(JTA) — Jews in the Golden State head into Tuesday’s primaries grappling with a host of weighty questions.

Can a Jewish progressive who believes Israel committed genocide still earn the support of his local Jewish community? Can an ardent critic of Israel be dethroned in Silicon Valley? And is a trollish Los Angeles mayoral candidate from reality TV preferable to a Mamdani-esque progressive?

For many of these races, the primaries won’t be the end of the story: State law mandates that the top two vote-getters, regardless of party, will move on to November’s general election. But the dynamics of several races ensure they will be seen as the latest bellwether for progressive political voters’ views on Israel, and local Jewish groups have compiled a voter guide specifically tailored to their concerns.

Here are five California races of particular interest to Jews.

A tight 3-way Los Angeles mayoral race

Los Angeles Mayor Karen Bass is facing a tough bid for her reelection, and one of her challengers — L.A. City Council member Nithya Raman — has appeared with left-wing anti-Israel streamer Hasan Piker and drawn comparisons to New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani. Raman made a last-minute filing to challenge Bass not long after endorsing her for reelection.

For some Jewish Angelenos, the prospect of a mayor who has vocally criticized Israel is enough of a concern to instead back Spencer Pratt — a reality-TV star with links to conspiracy theorist Alex Jones. While Pratt has distanced himself from some of his past beliefs, including that the 9/11 attacks were an inside job, he has dodged questions about his friendship with Jones. (The mayoralty is officially a nonpartisan position.)

“A Raman mayorship would make every Jewish Angeleno less safe,” Sam Yebri, a local political activist with the centrist group Thrive LA who is also involved with pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC, told JTA. The candidate’s Piker appearance was central to Yebri’s objections, and has also been a target from Pratt: “I would never sit next to somebody who has no problems with Jews getting attacked,” he told a local TV station.

Other Jews pointed to Raman’s absence at a recent City Council meeting marking Jewish American Heritage Month as a reason for their negative feelings toward her.

There are some key differences between Raman and her East Coast counterpart when it comes to Israel and Jews.

While Mamdani is an anti-Zionist aligned with the Democratic Socialists of America, Raman says she supports Israel’s right to exist and opposes the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement against Israel.

The local DSA chapter, after endorsing Raman for council in 2024, has since condemned her for her more moderate stances on Israel. Her constituents include large Jewish and Israeli neighborhoods; and Jewish leaders in the area have told the Forward they trust her and have had good conversations with her. She has attended services at local synagogues. (A local pro-Israel group also endorsed Raman in 2024.)

Yebri is instead encouraging voters to vote either for Bass or Pratt. Both of them, he said, “have made significant efforts to listen to the concerns of the Jewish community and have committed to protecting houses of worship and supporting LAPD funding.”

Pratt, a former star of “The Hills,” has focused much of his campaign on the city’s response to the 2025 Pacific Palisades fire (he lost his own house in the blaze). He has not made Jewish issues a centerpiece of his campaign, though he told CNBC last week that “all of my best friends since kindergarten are Jewish” and that he opposes antisemitism. “I want Jewish moms to feel safe for their kids to go to the temple or … to class at UCLA,” he said.

Yebri is not the only Jew backing Pratt. According to a report in the Jewish magazine Tablet, Ashley Underwood, a producer for Jewish comedian Sacha Baron Cohen and wife of Jewish comedian Larry David, hosted a fundraiser for the candidate that was attended by producer Hilary Shor and philanthropist Irene Medavoy. Shor then wrote on social media that she and others were “transfixed by the power of his message, which hopefully will help save our town.”

In the event no candidate secures above 50% of the vote (a likely outcome), the election will head to a November runoff.

Will Pelosi’s replacement be a ‘lefty Jew,’ or a Piker-backed leftist?

Perhaps no congressional race is being watched more closely than the bid in San Francisco to succeed retiring former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.

California state Sen. Scott Wiener, a Jewish progressive with a growing national profile, is mounting a spirited bid for the 11th District seat and leading in the polls. But Wiener, who did not return a JTA request for comment, alienated many in the local Jewish community when he said he believed Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

San Francisco Jewish groups condemned his comments, and the blowback caused him to step down from his role as the head of the state’s Jewish Democratic caucus.

“It is a hard year to be a lefty Jew running for Congress,” he told Politico, suggesting he believes, on the one hand, that “Israel’s existence is critically important, it is home to half of the Jews on Earth,” and on the other hand that “the Israeli government is an abomination, the Israeli government is engaged in an effort to destroy Palestinian communities.”

Complicating matters further for Wiener is the fact that one of his opponents, Saikat Chakrabarti, is running further to his left on Israel. A former chief of staff for Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez who also worked on one of Jewish progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaigns, Chakrabarti backs a full stop of weapons sales to Israel and has campaigned with Piker.

Chakrabarti has also opposed a local measure intended to combat antisemitism in public schools, which Wiener spearheaded. The law creates new enforcement mechanisms to address antisemitism in schools, which critics have argued would amount to surveilling teachers. Wiener spearheaded the bill; Chakrabarti has called it “a censorship bill,” while a top aide of his has called it “harmful.”

