A telling moment in the New York City congressional primaries on Tuesday night came when, near the end of Darializa Avila Chevalier’s victory speech, the crowd began spontaneously chanting, “Free, free Palestine!”

It’s hard to imagine how a candidate could be more anti-Israel than Avila Chevalier, who just ousted a pro-Israel incumbent. But she didn’t directly mention Israel in her speech. When the chant broke out, Avila Chevalier was delivering an energetic but boilerplate line about taking her fight to Washington, DC.

In other words, her base didn’t chant for Palestine because it’s important to her. They chanted because it’s important to them. They didn’t vote for her in spite of her opposition to Israel; they voted for her because of it.

Avila Chevalier was one of three victorious NYC candidates who were endorsed by New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani, and who placed their criticism of Israel at the center of their campaigns. It was the culmination of a trend years in the making.

Polls have long shown that young Democrats have increasingly little sympathy for Israel and endorse the accusation that it committed genocide in Gaza. Mamdani’s mayoral victory last year proved that a harsh critic of Israel could win even in the most Jewish city in America.

But Tuesday’s primary wins, and similar ones across the US, showed that to many voters, Mamdani’s opposition to Israel was a feature, not a bug — playing well even when the candidate isn’t a generational political talent, and even when the voter base is disproportionately Jewish.

Republicans have portrayed this trend as a Democratic problem, and it’s true that GOP politicians haven’t embraced anti-Israel politics nearly to the same extent as their counterparts across the aisle. But the New York primaries happened just days after a Republican administration cut what looks to be a very generous deal with Iran, Israel’s chief adversary, while US Vice President JD Vance criticized Israel and its supporters in one public forum after another.

Avila Chevalier, 32, is young; Vance, 41, isn’t much older. Together they demonstrate what surveys have shown: that disaffection with the Jewish state, especially among young people, is growing across the political spectrum.

After decades during which bipartisan support for Israel was taken for granted, this week showed that the US may be entering an era where the flipside is true: opposition to Israel, or at least mistrust of it, crossing party lines.

In 2019, shortly after entering office, Democratic Rep. Ilhan Omar tweeted, “It’s all about the Benjamins” in reference to........

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