NEW YORK — Democrat John Mannion flipped a central New York House seat Tuesday, clinching a must-win district for his party to recapture control of the chamber.

A state senator who represents the Syracuse area, Mannion unseated Republican Rep. Brandon Williams, a freshman lawmaker who Democrats had pegged early in the election cycle as a vulnerable incumbent.

Mannion drew considerable support from labor organizations, including teachers unions. He will represent an area that has elected a Republican lawmaker to the House for the last decade.

Williams replaced moderate Republican Rep. John Katko in 2022 and, as a more conservative lawmaker, struggled to gain traction in the swing district. He is an enthusiastic supporter of former President Donald Trump and has been a staunch opponent of abortion.

Democrats gave Mannion a boost earlier this year when the district was redrawn to be slightly more favorable to their party’s nominee.

And Williams’ case didn’t get much help in the race’s final days when House Speaker Mike Johnson said House Republicans would be supportive of repealing the CHIPS and Science Act. Johnson later said he misheard the question. The spending package, meant to spur high-tech development and jobs, has been a linchpin for Micron Technology to build a factory in the district.

Mannion’s success came after his own fumbles. Former staffers anonymously accused him of presiding over a toxic office culture, claims the publicly avuncular legislator denied.

Mannion, an Albany lawmaker first elected in 2020, also had to overcome Republican efforts to link him to Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul, who remains deeply unpopular statewide in New York.

Williams’ campaign released a TV ad featuring John Walsh of “America’s Most Wanted” fame blasting his Democratic rival over public safety — an issue that has resonated for Republican campaigns. The ad yoked Mannion to Hochul, and by extension Democratic Albany.

But Mannion sidestepped the associations with Hochul by focusing on his legislative record in the state Senate and hammering Williams over abortion and IVF access.

He has not been supportive of left-leaning criminal justice measures in Albany and has voted against bills that would limit solitary confinement in state prisons.

Both candidates were supportive of the CHIPS and Science Act, making Johnson’s botched comments over appealing the measure last week all the more damaging to the Republican’s slim chances.

Micron plans to build four computer chip manufacturing facilities in the Syracuse area — a project that was spurred by the federal package and the Hochul administration.

The construction will include $6.1 billion in federal spending and $5.5 billion of incentives from New York state. Officials have been optimistic the spending will be a jobs boon to a region that has been stuck in the economic doldrums for more than a generation.

Mannion touted his support for a state-level provision meant to encourage Micron’s construction of the facilities.

A Williams’ victory was not expected by either party, and privately New York Republicans had all but written off their chances of holding the seat.

House GOP women still have a numbers problem.

Four years after a wave of elected conservative women reshaped the ranks of the House GOP conference, Republican women have watched their gains in the chamber stagnate — and it seems likely they’ll see losses in 2025. Even if they keep the House, they’re set to lose every sitting female chair.

It’s a dynamic that’s frustrating some women throughout the conference, who want to see an even more explicit commitment to growing their ranks from top party leaders like House Speaker Mike Johnson.

While House Republicans have a record high 34 women serving in the chamber, or about 15 percent of their conference, it doesn’t compare to the 92 women in the Democratic caucus.

“We are 10 years behind,” said Rep. Lisa McClain (R-Mich.), who was elected to Congress in 2020. “We don’t have a deep bench of women. We don’t have a big pool to choose from. We’ve got to fix that. And I think our class was the start of that.”

That frustration comes as gender has played a critical role in the strategies of both presidential campaigns. Democratic nominee Kamala Harris has made outreach to women a central focus of her three-month campaign, centered around Republican efforts to further restrict abortion since the overturn of Roe v. Wade in 2022. Meanwhile, former President Donald Trump, who has been found liable for sexual abuse, is running a pro-male campaign that prioritizes messaging to men. He’s appeared on male-friendly podcasts like “Kill Tony,” “BS w/ Jake Paul” and the “Joe Rogan Experience” where he has talked about golf, boxing, UFOs, and more as he chases the “bro vote.”

But those efforts could come at the cost of women voters up and down the ballot, as the Republican Party reckons with a significant — and possibly widening — gender gap. Female GOP lawmakers worry that, without a deep bench of women in institutions like the House, the party won’t have the voices at the top that it needs to address those political and cultural issues over time.

In interviews with 24 House Republican women, many said efforts to bolster their ranks suffer from a fundamental problem: The demands of serving in Congress aren’t conducive to raising a family. And several argued that the Republican Party’s focus on the importance of traditional nuclear families adds cultural pressures that they don’t believe Democratic women have to deal with in the same way. Republican women said they are often still saddled with questions like: “What about your family?” “Are your children OK without you?” or “How is your husband doing?”

“People are harder on moms who get involved in politics. I also think, on our side, out in conservative circles, women are more likely to want a traditional family model, where they stay home with their kids. And those critical years, where men tend to get involved in politics, a lot of women are not,” said Rep. Celeste Maloy (R-Utah). “But I support all moms regardless of what career path they choose.”

Democratic women said that those challenges are daunting for them as well; they argue their party has simply invested far more aggressively in elevating women. Florida Rep. Lois Frankel, chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, disputed GOP suggestions that there’s less pressure on mothers in their party.

“Democratic women are committed to their families as much as Republican women. That, to me, is a no-brainer to say,” she said. “I disagree with them when they say women are waiting to get older [before running].”

Still, the Republican Party broadly has consistently struggled to appeal to women. Female voters have favored Democratic presidential candidates by double digits in every election since 2008 — 55 percent of women voted for Joe Biden in 2020 vs. 44 percent for Donald Trump.

If GOP women can significantly increase their numbers in the House, then they believe they would kickstart a powerful domino effect: Filling the Senate with more Republican women, bolstering their message to voters across the country and perhaps even paving the way for a Republican woman to secure the party’s nomination for president.

