Joe Hathaway
R · U.S. House, NJ-11 · Tier 1/2
Tier 1/2, between “Firmly pro-Israel” and “Mainstream pro-Israel”
Republican nominee in NJ-11, a Randolph councilman and former mayor who lost the April 2026 special election to Analilia Mejía and faces her again. His platform says “I will stand firmly with our allies, including Israel as it combats terrorism”; in December 2025 he urged his Democratic rivals to “sign a pro-Israel pledge, clearly, publicly, and without conditions,” and in the April 2026 debate he opposed conditioning aid to Israel and called Mejia’s positions, capped by her genocide answer, “radically out of touch with a district that has a thriving Jewish community.” In October 2026 he told the New Jersey Monitor that Israel is “surrounded by other nations who would see them eradicated from the face of the Earth” and that “it is critically important that we stand in lockstep with our allies in Israel.” At an October 26, 2026 League of Women Voters debate in Convent Station, he called the charge that Israel is committing genocide a “false pretense,” faulted Mejia’s vote to cut U.S. aid to Israel, including defensive aid, and, questioning her support for aid to Jordan, asked “Are we only in favor of human rights violators when they aren’t from Israel?”; he said she “put our students at risk” by voting against Rep. Josh Gottheimer’s bill on harassment of Jewish students.
A 1/2, at the pro-Israel edge but not a clean 1. Israel is a centerpiece of his campaign — the no-conditions pledge he pressed on Democrats, opposition to conditioning aid, a call to codify the IHRA definition of antisemitism, and repeated charges that his opponent is antisemitic, citing among other things her naming the genocide — but that is campaign positioning, not leadership on the issue: he has authored no Israel legislation, driven no anti-BDS enforcement, run no marquee fundraising, and uses no maximalist rhetoric about Gaza itself, though in an October 2026 debate he called the charge that Israel is committing genocide a “false pretense.” His one humanitarian line comes in the same sentence as Israel's right to defend itself, so it reads as boilerplate, not daylight.
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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).