Michigan voters chose Jeremy Moss, a Jewish state senator, to succeed outgoing Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) in the House, the Associated Press said.
Moss received 238,750 votes, 60.9%, ahead of Ethan Baker, Republican mayor of Troy, who had 144,529 votes, or 36.8%. Moss will be Michigan’s first openly gay member of Congress.
“Michiganders are feeling the squeeze at the grocery store and the gas station,” he stated after winning the election. “They need a Congress that will put a check on the reckless and dangerous actions by Donald Trump.”
The lone reference on his campaign website to his Jewish identity comes in a section about gun violence. “I am part of the generation that came of age as instances of mass shootings became more prevalent in American daily life,” the site states.
“I was in middle school when Columbine happened and in college when Virginia Tech happened,” it states. “As a member of the Jewish and LGBTQ communities, the Tree of Life and Pulse nightclub shootings hit too close to home.
The site lists Michigan Jewish Democrats as one of the groups that endorsed Moss.
In 2024, Moss wrote that “it is infuriating when others dictate to us what is and isn’t antisemitic, as they cheerlead the destruction of Israel from campus, use that as the reason to harass Jewish students and then wish ‘Happy Passover to those observing,’ making no connection to what Jews actually observe.”
Moss defeated two anti-Israel candidates in the state’s primary but was critical of his predecessor, Stevens, for her last-minute decision to endorse former Republican congressman Mike Rogers over the Democratic nominee, Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, in the Senate race.
El-Sayed, who has declined to say if the Iranian regime is more dangerous than the Jewish state and whom the Republican Jewish Coalition called the “most antisemitic U.S. Senate candidate in America,” won the seat on Tuesday.
“There are people who are looking at their ballot right now and feeling genuine anguish. I understand this,” Moss said at a press conference over the weekend to support El-Sayed. “But Mike Rogers is not the solution to this problem.”
Moss was at the center of a controversy involving antisemitic streamer Hasan Piker, who has campaigned with El-Sayed.
Piker showed a picture of Moss as he threatened Jewish Americans. “If pro-Israel Jews keep putting this idea out there that they’re singularly invested in Israel, eventually somebody’s going to come around and take action, not against the state of Israel but against American Jews,” Piker said.
Moss responded in a statement that he had been in “continual dialogue” with El-Sayed since the primary. “There is still work ahead to unite our ticket despite our differences,” he said.
And then he took aim at Piker. “We certainly won’t be gaslit that we’re responsible for the antisemitic harm upon us,” Moss stated.
El-Sayed stated that Piker did not speak for his campaign.
“My commitment to Jewish safety is the same as my commitment to the safety of my own daughters,” he said. “Antisemitism is a scourge, and we need to address it in all its forms, and I stand against any rhetoric that puts the community at risk.”