Some said that the progress they’ve made so far supports that theory: New York Rep. Elise Stefanik, the No. 4 House Republican, was seriously considered as Trump’s vice presidential candidate earlier this year.

But many House Republican women say it’s still a struggle to even be considered as a candidate, citing a persistent boys-club mentality in some local party chapters that they feel pushes male candidates forward over more qualified female candidates.

Some House GOP women are demanding changes. Perhaps the most vocal lawmaker on that front right now is conservative Rep. Anna Paulina Luna (R-Fla.), who is threatening to withhold her vote for GOP leader unless the House gives new moms a tool to vote from afar, like proxy voting. That push doesn’t have widespread support among Republican women, but other ideas have circulated about how to bolster their ranks come 2027.

The young family problem

Conservative GOP women suggest the struggles of balancing a highly demanding job with raising a young family is even more pronounced for them than it is for their Democratic counterparts. They cited a stronger cultural embrace of the need for a children-first and careers-second approach — an attitude that many of them agree with.

“If you do this job right, and you do it really well, you work a ton, and it isn’t super conducive to raising a family. It’s just not,” said McClain, who noted she spent only a handful of nights at home in August because she was on the road campaigning.

Raising young children while working is never easy, but serving in Congress comes with some particular hardships. There are significant pressures for lawmakers to raise their families at home in their district, though the schedule requires them to be in Washington for weeks at a time.

That’s not to say it can’t be done. Reps. Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-Wash.), Julia Letlow (R-La.), Luna, Stefanik and others have juggled the demands of the job and motherhood, success stories that women believe are chipping away at a mindset that women can’t be a mother to young children and serve in Congress at the same time.

Stefanik, the top woman in House GOP leadership, said seeing McMorris Rodgers raising young kids in office helped give her “the confidence to run as conference chair while I was expecting my child,” and suggested views about the limits of motherhood are “changing over time.”

Others said the problem has persisted.

“When Laurel Lee called me and she said, ‘I have a [school-aged] daughter, should I do this?’ I was like, ‘I’m the wrong person to call because I wouldn’t have done it,’” said Rep. Debbie Lesko (R-Ariz.), referring to a Florida lawmaker who was elected to the House in 2022. “But she chose to do it. And it’s working out for her. So, I think, as we get more women, there’ll be more examples of: We can do it, too.”

“I think that that bleeds over into why there might be less women in Congress,” Lesko added.

There are two main efforts to rectify those concerns. Luna is pushing to allow proxy voting in lieu of maternity leave, while others are lobbying for a wider change to the House’s schedule, which typically has members in Washington for three or more weeks at a time.

Luna, a member of the House Freedom Caucus, said her vote for GOP leader will be contingent on that person making concessions for new moms in the upcoming rules package. Proxy voting policies are widely disliked among Republicans, who had argued during the Covid pandemic that lawmakers owed it to their constituents to show up in person and that the way Democrats went about it was unconstitutional. But Luna said her proposal would be different, and she’s gotten back-up from Rep. Lauren Boebert (R-Colo.) on the idea.

“If they want my vote for speaker, amongst some other things, they’re going to have to say that we’re going to actually do that in the rules packages,” Luna said in an interview.

While Luna indicated that current leaders are more “into the times” and open to it, Stefanik quickly shut down the possibility, arguing that the party opposes proxy and remote voting. Other GOP women lawmakers said they would consider it for “specified reasons” that would go beyond having a baby, including serious health concerns. The challenge, they argued, is making sure members don’t take advantage of the system.

Other women are pushing for major changes to the schedule, including one that would allow them to be in Washington for two weeks and then spend two weeks back home. They said that would allow for better work-life balance.

“When I came in, it was Covid times, and so the schedules were more amenable to families. My kids were in middle school at the time, and it worked really well. Now that we’re back to a normal session, the travel is grueling,” said Rep. Nancy Mace (R-S.C.). “So one of the things that I’ve advocated for and would support would be a schedule that’s more family-friendly.”

Said another member, granted anonymity to speak candidly: “I think, particularly for male members, they have a different thought process about the need to be home than I do. And the way they set the schedule is difficult.”

Wanted: More resources

Stefanik is frequently credited by members for her significant efforts to spearhead recruitment of female candidates, mainly through her women-focused Elevate PAC, known as E-PAC. Other, less formal efforts have also cropped up. But generally, conservative women still feel like they don’t have enough resources.

Only two conservative GOP women candidates appear likely to win their House seats in November, while four Republican women in the House — including one non-voting member — are leaving at the end of this term. Four other House Republican women are at risk of losing their races.

Stefanik indicated there’s plenty of interest in serving in Congress; she believes that more than a thousand women have reached out to her since she began her PAC. And she has raised more than $3 million this cycle for the cause of electing more women.

“When I started E-PAC in 2018, it was because there clearly was a problem. We lost a number of women in that blue-wave year, and we were down to 13 women. … It was clear to me that we needed to do better,” Stefanik said in an interview. “I think we can still get above 36 next cycle.” (There are currently 34 voting women in the House GOP and two who are non-voting.)

Others are also engaging in separate efforts to recruit more women, including doing so on the individual level. Rep. Michelle Steel (R-Calif.), for example, leads efforts to recruit more diverse women in her state, after crediting former GOP Reps. Mimi Walters and Dana Rohrabacher for encouraging her own House run. Some also point to two other groups who help boost women in races: ViewPAC and Winning for Women.

Still, some GOP women say they need resources akin to Democrats’ Emily’s List, which prepares female candidates to run for office.

Emily’s List is seen as more thorough and centralized in its efforts to recruit, fund and elect more women. Rep. Diana Harshbarger (R-Tenn.) said that group tells Democrats “step by step how to run a campaign.” But that’s not a universal view in the party: Stefanik argued against centralizing the effort, and instead indicated they should work on a pipeline at the state and local levels.

While many GOP women indicated they were pleasantly surprised that the House itself doesn’t feel like a boys club these days, they said that attitude persists in some local party chapters — where they argued male candidates sometimes get picked over more qualified women candidates.

