Ben Ray Luján
D · U.S. Senate, New Mexico · Tier 3/4
Tier 3/4, between “Pro-Israel, critical” and “Critical / conditions aid”
Consistently voted to block offensive arms sales to Israel. He voted against tabling Sanders’s Jan 2024 resolution requesting a State Department report on Israel’s human rights practices under section 502B(c) — the motion to table carried 72–11, so S.Res.504 itself never received a vote — and he voted to block on every subsequent round of Sanders Joint Resolutions of Disapproval (Nov 2024, 2025, and April 2026). Frames it as leverage — weapons will only enable the destruction of communities and undermine a two-state solution; the US must use its leverage to demand change from the Netanyahu government. Signed the 44-senator July 2025 letter to Secretary Rubio and envoy Witkoff urging “a large-scale expansion of humanitarian assistance” in Gaza and backing “a negotiated two-state solution,” and letters urging President Biden to sanction Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over incitement of settler violence (October 2024), seeking an independent U.S.-led investigation into the killing of American citizen Saifullah Musallet in the West Bank (July 2025), urging an end to U.S. funding for the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (July 2025) and urging a stronger U.S. response to Israel’s moves to annex the West Bank, including the E-1 settlement (January 2026). Won the June 2, 2026 Democratic primary with 84% over Matt Dodson; faces Republican Larry Marker, who won the nomination as a write-in, in November (safe D seat). An early mover — he joined the November 2024 round, when the three resolutions drew only 17 to 19 senators, and voted Yea on all nine Sanders JRDs through April 15, 2026. He does not use the word genocide and is J Street-aligned. In late June 2023 he went on a J Street delegation to Israel and the West Bank with Chris Van Hollen and Jeff Merkley, and in a November 2023 letter urging Secretary Blinken to press Israel to stop settler attacks the three wrote that they had “personally visited Susya earlier this year,” an unrecognized Palestinian community in Masafer Yatta, and were “deeply moved by the villagers’ stories of displacement.”
A 3/4. He has an in-office conditioning record, not a single step: he voted against tabling Sanders's section 502B(c) human-rights information resolution (Jan 16, 2024 — one of only 11 Nays, as the motion to table carried 72–11 and killed S.Res.504 without a vote on the resolution itself) and to block offensive arms sales across all nine Sanders Joint Resolutions of Disapproval, from the early Nov 2024 votes (which drew only 17 to 19 senators) through April 15, 2026 — the Senate equivalent of cosponsoring Block the Bombs, which is what places Markey on the 4 side of the split. What holds a foot in 3 rather than a clean 4 is that he voted for the 2024 supplemental that carried Israel’s military aid (February and April 2024), and that his conduct is sale-blocking-as-leverage rather than a standing embargo bill, paired with liberal-Zionist framing: he reaffirms a two-state solution, signed the 44-senator humanitarian/two-state letter and uses no genocide language.
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elect26 places 2026 midterm candidates on a six-tier spectrum, from 1 (most pro-Israel) to 6 (most critical of Israel).