Yet Ocasio-Cortez herself has not endorsed Chakrabarti, which has become a sore spot in his campaign. Meanwhile, Pelosi’s endorsement went to a third candidate, San Francisco supervisor Connie Chan — who also said she believes Israel committed genocide, and has proposed pairing U.S. funding for Israeli defensive systems with aid packages for Gaza.

In a last-minute shakeup to the race, some pro-Palestinian sites and accounts claimed over the weekend that AIPAC-aligned donors had funneled money to Chan’s campaign via a series of other PACs. The allegations, which JTA has not verified, prompted Chan’s campaign to issue a statement urging “any organization supporting Connie to respect the very clear values she has laid out not to accept donations from AIPAC.”

A spokesperson for AIPAC did not immediately respond to a JTA request for comment on the claims, which if true would mark an almost unheard-of instance of AIPAC funding a candidate who has accused Israel of genocide. Chakrabarti, a centimillionaire who has self-funded much of his campaign, mused that  “AIPAC wants to keep me out of the top two.”

Local Jewish voters, who have contended many times with area activism targeting Israel on a range of fronts, have agonized over whether to back Wiener. Some communal leaders are now arguing that they should — even if they disagree with his “genocide” comments.

“There is a version of Jewish political engagement that seeks to punish anyone who uses the word genocide, regardless of their record, regardless of their opponents,” Jewish organizers Arthur Slepian and Jan Reicher wrote in the Jewish News of Northern California. This position, they argued, is “self-defeating.”

“Wiener made a statement that many in the community found painful,” they continued. “But he did not abandon his commitment to Jewish security, Jewish education or the physical safety of Jewish institutions. He did not endorse the groups that chant for the elimination of the Jewish state. He did not cast Israel’s existence as a ‘colonial project’ that needs dismantling.”

Some Silicon Valley Jews hope to take down Ro Khanna

If Jews in San Francisco are largely conflicted on Wiener, their counterparts in Silicon Valley are much more unified — against their district’s outspoken pro-Palestinian incumbent.

Rep. Ro Khanna is one of Israel’s fiercest critics in Congress and has even made common cause with far-right Republicans, including Rep. Thomas Massie, over the issue. Khanna has also made no secret of his 2028 ambitions for higher office. Disaffected Jews and Israeli Americans in the 17th District are hoping to use this primary to send a message to Khanna by backing tech entrepreneur Ethan Agarwal, who has positioned himself as the congressman’s pro-Israel challenger.

“We have lost trust in his ability to represent us, and will not accept empty condemnations of antisemitism while he amplifies radical antisemitic messages at every possible turn,” Tali Klima of Bay Area Jewish Coalition-Action recently said about Khanna.

Of particular concern was Khanna’s appearance in a documentary about Israel also featuring YouTuber Ian Carroll, who has claimed that a “modern Jewish mafia” controls the United States. (Khanna distanced himself from Carroll after criticism.) The congressman has also appeared multiple times on Hasan Piker’s stream.

A PLO member’s grandson runs for Congress, again

Democrats are hoping to flip a San Diego-area district held by retiring Republican Rep. Darrell Issa. But to do that, they may have to back a candidate with an unusual pedigree.

Ammar Campa-Najjar, a former Obama staffer and U.S. Navy Reserve officer of Mexican and Palestinian descent, is putting his Palestinian identity front and center in his pitch for the seat. Campa-Najjar spent part of his childhood in Gaza, where his family moved after the Oslo Accords “to help build a secular Palestinian government and foster economic cooperation with Israel,” his campaign biography says.

Another part of his family story: His grandfather, Muhammad Yusuf al-Najjar, was a top figure in the Palestine Liberation Organization who was targeted by the Mossad for what they alleged was his role in the 1972 Munich Olympics massacre of Israeli athletes.

This became a sticking point for Campa-Najjar during a failed 2018 congressional run in a different district, when his Republican opponent said his background made him “a national security risk.” At the time, local Jewish leaders came to Campa-Najjar’s defense.

Also at the time, Campa-Najjar had condemned what he believed to be his grandfather’s role in planning Munich. But after an Israeli investigative journalist in 2019 questioned al-Najjar’s role, his grandson said he had “renewed skepticism” about the allegations that he was descended from a terrorist.

Last month, in response to a claim from far-right Jewish activist Laura Loomer that he was “Palestinian terrorist spawn,” Campa-Najjar wrote, “My grandmother was a Palestinian mother raising children, she was unjustly killed in her home. I never met my grandfather, I knew him as much as you do. What happened is a matter of disputed history.”

Campa-Najjar has also met with former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak, who was part of the commando unit that killed his grandfather.

This is Campa-Najjar’s third congressional run, but the aftermath of Oct. 7 and the Gaza war puts his background in a new context — as does the recent mass shooting at a San Diego mosque (the candidate himself is a Christian convert from Islam). At the same time, some progressives have cooled on him, accusing him of having moderated his stances on a range of issues across his different campaigns.