Rep. Nicole Malliotakis (R-N.Y.) said she personally experienced this scenario in 2015, when the local party backed Dan Donovan to run over her in a special election. Stefanik later encouraged her to run in 2020. Donovan was elected twice to the seat before he was beaten by a Democrat, who Malliotakis then defeated by 6 points and handily beat again in 2022.

And Rep. Ann Wagner (R-Mo.), who previously worked on recruitment for the National Republican Congressional Committee, remembered fighting with members of her party as she and other GOP women sought to back Stefanik’s initial bid for the House back in 2014.

“There were some that would have chosen a different candidate, and I think that was the first time that we women really collectively stood up and roared,” Wagner said.

Multiple sitting GOP women recalled being urged to run, whether by a party leader or, more rarely, an outgoing male incumbent. Former Speaker Kevin McCarthy earned praise for his efforts to expand the party’s reach on this front. Some explicitly said they hope Speaker Johnson will carry that torch, though they don’t think they can judge him based on the latest cycle, given he ascended to the post after recruitment efforts had largely concluded.

Still, some women said they have missed McCarthy’s pointed efforts to seek out opportunities for women.

“With the McCarthy team, everything was very calculated and planned out. You know, he’d been planning for this for years … now I just feel kind of underutilized,” said one GOP woman, who was granted anonymity to speak freely. She acknowledged that she could’ve done more to assert herself, but added: “It was just nice to be asked and to be able to get that experience. It can be hard to put yourself out there.”

Many GOP women lawmakers said they have tried to encourage and recruit women in their own districts, with varying success. One example is Lesko, who is retiring at the end of this term.

“I was hoping that a woman would replace me. I called several women that I knew in Arizona, and they didn’t want to do it,” she said.

Democrats vs. Republicans

There are nearly three times as many House Democratic women as Republican women. And GOP lawmakers acknowledge part of that is due to how much earlier Democrats invested in recruiting women.

Nancy Pelosi, the first female House speaker, said Democrats were intentional about boosting their female ranks. It was “a decision that we made to recruit, to fund, to train.” In addition to more membership, Democratic women in the House have also ascended to higher leadership positions than their GOP counterparts.

“When I came years ago, it was 12 [women] Democrats, 11 Republicans. We’ve gone up to 94 in this Congress,” Pelosi added, counting two non-voting Democratic women who are currently serving. “And lately, the Republicans have gotten more, but for a while they were really far behind.”

But Republican women also contend that Democrats are less sensitive to charges about elevating women at least partially based on their gender. (Democrats disagreed with any suggestion that they prioritize quantity over quality.)

“Nothing is worse than people saying you’re a ‘token’ — that you didn’t earn your seat,” said Rep. Claudia Tenney (R-N.Y.).

That extends the other way, of course — Republican women don’t want to feel limited in potential opportunities because of their gender, either. And some said those practices still occur in their party, citing the so-called Pence rule: Former Vice President Mike Pence has publicly said he had a policy against meeting alone or having dinner with women, even staffers, out of respect for his marriage. One GOP woman, granted anonymity to speak frankly, said that’s extremely limiting and suggested there are other, gender-neutral ways to set up those boundaries.

Another remarked: “I understand where it’s coming from, but how else are women supposed to have professional lives as long as men are going out — having dinner and cocktails and playing golf and everything else they’re doing — and we’re not part of that?”

Frankel, the chair of the Democratic Women’s Caucus, contended that a broader “cultural bias” impacts both parties. For example, a male wealthy hedge fund manager will have access to more money than a woman who previously worked as a teacher, she said. And that goes back to the real reason Democrats had more women in office, she argued: The party invests more in female candidates.

“A very, very big factor, especially running for higher office and even Congress, is access to money. And traditionally, it is men — because of the professions they are in, the people they know, the people they hang out with — who have the relationships to raise the money that is necessary to win,” Frankel said.

‘If it involved a vagina, I’m talking about it’

Several GOP women said they felt leaders expected them to serve as a mouthpiece for issues men didn’t feel comfortable talking about, like abortion — putting many of them in a basket they didn’t want to be in.

Republican women said a few issues have recently fallen into that category: baby formula affordability, women’s health care, in vitro fertilization and certain parts of education. And while they’re happy to speak on those policies sometimes, many resented that their male counterparts would mainly turn to them on those issues.

One conservative woman, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said she specifically told Republicans as she came into the House that she was “not your poster child for abortion.”

“Every time there’s a bill that has to do with sexual assault, rape kit testing, you name it, if it involves a vagina, I’m talking about it in [committee],” said another conservative woman. “That’s OK, as long as it does not stop there and you think of me for the other issues.”

Some women do want to be leading voices on those issues. Mace has openly discussed her perspective as a rape victim and has been vocal on abortion access, the backlog on processing rape kits and boosting IVF and access to contraception — positions that don’t always align with the broader party.

And that lack of representation at the top could get worse next year. House Republicans are about to lose all of their sitting female committee chairs, though it’s possible other women will secure top posts in the next Congress.

While the party is publicly against quotas, GOP women said House leadership is certainly guilty of talking about the need for a woman to be in leadership or lead a committee or fill a post on a male-dominated panel. Whether a woman’s resume is a good fit becomes a secondary talking point, they said.

A frequently cited example was when former Rep. Liz Cheney (R-Wyo.) — the highest-ranking woman in the House GOP at the time — was booted from leadership, and initial talk of replacing her involved a lot of talk about gender. Stefanik, who raised her hand for the job early, eventually was elected to the spot.

“When we removed Liz Cheney as chair, then it was: ‘We have to replace her with a woman.’ So that’s not discrediting Elise Stefanik in her role and what she’s done, but immediately the conversation was: She has to be replaced by a woman,” Boebert said. “The qualification was secondary. And she’s done a phenomenal job.”

