calling her “a tireless and fearless advocate for American values and interests around the world.”

Alexander Vindman, a former Army officer who became nationally known as a National Security Council whistleblower during the first Trump administration and is now running for Senate in Florida as a Democrat, called out rising antisemitism and anti-Israel sentiment on the left in a Zoom meeting with the Florida Democratic Party Jewish Caucus on Tuesday, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

What he said: “I've become used to the right-wing, nationalist, nativist, antisemitic tone, but I'm really shocked about what I'm seeing from the far left — the DSA wing, that is deeply troubling,” Vindman, who is Jewish and who fled the Soviet Union as a child, said. “It is not simply criticism of Israel but a conflation of Israel and Judaism, and a rise of antisemitism within what should be a portion of our own big tent.”

Read the full story here.

The College Democrats of America’s decision to platform far-left, antisemitic influencer Hasan Piker at its recent conference was “a direct threat to Jewish safety and inclusion,” the group’s Jewish Caucus said on Tuesday. Piker, who has a long-standing history of antisemitic rhetoric, was announced on Friday as the convention’s “surprise speaker,” just hours before it began, Jewish Insider’s Haley Cohen reports.

Platform problems: CDA is the official collegiate arm and student outreach branch of the Democratic National Committee. “The normalization of Piker and his rhetoric in CDA-sanctioned programming is a direct threat to Jewish safety and inclusion within the College Democrats community,” the CDA Jewish Caucus said in a statement. “Elevating Piker at this convention sent Jewish students a clear message that they were not welcome.”

Read the full story here.

Secretary of Defense Pete Hegseth indicated at a Senate Appropriations Committee hearing on Tuesday that the U.S. military has the capacity to destroy Iran’s Pickaxe Mountain, the underground site suspected of housing elements of Tehran’s nuclear program, following a series of threats by President Donald Trump to strike the site, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports.

Weapons worries: The facility is buried inside a mountain in a manner that experts believe would be difficult to fully destroy, even with the heavy munitions used by the U.S. to target Iran’s Fordow and Natanz facilities last summer. “A lot of our capabilities are classified,” Hegseth said, in response to a question about whether the U.S. has the capacity to destroy the facility. “But if anybody in the world can reach anything on God's green earth, it’s the United States military, the most powerful military in the world. It's all about options and trade-offs.” 

Read the full story here.

Trump talk: “We’ll be hitting that area probably pretty soon. There’s not a thing they can do about it,” Trump said from the Oval Office on Tuesday, when asked about a Wall Street Journal report that Israeli intelligence shared with the U.S. indicated that Iran moved thousands of centrifuges into the Pickaxe Mountain site last fall, JI’s Emily Jacobs reports.

A group of House Democrats urged Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday to pressure Malaysia to walk back plans to deport Israeli citizens by leveraging U.S. military assistance to the Southeast Asian nation, Jewish Insider’s Marc Rod reports. Malaysia’s prime minister said last week that the country, which does not recognize Israel and does not permit Israeli passport holders to enter the country, would immediately deport any Israeli nationals in the country. 

Pushing back: The comments came in response to a report that Israeli dual citizens were participating in a technology retreat in the country, having entered using other passports. “For millennia, Jews around the world have seen this playbook. The demonization and expulsion of Jews eventually leads to the worst case outcomes. It is necessary that the United States push back on this antisemitism,” the Democrats, led by Reps. Greg Landsman (D-OH) and Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), said in a letter to Rubio.

Read the full story here.

Former Sen. Norm Coleman (R-MN), chairman of the Republican Jewish Coalition, announced during a virtual memorial organized by Jewish groups to honor the late Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) on Tuesday evening that the RJC would award its inaugural Lindsey Graham Statesman Award at the group’s yearly leadership summit in August, Jewish Insider’s Emily Jacobs reports.

