Jim McGovern
D · U.S. House, MA-2 · Tier 4
Tier 4, “Critical / conditions aid”
Cosponsored Block the Bombs and the H.Res.876 genocide-recognition resolution, and voted against the April 2024 aid supplemental. In his own voice he wrote in September 2025: “What is happening in Gaza is genocide,” adding that the United States cannot “continue to arm and fund a government engaged in such crimes.” After that No vote he co-signed a 19-member statement saying “We believe strongly in Israel’s right to self-defense” and “All of us support strengthening the Iron Dome and other defense systems.” In his own voice he has called for the US to sanction anyone enforcing Israel’s new death-penalty law, which he said would apply “almost exclusively to Palestinians,” and to “impose consequences for the Israeli government’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories and two-tiered system of justice.” Still frames his stated goal as a two-state solution. He also joined the Leahy-law letter urging cuts to assistance for abusive Israeli units, but his sanctions call is tied to specific conduct rather than a blanket embargo, and he backs no full arms embargo, BDS, or right-of-return position. He led the 27-member statement explaining their Aye on the July 2026 Massie amendment: “we do not support providing an additional $3.3 billion of American taxpayer dollars to be used for Israeli military operations in Gaza and Lebanon,” and “existing human rights conditions on the use of American security assistance have not been meaningfully enforced.” In 2024 he signed letters urging the State Department to affirm U.S. opposition to the forced displacement of Palestinians from Gaza (January), backing refugee status for Gazans with U.S. citizen or permanent-resident relatives (June) and urging sanctions on Israeli ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir over incitement of settler violence (October). Between March 2025 and February 2026 he signed letters demanding answers on the detentions of the student activists Mahmoud Khalil and Rümeysa Öztürk (March 2025) and Mohsen Mahdawi (April 2025), condemning the Israeli government’s use of starvation as a weapon in Gaza and rejecting the U.S.-backed Gaza Humanitarian Foundation (Tlaib’s 19-signer letter, June 2025), urging Secretary Rubio to press Israel to allow a surge of aid into Gaza, above all infant formula (August 2025), opposing West Bank annexation with most House Democrats (September 2025), asking the administration to warn Israel off annexation and the E-1 settlement and to reimpose Biden-era West Bank sanctions (January 2026) and seeking accountability for Israel’s detention and abuse of the Palestinian American teenager Mohammed Ibrahim (one of 15 lawmakers, February 2026). In August and September 2026 McGovern signed Tlaib’s letter demanding the release of 20-year-old US citizen Sama Safi from Israeli military detention, the Dexter–Ruiz letter seeking the release of Gaza pediatrician Dr. Hussam Abu Safiya from Israeli detention without charge (Sep 8) and the Pocan–Quigley letter on Palestinian medical workers held by Israel without charge (Sep 24). On Oct 1, 2026 McGovern became an original cosponsor of the Stop the Settlements Act (H.R.10642), which would sanction those who build or expand Israeli settlements in the West Bank and Gaza and ban imports of settlement goods. On Oct 22, 2026, after Israeli forces detained his constituent Rabbi Justin David in the West Bank while he was protecting Palestinians harvesting their olive groves, McGovern wrote that “the Israeli government should never have taken him into custody in the first place” and that “Occupation and settlement expansion violate international law. Harvesting olives and protecting Palestinian families from violence does not.” In June 2026 McGovern signed a letter to Secretary of State Marco Rubio, led by Reps. Becca Balint and Joaquin Castro, on Israel’s operations in southern Lebanon, saying Israel’s “targeted, mass destruction of civilian homes and infrastructure does not constitute Israeli self-defense” and asking that, if U.S.-origin arms were confirmed in those operations, the administration “stop arms transfers being used in these operations until these violations cease”; the letter also affirmed that “Israel has a right to defend itself.” Jewish Insider reported on Oct 23, 2026 that McGovern was among about 30 signers of a draft letter, led by Rep. Ro Khanna and gathering signatures through Nov 6, urging the negotiators of the 2027 defense authorization bill to strip its U.S.-Israel defense-technology cooperation provisions; the draft, which cites Israel’s conduct in Gaza, the West Bank and Lebanon, says “These are not the actions of a government whose defense establishment should be granted deeper access to American military technology, nor rewarded with U.S. defense contracts,” and asks that any framework kept “carry human rights conditions consistent with those governing other United States security assistance.”
A firm Tier 4. His conduct is well past liberal Zionism: he cosponsored Block the Bombs and the H.Res.876 genocide-recognition resolution, voted Nay on the April 2024 aid supplemental, joined the Leahy-law letter to cut assistance to abusive Israeli units, and in his own voice demanded the US “impose consequences for the Israeli government’s ongoing occupation of the Palestinian territories and two-tiered system of justice,” and called for sanctions on those enforcing a death-penalty law that he said would apply “almost exclusively to Palestinians” — apartheid-adjacent framing that is unusually strong for a 4. What keeps him at 4 rather than 4/5 is that his stated framework remains a two-state solution, with no full embargo, BDS, right-of-return, or anti-Zionist position by name; his sanctions call is tied to specific conduct rather than a blanket embargo. A split to 4/5 is defensible if that sanctions-on-Israel framing in his own words is weighted as reaching toward 5.
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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).