Democrats in Congress for years have labeled Donald Trump an “insurrectionist,” impeached him for stoking violence on Jan. 6, 2021, and suggested he is constitutionally prohibited from returning to the White House.

But even as those lawmakers continue to doubt Trump’s eligibility for the presidency, they also say that if he wins at the polls, they don’t expect efforts to deny him his presidential electors on Jan. 6, 2025, when Congress meets to finalize the results.

Democratic leaders are saying publicly and privately they want a drama-free transfer of power — even if it means setting aside some members’ views that Trump is ineligible to return to the presidency because of the Constitution’s bar on insurrectionist officeholders.

The 14th Amendment prohibits any federal officeholders who have “engaged in” insurrection from holding office again, and Democrats have long suggested Trump ran afoul of it when he inflamed the violent mob that attacked the Capitol four years ago. At the time, House Democrats overwhelmingly voted to impeach Trump for “incitement of insurrection.” Their leader, Hakeem Jeffries, has routinely called Trump the “insurrectionist-in-chief.” But there appears to be little appetite among Democrats to challenge results during the Jan. 6 joint session.

“The integrity of our democratic process depends on the peaceful transfer of power. Donald Trump has decided that the only valid elections are elections he wins,” Minority Whip Katherine Clark (D-Mass.) said in a statement to POLITICO. “He is the only President who has supported an insurrection rather than accept the will of the American people. Democrats will always ensure every vote counts and that we uphold our democracy.”

The Supreme Court waded into the issue in March, ruling that only Congress, not states, can decide how the Constitution’s insurrectionist ban should be enforced. But the court did not take a position on whether Trump’s conduct crossed the line — and that omission has left some constitutional experts to wonder whether Trump’s adversaries in Congress could try to settle the question of his eligibility at the Jan. 6 session.

It has created an awkward dynamic for House Democrats: Can lawmakers who have declared Trump ineligible to hold office nevertheless support voting to certify his presidential electors, even if it puts him back in the White House? For now, they’ve sidestepped that tension and projected confidence that they will, in fact, certify a Trump victory.

Clark’s message echoes similar comments other top Democrats have made in the run-up to the election. The bottom line, they say, is that unlike Republicans in 2020 — and those still equivocating today about whether they would certify a Harris victory — Democrats have no interest in causing uncertainty and chaos in the transfer of power.

“House Democrats are going to do everything necessary to protect our democracy, defend the transfer of power and ensure that the winner of the presidential election is certified on Jan. 6 without drama or consequences,” Jeffries said in September.

Rep. Joe Morelle, the top Democrat on the committee that oversees election procedures, was similarly unequivocal during a recent debate: “If Donald Trump wins the election on November 5th, I will vote to certify him as the next president of the United States.”

Aides say Democratic leaders hope to squelch potential calls by their rank-and-file to invoke the Constitution’s insurrection clause as a basis for trying to prevent a popularly-elected Trump from returning to office.

When Congress meets on Jan. 6 to count electoral votes, lawmakers are largely bound to accept the states’ certified results. But federal law gives Congress the power to challenge the validity of electors they deem not “regularly given.” A federal appeals court judge recently opined that a candidate ineligible to hold office under the insurrection clause would be a valid basis for Congress to reject presidential electors in January.

Jason Murray, the attorney who argued the 14th Amendment case on behalf of those seeking Trump’s disqualification, warned the justices that this could create a crisis on Jan. 6, 2025.

“What happens when members of Congress on January 6th, when they count the electoral votes, say we’re not going to count electoral votes cast for President Trump because he’s disqualified?” Murray wondered during oral arguments in the case.

Just weeks before the Supreme Court ruled, Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-Md.) — a constitutional lawyer and prominent ally of House leaders — warned that this scenario could come to pass without clarity from the justices.

“They want to kick it to Congress so it’s going to be up to us on January 6, 2025 to tell the rampaging Trump mobs that he’s disqualified,” Raskin said on Feb. 8, describing hypothetically what could happen if the Supreme Court failed to apply the 14th Amendment to Trump, “and then we need bodyguards for everybody and civil war conditions all because the nine justices … simply do not want to do their job and interpret what the great 14th Amendment means.”

But in the ensuing eight months, neither Raskin nor any of his colleagues have endorsed using the Jan. 6 joint session to attempt to deny Trump his electors.

“No one is talking about that,” Raskin said in a recent interview.

Other Democrats have explicitly disclaimed such an attempt.

“Rep. [Diana] DeGette would not vote to reject Trump’s electoral votes based on the 14th Amendment’s insurrection clause,” said a spokesperson for the Colorado Democrat, who helped lead the impeachment trial against Trump in 2021.

Democrats, loath to publicly discuss a scenario in which Trump wins the election, have privately said they have not heard any discussions about invoking the insurrection clause to deny Trump his electors, whether he wins or loses. Publicly, dozens of Democrats in the House and Senate have vowed to affirm the results of the election even if Trump wins.

Their intentions belie what constitutional scholars say is a genuine conundrum created by the Supreme Court.

“It’s a serious problem,” said Gerard Magliocca, an Indiana University constitutional scholar who testified in Colorado proceedings that Trump had in fact violated the insurrection clause.

“It’s quite possible that Trump could take office without any legal determination that he is eligible to hold office.”

In its March opinion, the Supreme Court implied — though didn’t explicitly state — that Congress must pass legislation to lay out a procedure to determine whether a current or former officeholder has violated the insurrection clause. It’s a gap that leaves some uncertainty about what Congress’ obligations and options are in January.

But most constitutional scholars say it would be improper for lawmakers to make a subjective judgment about Trump’s eligibility without a forum to fully air and debate the facts.

“Congress does not have the capacity in the [Jan. 6] joint session to do so,” said Derek Muller, a University of Notre Dame constitutional law expert. “Because Congress is not in a position to decide the matter, Congress should count the votes.”

Edward Foley, an Ohio State University constitutional scholar who has written about the insurrection clause, said the Supreme Court left a gap on this issue but doesn’t think members of Congress will step into the breach.