Lindsey's legacy: “To our Jewish community, Lindsey was more than an ally. He was family and he said so himself. Reflecting once on how our community had rallied around him, he put it simply, ‘We are family,’ and he meant it,” Coleman said. Dr. Miriam Adelson, who joined the memorial, shared that Graham had once opted to meet tourists in the Adelsons’ Las Vegas Sands property rather than gamble in the VIP room. “Instead of playing, he was meeting people,” Adelson said of Graham. “Lindsey loved people, and they loved him from the left, from the right. He was a fantastic person.”

Read the full story here.

Ground Game: In The Atlantic, Jamie Kirchick examines how the Democratic Socialists of America has made deep inroads in the Democratic Party. “The DSA’s supporters and critics both agree that its members devote enormous time and energy to on-the-ground organizing. … For this reason, among others, some Democrats see DSA members as potential allies. ‘DSA members are doing the one thing Democrats can barely do anymore, especially at the local level, which is organize,’ Steven McCarty, a District of Columbia Democratic Party committee member and Democratic Municipal Officials board member, told me. In this view, the DSA is a resource that should be integrated into the Democratic Party, with all of the ideological compromises such a merger would necessitate.” [TheAtlantic]

Poison PEN: In his Substack, Mark Oppenheimer reflects on the fallout from a recently published report by PEN America acknowledging the discrimination that Jewish and Israeli writers have faced in recent years. “The people I know who have expressed the most skepticism to me about the PEN report are precisely those who in other contexts will express joy that there is a growing movement to boycott Israel, and who will defend cultural boycotts, despite their impact on individual artists who may have any kind of politics. It’s a community of people who are somewhat, sorta interested in truth, but also very interested in achieving certain political aims.” [Substack]

Beating Bibi?: The Wall Street Journal’s William Galston spotlights Gadi Eisenkot as the former IDF chief of staff mounts a challenge to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. “While Mr. Eisenkot isn’t a political novice, neither is he a career politician. He isn’t polished, let alone slick; he conveys a rough-hewn authenticity and comfort in his own skin. Although politics in Israel is at least as polarized as in the U.S., he hasn’t demonized the other side and has mostly avoided personal attacks. … He may succeed where previous Netanyahu opponents have failed by allowing swing voters to adjust their preferences without forcing them to acknowledge that they made a mistake in prior elections.” [WSJ]

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Secretary of State Marco Rubio, attending the annual meeting of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations in Manila, warned that acceding to Iran’s demand to institute tolls on ships transiting through the Strait of Hormuz would set a “dangerous precedent which will repeat itself in other parts of the world"...

A senior White House official told Jewish Insider’s Danielle Cohen-Kanik on Tuesday that a report claiming Vice President JD Vance was attempting to scuttle a potential White House meeting between President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu was “completely false”…

Trump said that the luxury jet gifted by Qatar to serve as a new Air Force One will be “maxed out” with security enhancements later this summer, amid concerns that the aircraft lacked the same security features as the older planes that have been used by the White House…

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who survived the Feb. 28 strike that killed Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said that he had yet to meet with Khamenei’s son Mojtaba, who was injured in the same strike and has not been seen in public since being named his father’s successor…

U.K. Prime Minister Andy Burnham, who took office earlier this week, approved the U.S.’ use of the British bases at Diego Garcia and RAF Fairford for defensive strikes against Iran…

Israeli officials, meanwhile, said that relations with 10 Downing St. two years after the Labour party assumed leadership in London are “frozen” and that communication between Israeli and British ministers is nearly non-existent… 

The Wall Street Journal reports that the White House has asked Israel to stay out of the ongoing exchanges of fire with Iran, with Gulf states reportedly pressing Washington on the issue out of concern that Israel’s reentry into the war could trigger a broader regional conflict in which Iran could attack Gulf energy infrastructure…

Citing “shared history,” senior Emirati and Saudi officials simultaneously posted messages of unity on social media on Tuesday evening, following months of tensions between the Gulf states…

