Micah Lasher
D · U.S. House, NY-12 · Tier 2
Tier 2, “Mainstream pro-Israel”
Nadler’s endorsed successor, who won the June 2026 Democratic primary for the open NY-12. Opposes the Block the Bombs Act, and said he would have voted against Sen. Bernie Sanders’ resolutions to block certain arms sales to Israel: “I don’t believe it would have actually improved the lives of people on the ground, and it would have contributed to the status of Israel as a pariah state — and I will not do that in Congress” (JTA). In December 2025 he introduced, with Sen. Sam Sutton, a state bill for buffer zones around houses of worship and reproductive health care facilities. Would reintroduce Nadler’s West Bank settlement-sanctions bill and push Leahy Law enforcement. He marched in the 2026 Israel Day Parade and, at a June 2026 primary debate, declined to call Gaza a genocide, calling the Palestinian casualties “horrific” but the question “one of a set of definitional debates that does more to divide people of good faith than it does to find common ground” (Jewish Insider). He was backed in the primary by a super PAC funded largely by Mike Bloomberg; he called super PAC spending “enormously unhealthy for our democracy” but said that, unlike Bloomberg, a district resident who knows his work, AI companies and crypto billionaires have “an agenda” in Washington (amNY). He has said anti-Zionism and antisemitism are “not precisely the same thing but often when you see one you see the other.”
A 2. He opposes Block the Bombs, saying he did not believe it would meaningfully improve conditions for Israelis or Palestinians (amNY’s paraphrase), marched in the 2026 Israel Day Parade, declines to call Gaza a genocide and introduced Assembly legislation for buffer zones around houses of worship. What separates him from 1/2 is concern in his own words — he is “heartbroken by the killing of Palestinians” — and his July 2025 signature on the statement led by Attorney General Letitia James that “a famine is unfolding in Gaza before the eyes of the world,” along with his pledge to reintroduce Nadler’s bill to sanction West Bank settlement expansion and violence and to push enforcement of the Leahy laws. He has said anti-Zionism and antisemitism are “not precisely the same thing but often when you see one you see the other.” Counter-case for 1/2: the concern came beside his stated care for Israel’s survival as a Jewish state (JTA’s paraphrase), and the settlement and Leahy pledges are promises, not acts.
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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).