“Everything I’ve seen indicates that Democrats in Congress won’t attempt this,” Foley said.

In a hypothetical scenario in which Trump’s opponents controlled the House and Senate, with enough votes to disqualify his electors — “which they won’t have,” Foley noted — he said it’s unclear whether courts would step in to block the decision.

On June 16, as Benjamin Netanyahu continued his year-long defiance of Joe Biden over the war in Gaza, eight U.S. House members and two staffers arrived at Tel Aviv’s luxurious Kempinski Hotel for a four-day immersion in Israeli politics.

The lawmakers and aides toured the nation and met with a lineup of speakers largely aligned with the Israeli prime minister’s conservative views — including Netanyahu himself.

The trip, like hundreds of others over the past decade, was hosted by the nonprofit arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. AIPAC, which calls itself “America’s pro-Israel lobby,” is one of the most influential lobbyist organizations in the U.S. and promotes the Israeli government’s agenda.

After a roughly five-month pause following the Oct. 7, 2023, attack on Israel by Hamas, the AIPAC trips have continued apace this year, with eight trips by 71 House members and staffers from March through early September. Slightly more Republicans traveled with AIPAC’s nonprofit arm in that period than Democrats.

Now, as lawmakers face pressure from both sides on U.S. aid — with critics like Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) calling for a halt to arms sales in the face of Israel’s Lebanon offensive and supporters such as Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) demanding more funding for Israel to beef up its defenses — members are drawing on the lessons from their AIPAC travel to shape their views.

Rep. Glenn Ivey (D-Md.), who’s taken two AIPAC trips since September 2023 and who benefited from $6 million in independent expenditures from AIPAC in his first run for Congress in 2022 — said his time in Israel has been valuable in understanding a key U.S. partnership.

“It’s useful to try and get out and see things firsthand,” he said. On the June trip, for instance, Ivey said the most powerful moments he experienced were meeting with hostages’ families and visiting the location of the music festival where scores of civilians were killed or wounded.

“It was a very somber trip,” Ivey said. “There’s no question about that.”

While AIPAC is well known for sponsoring trips for lawmakers and aides to Israel in an effort to build support for the Jewish state, the full extent of that travel has not been clear until now.

A new analysis of thousands of records shows that, thanks largely to AIPAC’s nonprofit arm, Israel is far and away the No. 1 destination for privately sponsored foreign travel by members of the House and their aides.

More than a quarter of the roughly 4,100 privately sponsored foreign trips they have reported taking since 2012 were for travel to Israel, according to a study by the Howard Center for Investigative Journalism at the University of Maryland, which is publishing its findings in partnership with POLITICO.

That’s more trips to Israel than to the entire Western Hemisphere and the continent of Africa combined.

The Howard Center created a database of all House travel during the last decade. Each of the approximately 17,000 trips represents travel by one U.S. House representative or staffer, either alone or as part of a delegation and sometimes with a family member. The vast majority of trips — at least three in four — were taken by staffers, who play important roles in shaping policy and drafting legislation.

The much smaller Senate reported more than 2,600 trips during the same period, but Senate disclosure forms do not provide sponsors or destinations in a format that can be readily analyzed.

In addition to travel disclosures, nonprofit tax records and lobbying registrations, the Howard Center examination of House travel used data collected by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan government watchdog organization, and by LegiStorm, a public affairs information platform, to document the extensive links between lobbyists and travel sponsors.

Critics maintain the trips have left lawmakers with a one-sided understanding of U.S.-Israel relations and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict — one that magnifies the hardline policies of the current Israeli government.

“Whoever frames the discussion wins the debate,” said former Rep. Andy Levin (D-Mich.), a progressive Jewish politician and critic of AIPAC, which helped orchestrate his defeat in 2022.

The vast majority of trips to Israel — about 75 percent — were sponsored by AIPAC’s charitable affiliate, the American Israel Education Foundation.

AIPAC’s use of AIEF allows it to legally get around a 2007 law that limits lobbyists’ direct involvement in most privately sponsored travel. An exception in the law allows some 501(c)(3) organizations such as AIEF to sponsor travel. AIPAC lobbied for this exception and it is known by some as the “AIPAC loophole.” Without the exception, AIPAC would be limited to sponsoring one-day trips as an organization that employs lobbyists.

While other organizations have taken advantage of the loophole, none have contributed more than AIPAC to what U.S. representatives and House staff see and what messages they hear on trips to Israel and the occupied West Bank.

AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann declined multiple requests for interviews but in a written statement responded to what he described as the Howard Center’s “false characterizations about our trips.”

Wittmann wrote:

“AIEF-sponsored trips help educate bipartisan political leaders about the importance of the U.S.-Israel relationship through firsthand experiences in Israel, briefings by experts on Middle East affairs, and meetings with Israeli leaders from across the political spectrum.

“The trips are uniquely policy focused and comprehensive on a wide array of issues concerning US-Israel cooperation including regional security, technology, health and science.

“In the aftermath of the horrific Hamas attack of October 7th, these trips provide Members of Congress with a deeper understanding of the threats that Israel faces from Iranian terrorist proxies on its borders.

“Members of Congress have indicated that they found these trips very useful giving them a unique perspective on challenges facing the US and our ally Israel in a critical region.”

Trips to Israel are only one piece of a multipronged strategy for promoting Israel’s interests. AIPAC hosts an annual conference for elected officials in the Washington, D.C., area, which former Rep. Brian Baird (D-Wash.) called the “largest gathering of members of Congress” other than the State of the Union.

The organization spent over $3 million on lobbying last year, and its spending in 2024 currently places it among the top 3 percent of all lobbyist groups tracked by OpenSecrets. Its PAC and super PAC also helped funnel a combined $50.9 million into the 2022 election cycle alone, according to OpenSecrets.