Sen. Dave McCormick (R-PA) told Puck in a wide-ranging interview that the U.S. is “at a fork in the road” with Iran but that he is hopeful Tehran will give up its “commitment to a path toward nuclear weapons,” adding that “we should look at Iran with deep skepticism as a country that has lied to us for 47 years”… 

Sen. John Cornyn (R-TX) said he would block the advancement of Kari Lake and Doug Mastriano’s nominations to be the ambassadors to Jamaica and Slovakia, respectively, unless the White House confirms it will release funds for AIDS prevention efforts in Africa…

Troy Jackson, the likely Democratic nominee in Maine’s Senate race, said he will not back Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) to retain his leadership position should Jackson unseat Sen. Susan Collins (R-ME) in November…

Rep. Tom Tiffany (R-WI), the leading Republican candidate for Wisconsin governor, went on a podcast hosted by an individual who defended Hitler and joked about the Holocaust…

A federal judge granted a temporary restraining order to 12 Democratic state attorneys general seeking to block the merger between Paramount Skydance and Warner Bros. Discovery…

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani posted a video statement to X on Tuesday night under the caption “Benjamin Netanyahu is a war criminal,” in which he accused the Israeli prime minister of a litany of atrocities in Gaza, but ultimately admitted he would not be able to fulfill a campaign promise of arresting him under a warrant from the International Criminal Court, Jewish Insider’s Will Bredderman reports…

Politico reports that Ramzi Kassem, who serves as chief counsel to Mamdani and is in a relationship with far-left Democratic House candidate Darializa Avila Chevalier, holds at least $180,000 in stocks of RTX, formerly known as Raytheon, which supplies Israeli military technology; a spokesperson for Mamdani said Kassem was unaware of the holding and would divest from it…

The Anti-Defamation League and League of United Latin American Citizens are launching a joint initiative that will fund a part-time position for a researcher within the ADL Center on Extremism, eJewishPhilanthropy’s Jay Deitcher reports…

A Lebanese-American man convicted by a New York court of attempting to kill writer Salman Rushdie and sentenced to 25 years in prison is facing federal terrorism charges stemming from the 2022 attack, in which Rushdie was severely injured…

Barstool Sports founder Dave Portnoy reviewed Fair Lawn, N.J., kosher pie joint Zevy’s Pizza, giving the establishment’s “very traditional New York slice” a 7.5 rating… 

Far-right commentator Laura Loomer apologized for “minimizing the struggle of Ukrainians for the last 5 years” during a trip to the country this week, adding that many Ukraine critics “have been so propagandized by Russia, and we don’t even realize it”; Loomer’s comments were met with praise by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, whose office posted on X that there is “no better way to get informed opinion than through personal experience which allows to deal with Russian propaganda”...

Israeli food-tech company Plantopia, which produces plant-based dairy products, announced it raised $9 million in a funding round led by Schreiber Foods and Siddhi Capital; the funds, the company said, will support a manufacturing facility near Haifa…

The IDF said its soldiers operating in southern Lebanon fired warning shots on Tuesday as personnel from the Lebanese Armed Forces crossed into Israeli-controlled territory, an area the IDF said was not included in the pilot zones the LAF is meant to control; the LAF called the incident “an act of aggression” that could hinder the broader deployment plan…

The Associated Press reports on the construction of some 14 miles of earthen barrier built by Israel to separate the territory it oversees in Gaza from the Hamas-controlled portions of the enclave…

Iranian media reported the execution of an Iranian man accused of “operational actions” benefitting Israel during the widespread protests in the Islamic Republic in January…

Former CIA Director James Woolsey, who led the agency during the Clinton administration and in recent years had suffered from “Havana Syndrome,” died at 84…

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Members of Agudath Israel of America met on Tuesday with 20 Senate offices — including Sens. Joni Ernst (R-IA), Cory Booker (D-NJ), John Curtis (R-UT), Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) and Tammy Duckworth (D-IL), the latter of whom is pictured — as part of an ongoing legislative blitz in opposition to the Sunshine Protection Act, which would implement permanent daylight saving time.

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