Joanne Kuniansky
I · U.S. Senate, New Jersey · Tier 1/2
Tier 1/2, between “Firmly pro-Israel” and “Mainstream pro-Israel”
Socialist Workers Party Senate candidate, a longtime union activist and SWP member since 1977. In NJ Spotlight's and WHYY's 2026 guides she called Israel's war with Iran “a defensive war by Israel to prevent the Jew-hating regime in Tehran from developing nuclear weapons,” campaigning to “Defend Israel's right to exist as a refuge for Jews” while demanding U.S. troops out of the Middle East and “Not one man and not one penny for the U.S. government, its budget, and its war machine.”
A 1/2, with a real tension. On Israel itself her words sit at the pro-Israel end: she defends Israel's existence as a refuge for Jews and calls its war with Iran defensive, with no expressed concern for Palestinian civilians — and no leadership on the issue, so not a clean 1. Pulling the other way is the SWP's blanket refusal of any money for the U.S. war budget, which would reach military aid to Israel; but that is a general anti-imperialist stance, not an Israel-specific position, and does not count toward the critical end on its own. Her party's weekly, The Militant, dismisses the genocide charge as “false allegations” — party context, not her own words.
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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).