One Jew in his corner: Democratic Rep. Sara Jacobs, who represents a neighboring district and is Campa-Najjar’s longtime girlfriend. A super PAC backed by Jacobs’ grandfather Irwin Jacobs, a billionaire and business entrepreneur, has spent heavily for Campa-Najjar. (Neither Campa-Najjar nor Jacobs returned JTA requests for comment.)

J Street is also backing his candidacy, while Democratic Majority for Israel is spending heavily on his primary opponent, San Diego city council member Marni von Wilpert. A Republican also running in the district means that only one Democrat is likely to advance to the general election.

Will Swalwell’s replacement make noise about Israel?

Rep. Eric Swalwell was among the most resolutely pro-Israel Democrats in Congress. He was also accused of sexual misconduct by multiple former staffers. Swalwell has called the allegations “false,” but resigned from his seat — and bowed out of the governors’ race — opening a vacancy in the state’s 14th District.

Hoping to step into his shoes is state Sen. Aisha Wahab, who is leading in a poll commissioned by the left-wing Working Families Party PAC. A child of Afghan refugees, Wahab has collaborated with local Jewish leaders before on refugee-related issues, including on a 2021 fundraiser for Afghan refugee resettlement in the aftermath of the U.S. pullout from the country. That fundraiser was held at Manny’s, a San Francisco deli owned by an Afghani Jew that has been targeted multiple times — both before and after Oct. 7 — by anti-Zionist vandals.

But East Bay Jews hoping that Swalwell’s replacement might match his pro-Israel record will likely be disappointed. Wahab, like most of her Democratic opponents in the primary, has said that Israel committed genocide in Gaza after the Oct. 7 attacks.

At the same time, she has shown a willingness to work with Jews on Israel-related matters. In the California state Senate in fall 2025, Wahab coauthored a resolution to “call for the end to the humanitarian catastrophe in Gaza and the immediate release of all hostages.” Notably, her coauthor was Wiener, the self-proclaimed “lefty Jew” state senator who is also running for Congress in the nearby 11th District.

One prominent local Jewish leader has endorsed a different Democrat. Santa Clara County District Attorney Jeff Rosen, whose court-ordered removal from a case involving Stanford pro-Palestinian protesters has triggered allegations of antisemitism, is backing entrepreneur Rakhi Israni.

In 2024, Israni also appeared alongside local Jewish leaders on a panel discussing links between antisemitism and “Hinduphobia.” Some of Israni’s associations with more conservative Jewish and pro-Israel causes, including reported past personal donations to political campaigns for far-right Jewish pundit Laura Loomer and Christians United For Israel director David Brog, have further raised eyebrows among progressives. Israni is so far the leader in fundraising among the candidates.

“In a few instances, I financially contributed to candidates who later took positions that I strongly oppose, including one whose views I find abhorrent and incompatible with my own,” Israni, who did not immediately respond to a JTA request for comment, said in a statement last month in response to a report on her spending by the San Jose Mercury News. “But highlighting a handful of past donations without acknowledging years of overwhelmingly supporting Democratic candidates creates a misleading picture.” Israni did not name specific candidates in her statement.

Due to the circumstances of Swalwell’s resignation, the district is facing several different rounds of voting. Tuesday’s primary is for November’s general election, while a subsequent primary on June 16 will determine the top two contenders to fill the remainder of the current term, which will be voted on in August.

Other Jewish stories to watch on the ballot

• In the crowded 16-person field for lieutenant governor, two of the candidates are Jewish, and both have been endorsed by a range of leading state Jewish groups. Whoever wins will sit on the boards of the state’s public university systems, including the University of California, whose campuses have been wracked by tensions over Israel and antisemitism since Oct. 7.
• Campus Israel politics have also rocked a district attorney race. Santa Clara County DA Jeff Rosen, who is Jewish, has sought to prosecute a group of pro-Palestinian vandals at Stanford University who destroyed campus property, and had used the case in his campaign literature to claim that he was fighting antisemitism. That led a judge to recently remove Rosen from his effort to retry the case. Another Jewish DA in the state has since accused the judge of antisemitism. All this could upend Rosen’s bid for reelection as he faces a challenger, Daniel Chung, who used to be his subordinate. Chung has led protests against Rosen tied to the Stanford case.
• In a repeat of primary dynamics in other states, a pro-Israel group is spending heavily in a U.S. House race in a district without a large Jewish constituency. Democratic Majority For Israel is pouring $500,000 into TV ads in the Bakersfield-area 22nd District, which is conservative-leaning and majority Latino. The ads target progressive school board member Randy Villegas, who is backed by Bernie Sanders and other left-wing figureheads. Villegas has opposed continued U.S. military aid to Israel — though his opponent, moderate state Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, also previously said Israel had committed genocide in Gaza (she has since walked it back). National Democratic groups are also backing Bains as the party hopes to flip the district.

The post Scott Wiener, Spencer Pratt and Eric Swalwell’s replacement: 5 primaries Jews are watching in California appeared first on The Forward.