Still, AIPAC’s prolific recruitment of members and staff for travel to Israel — travel which cost at least $10 million, according to LegiStorm data for 2012-2023 — demonstrates the importance AIPAC places on its travel program. According to the Howard Center’s analysis, roughly half of the current members of the House have traveled with the organization since 2012.

Among them is the first-term congressman Ivey, who defeated former Rep. Donna Edwards in a 2022 primary in which AIPAC’s super PAC spent $6 million on his behalf.

Ivey’s first trip was with eight other members of the Congressional Black Caucus. They arrived in Jerusalem on Sept. 2, 2023, a month before the Oct. 7 attacks by Hamas. They met with high-ranking Israeli officials, but a key perspective was missing from the trip, he said in an interview.

The itinerary included a meeting with a Palestinian-Israeli peace activist, “but not people in Gaza, and not the Palestinian Authority,” Ivey said. “So, heavy focus on Israel and Israeli politics.”

Ivey’s second AIPAC visit was the June trip, which in addition to a focus on Israeli politics incorporated multiple sessions on the Oct. 7, 2023 attacks. Ivey said that when they arrived in Israel, the airport “was lined with the faces of hostages that have been taken.”

Although Ivey said that the group met with Palestinian-Israelis, the trip did not include a visit to Gaza or to the West Bank.

Like prior trips sponsored by AIEF before Oct. 7, Ivey and the rest of the delegation also met with high-ranking Israeli officials including Prime Minister Netanyahu, Minister of Defense Yoav Gallant, and leader of the National Unity Party Benny Gantz, according to the itinerary included in his disclosure forms.

But on this trip, Ivey said, “the focus was totally different.”

During his September 2023 trip, he said there was a stronger focus on “trying to figure out… potential paths to a two-state solution.”

When asked whether the potential for a two-state solution was still a topic of conversation or consideration this June, Ivey said he isn’t supposed to share the particulars of the meetings.

But, he added, outside of the U.S., “there’s a lot of folks who doubt that that’s a possibility.”

“I think that’s true in Israel. I think that’s true… among many Palestinians,” he said. “Many people doubt or have questions about whether it is still a realistic option.”

Together, AIPAC’s nonprofit arm spent $68,000 to underwrite Ivey’s two trips, which included luxury accommodations. Ivey was joined by his wife on his first trip — a unique AIEF trip that brought nine House members of the Congressional Black Caucus to Israel and Rwanda to discuss the relationship between Israel, Rwanda and the U.S.

Ivey said people have not questioned whether his travel on AIEF’s dime has influenced his positions. “They focus more on the $7 million in independent expenditures in my election. My view is that, you know, it’s fair game, it’s all publicly disclosed, people can take a look and draw their own decisions. And as far as I know, we follow the rules.”

According to FEC data, AIPAC’s super PAC — United Democracy Project — spent $6 million in independent expenditures during Ivey’s 2022 primary. Ivey’s campaign also benefited from roughly $750,000 of contributions that supporters sent through another AIPAC affiliate, and over $400,000 in outside spending from another pro-Israel group, The Democratic Majority for Israel.

Ivey voted for the Israel military aid package April 20, which his staff said reflected both his desire to help Israel defend itself and to ensure the flow of additional humanitarian aid to Gaza. He voted against a November version of the bill that didn’t include aid for Gaza.

Edwards (D-Md.), who served in Congress from 2008 to 2017, refused to travel with AIPAC while in office and instead visited Israel, the occupied West Bank and Gaza with more liberal organizations, including the pro-Israel advocacy group J Street.

She said traveling with J Street, she saw firsthand how the spread of Israeli settlements throughout the West Bank have become a serious obstacle to a two-state solution.

“You can see how antithetical that is to a desire for a two-state solution. Where in the world would you draw the two states?” Edwards said.

According to itineraries and interviews, travelers on AIPAC trips meet fewer Palestinians than on J Street trips.

The Howard Center contacted more than 30 current and former members of the House and House staff who traveled to Israel between 2012 and 2023, including 23 members and staffers who traveled with AIPAC at least once. The only AIPAC travelers who agreed to an interview were Ivey and Baird, whose 1999 AIPAC trip is not captured in the Howard Center database.

Among those who declined requests for an interview were Rep. Mike Levin, a Democrat from California, and Democratic Leader Rep. Hakeem Jeffries of New York. Levin traveled to Israel three times between 2012 and 2023, twice with AIPAC and once with J Street.

In that same period, Jeffries traveled to Israel four times with AIPAC, most recently leading a Democratic delegation in August 2023.

In his 2022 disclosure report, Levin said the U.S.-Israel relationship “is an issue that my constituents raise with me, and the trip to the country will help me make decisions informed by the situation on the ground.”

Meanwhile Jeffries said in his 2023 disclosure report, “As the Democratic leader of the U.S. Congress, I have been asked to engage in my leadership capacity in issues related to the US-Israel relationship for this trip. These issues — as outlined by AIEF — are connected to my leadership and representational official duties.”

Both Levin’s and Jeffries’ communication teams did not respond to requests for an interview or comment.

AIPAC takes the position that to be pro-Israel means supporting the Israeli government, which for much of the 21st century has meant supporting the right-wing polices of Prime Minister Netanyahu, said Dov Waxman, professor and director of the UCLA Y&S Nazarian Center for Israel Studies.

Among the achievements touted on its website, AIPAC credits its efforts in recent years for Congress’ continued funding of billions in unconditional military and security assistance to Israel and for increased sanctions on Iran. AIPAC has also lobbied Congress to limit individuals’ and companies’ abilities to participate in the Palestinian-led Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) campaign against Israeli companies and supports Israel continuing the war in Gaza until Hamas’ military and government are dismantled.

For the first several decades of its existence, AIPAC was “unrivaled within the pro-Israel lobby,” according to Waxman. But he said the emergence and growth of the more liberal J Street threatens to erode AIPAC’s influence.

J Street was founded in 2007 and has sponsored congressional travel to Israel since 2010. It was the second-largest sponsor of travel to Israel from 2012-2023.

Yet the volume of travel sponsored by J Street — which similarly identifies as pro-Israel but is more open to criticizing the Israeli government — is surpassed nearly seven times over during that period. AIPAC has also attempted to maintain its dominance on the Hill, and as a travel sponsor, by painting J Street as anti-Israel — a characterization that both Waxman and J Street dispute.

Even when covering the same ground, AIPAC and J Street trip participants reported markedly different experiences. In February 2022, two AIPAC delegations — one Democratic and one Republican — and a Democratic J Street delegation visited Israel and the West Bank at the same time, with both Democratic groups even staying in the same hotel. The groups met separately with Mohammad Shtayyeh, the then-Palestinian Authority prime minister.

Rep. Jared Huffman (D-Calif.) had traveled to Israel with AIPAC in 2013, but this time he traveled with J Street. In a YouTube video posted by J Street, Huffman said he traded notes with his colleagues traveling with AIPAC after the meetings with Shtayyeh. Shtayyeh’s use of the word “apartheid” drew contrasting responses, he said.

“They were there to some extent to do pro-Israel combat and I think we were there to listen and learn,” said Huffman in the YouTube video.

Huffman did not respond to requests for an interview.

One of the only sponsors of congressional trips to the region that focuses on meetings with Palestinian families living in Jerusalem and the occupied West Bank is the small organization Rebuilding Alliance.

Four groups of House staffers — and no members — traveled there between 2018 and 2023 with the organization, which took them to witness Israeli military court proceedings against Palestinian children and to meet with Palestinian families whose homes had been destroyed by the Israeli military.

Nisreen Malley, senior advocacy coordinator at Rebuilding Alliance, said, “When you’re physically [visiting someone] who’s talking to you about how their home was demolished … it’s hard to ignore that when you’re thinking about your policies.”

Andy Levin argues the scale of Congress’ focus on — and travel to — Israel overall has caused the U.S. to lose sight of other key international issues.

“Israel and Palestine are very important,” he said. “But so are Sub-Saharan Africa and Latin America and the Caribbean. … Obviously, Asia — South Asia, East Asia — there are many important conflicts and difficult conflicts and economic opportunities.”

Baird agreed.

“I think we’ve neglected our own hemisphere, and to our detriment, because the Russians and the Chinese surely have not neglected our hemisphere,” Baird said. “The focus on the Middle East takes the oxygen out of the room for so many other issues.”

Aidan Hughes, Cait Kelley and Daryl Perry are reporters for the University of Maryland’s Howard School for Investigative Journalism. POLITICO’s Mike Zapler contributed to this report.

WAUSAU, Wisconsin — Democrats have spent 12 years and hundreds of millions of dollars fighting for a chance to dismantle the dominant conservative majorities that locked them out of power in Wisconsin’s statehouse.

But to regain clout in Madison, they’ll need to rebuild trust with voters in a place that’s become increasingly hostile to Democrats nationwide: rural America.

Democrats have a shot in Wisconsin thanks to new voting maps passed after the state’s liberal-controlled high court tossed out the ones crafted by Republicans to tilt in their favor.

“We feel the wind in our sails,” Assembly Minority Leader Greta Neubauer said. “There are Democrats all across the state, and many of those voters have not been able to make their voices heard in legislative elections because of the gerrymander.”

With Congress hamstrung by divided control, state legislatures are increasingly setting the country’s policy agenda. That shift has morphed tight contests for statehouses into expensive, high-stakes affairs in places like Arizona, Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin.

Democrats have their work cut out for them in the Dairy State. They’ve been run out of wide swaths of rural Wisconsin over the past two decades as many once-purple communities in the state’s less-populous north and west took a sharp right turn.

Republicans boast a commanding 64-34 majority in the state Assembly, and while new maps all but guarantee that edge will slip, pundits watching the race expect the GOP to retain a slim majority. Winning back the state Senate from a Republican supermajority is out of the question, since new maps won’t fully kick in there until 2026.

Republican leaders are banking that a deep bench of incumbents and a track record of delivering tax cuts will keep rural voters in their camp. Robin Vos, the powerful Republican Assembly speaker for more than a decade, said he’d bet his “bottom dollar” the GOP will remain in the majority come 2025.

“We are working harder, doing more doors, putting in the grassroots effort that has allowed us to be victorious over the course of the past 30 years,” Vos said.

But Democrats are looking to continue a recent string of success in statewide races after winning back the governor’s mansion in 2018 and flipping the state’s Supreme Court from conservative to liberal in 2023. They’re pouring money into more than a dozen battleground seats unlocked by new maps. And in a show of force, the party is contesting 97 of Wisconsin’s 99 Assembly districts, its largest recruitment effort since 2011.

Should liberals pull off the upset in Wisconsin, their strategy could become a blueprint for Democrats across the country searching for a way to halt the red tidal wave that’s washed over the American heartland.

“We see a slightly Democratic leaning overall environment,” Neubauer said. “That’s an environment in which we can win a majority.”

No home field advantage

Wisconsin Democrats will need to step out of their comfort zone to win back the Assembly.

The party’s battle-tested strategy for winning statewide races — overwhelming turnout in Democratic strongholds like Dane and Milwaukee counties paired with overperformance in suburban areas that used to vote reliably Republican — won’t be enough to hand them the majority.

Instead, the tipping-point seat is likely somewhere along Highway 29, an east-west artery that reaches across the state’s largely rural center and runs right through Wausau, where Democrat Yee Leng Xiong is looking to oust four-term GOP Rep. Patrick Snyder.

Snyder’s district is centered around this manufacturing and agriculture hub of about 40,000 people. Republicans flipped the historically blue seat in 2014 thanks to friendly maps and growing rural support for the GOP.

“We win that one, [it’s] very likely to be the seat that would give us the majority,” Neubauer said.

Xiong, a local school board member and former executive director of Wausau’s Hmong American Center, has been on Democrats’ radar for years. He finally decided to run for the seat after the state Supreme Court ordered new maps last December. He would be Wisconsin’s first Hmong American legislator if he wins in November.

“I’m really fortunate this district is 50-50,” said Xiong, who described himself as “annoyingly moderate” with a penchant for bipartisanship. “If it was too progressive, I probably wouldn’t win. If it was too conservative, I wouldn’t win.”

Snyder declined a request to comment.

But Xiong, like other Democrats running in rural areas, is up against a Republican operation that has had years to hone its rural campaigning skills.

Multiple Republican strategists who spoke with POLITICO said the party has a robust ground game focused on community events and a keen eye for recruiting strong candidates — an effort spearheaded by Vos.

“We want to find a person that has a record as an elected official, a community leader, a business leader, somebody who’s well-known in the community,” Vos said. “That person usually translates in because they don’t start with some hard ideological edge.”

Morgan Hess, executive director of the Assembly Democratic Campaign Committee, admitted the party has had trouble recruiting quality candidates to match Republicans in recent years, though she argues Republicans’ aggressive gerrymander played a sizable role in the challenge.

“It makes it hard to recruit good candidates,” Hess said. “When districts are specifically drawn to be noncompetitive, then it is harder to get local leaders to step up.”

Down to the ground game

Vos pointed to vulnerable incumbent Republican Rep. Todd Novak as a candidate-recruitment case study. On paper, Novak’s race in southwestern Wisconsin looks like a prime pickup opportunity for Democrats. The district, which covers small towns and dairy farms scattered across rolling hills west of Madison, leans Democratic after its boundaries were stretched east to pull in parts of solidly blue Dane County.

Yet Republicans have reason to believe he can keep his seat. Novak, who is openly gay, has a moderate streak, having supported nonpartisan redistricting before the state Supreme Court’s 2023 decision to order new maps. He’s knocked off tough Democratic challengers before, and campaign finance records from September show Novak has outraised and outspent his 2024 challenger, Elizabeth Grabe.

Novak did not respond to requests for comment.

With Republicans entrenched in rural areas, Democrats are going the extra mile to reach voters on the ground.

That’s how Grabe, a realtor who moved back to Wisconsin in 2005 to manage her family’s farm, found herself trekking up a winding gravel driveway in the tiny southwestern hamlet of Montfort after grabbing lunch at a local sports bar. She’s criss-crossed the 50-mile-wide district in her white SUV to reach voters, an effort the former triathlete compared to running a marathon after finishing a long bike ride.

“I don’t think I would have been able to do it if I didn’t have the background as an endurance athlete,” Grabe said.

Democrats are also playing defense in districts once considered safe under the old maps. In Eau Claire, a college town of about 70,000 people located 90 minutes east of Minneapolis, new maps cut parts of the city out of incumbent Democratic Rep. Jodi Emerson’s district and added in deep-red swaths of countryside to the east.

Her race against Republican challenger and county supervisor Michele Magadance Skinner is still rated “lean Democratic” by election forecasting site CNalysis, but she’s not taking anything for granted. The three-term incumbent said she’s made a point of traveling out to small towns like Augusta, where she spent a recent Saturday afternoon chatting with the staff of a local diner over lunch. (Skinner did not return requests for comment.)

“It matters to show up, be there, and be present in these communities,” Emerson said. “Even if I’m not winning votes, if I’m introducing myself to them and having a good conversation, my hope is I walk away with at least their respect.”

Money matters

Emerson and other Democrats looking to win over rural voters are campaigning on a slate of kitchen-table issues — greater funding for child care, public schools and local governments — they feel Republicans have neglected despite record state budget surpluses.

For example, city and county leaders have increasingly asked local taxpayers to foot the bill for municipal services like libraries and road construction when state aid comes up short. Democrats say the shortages are a direct result of Republican-imposed austerity.

“Rural folks are being impacted by this,” Xiong said. “The state legislature has been balancing its budget on the back of local government.”

They’re pushing a similar message on health care. Republicans have long opposed Medicaid expansion, making Wisconsin one of 10 states that has not approved benefits that the state’s health department estimates would extend medical coverage to nearly 90,000 residents.

Neubauer thinks these issues will resonate with voters. She was even willing to throw out a target number for Democrats — 52 seats — in an August interview with The Recombobulation Area, a local left-leaning politics blog.

Republicans are hustling to ward off a potential Democratic insurgency. GOP campaigns and conservative groups have swarmed the airwaves with ads painting Democrats as “out of touch” and “extreme” for opposing tax cuts during the last legislative session. Their counter-message is that lower taxes and less government spending will keep the state’s budget healthy and money in voters’ wallets.

“I’ve never had a person say we should expand welfare. I’ve never had a person bring up Medicaid expansion, not one. This is an example of projecting onto voters what you want them to believe, right?” Vos said. “The number one issue: jobs and the economy.”

Hammering high taxes and spending has served Republicans well. The issues fueled the party’s rise in 2010 behind then-Gov. Scott Walker, who made an explicit play for rural voters by promising to reallocate resources from Madison and Milwaukee to the rest of the state. He made good on promises to slash taxes, reject federal funding for a high-speed train connecting Madison and Milwaukee to Chicago and pass legislation that kneecapped public employees’ ability to collectively bargain.

“There’s some very legitimate reasons that people in rural areas feel like their economy and their way of life has been left behind,” said Brian Reisinger, a former Walker staffer who now works as a public affairs consultant and authored a recent book about rural economics. “I think that Governor Walker tapped into that by saying, ‘Hey, I’m fighting for you. I’m fighting for the taxpayer.’”

Yet Reisinger cautioned that Republicans’ advantage isn’t set in stone, especially as Democrats are making a more intentional play for rural voters.

“Republicans need to take notice,” he said. “Our politics are not static — it’s especially not the case in rural areas.”