The Democrats' victory in a majority in the House of Representatives and the Senate in the midterm elections for the US Congress marked the emergence of remarkable names who achieved unprecedented results, and among these results was Deb Haaland's victory as governor of New Mexico.
The woman belonging to the Laguna Pueblo tribe became the first indigenous woman to hold the position of governor in the state, which is located in the southwestern United States.
Haaland had previously made history as the first indigenous woman to hold a cabinet portfolio, when she was appointed minister responsible for federal lands under former President Joe Biden.
So what do we know about Deb Haaland?
According to her official website, Haaland (65 years old) stands up to the millionaires and billionaires who manipulate the system against the people of New Mexico. When she takes over as governor, she will protect society from President Donald Trump and the US Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency, and will focus on the biggest challenges: reducing crime, improving education, and lowering prices.
Haaland grew up in a military family and attended 13 public schools before graduating from Highland High School in Albuquerque. At the age of 34, she earned a bachelor's degree in English from the University of New Mexico and later earned a juris doctorate from the University of New Mexico School of Law.
She says that like other New Mexico residents, she has faced many challenges, such as homelessness and financial insecurity. She helped pay for her child's kindergarten by volunteering there for a reduced fee. She relied on food stamps from the government's Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program to provide her basic needs. She recovered from addiction more than three decades ago.
7 bills signed by Trump
While raising her daughter Sumah as a single mother, Deb worked in the catering industry and ran her own small sauce production and canning business. She wanted to make a difference in the lives of New Mexico workers; So I started participating in voter registration. In 2018, she made history as one of the first Native American women elected to Congress.
During her tenure as secretary, she led nearly 70,000 federal employees, secured thousands of jobs in New Mexico, advanced clean energy, and attracted hundreds of millions of dollars in investment in the state, according to her official website.
She cooperated with both parties, obtaining more cosponsors for her legislation than all freshman members of the House of Representatives in 2019. She introduced seven bills that President Donald Trump signed into law, among the most bills signed by any member of the House of Representatives in that Congress.
In his first speech, today, Wednesday, after the crushing defeat suffered by his Republican Party in the midterm elections, US President Donald Trump announced that holding the war with Iran responsible for his party’s loss in the elections was “largely true,” and stressed that Tehran could not be allowed to possess a nuclear weapon, adding: “It was worth it.”
Trump told reporters that if his name had been on the ballot, the Republicans would have won, considering that the party was unable to transfer the support it enjoys to its candidates.
He added that he did not mind his deputy, J.D. Vance's post on social media, earlier today, Wednesday, in which Vance referred to the significant electoral losses, saying: "The reason we lost is because of the war."
He added: “I can tell you that regarding that war, I would not have done anything differently.”
Trump also reiterated his belief that “if I had been on the ballot, we would have won.”
He continued: “But they simply could not convey that love.” There was so much love in those gatherings, it was unbelievable, and we could not transfer this love to the candidates.”
In response to a question about the possibility of launching procedures to isolate him, he said: “I think that it would destroy the Democratic Party if they did it,” stressing that there was “no reason” to isolate him.
The new White House auditorium
Trump began his talk at length about the new ballroom in the White House, from the construction site.
Trump invited journalists to the construction site inside the White House, and spoke about the project for about 20 minutes, without mentioning the defeat suffered by the Republicans.
He said: “It will not only be one of the largest celebration halls, but I believe it will be the most beautiful in the world,” without mentioning at the beginning of his speech the midterm elections in which the Democrats achieved a landslide victory and took control of Congress.
There were originally no public events on the president's agenda, but at the last minute he invited journalists to attend. He also answered questions briefly, stressing: “If I had been on the ballot, I would have won.”
Republican losses led to the transfer of control of Congress to the Democrats, who achieved a series of victories in the Senate elections that had previously seemed out of reach in Republican strongholds.
These results reflect a categorical rejection by tens of millions of voters of President Donald Trump's policies.
Voters in conservative strongholds, who brought the president to a second term just two years ago, have turned strongly to the Democrats, driven by intense dissatisfaction with the unsupported war on Iran, concern about the high cost of living and anger at the way Trump is managing the country's affairs.
He was elected the first Democratic senator in Kansas since the Great Depression nearly a century ago.
Democrats in South Carolina, a state that has not elected a Democratic senator since 1932, and which Trump won by nearly 18 points in 2024, ousted the president's chosen candidate for Senate.
In Texas, Democrats were unable to win any statewide race for more than three decades, until they were able to do so on Tuesday.
The victory of Democrat Abdul Rahman Al-Sayyid for the US Senate seat in Michigan, in the midterm elections that took place on Tuesday, November 3, revealed a difference in electoral options within the Jewish community, after his critical position on Israel prompted some Democratic voters to support his Republican rival, Mike Rogers, while others chose to support him despite their reservations about his positions.
A poll conducted by Mercury Public Affairs, commissioned by the Jewish Majority organization, which says it works to ensure that the positions of the majority of American Jews are represented in public life, and whose results were published by the American Jewish newspaper The Forward, showed that 60 percent of the Jewish voters surveyed supported El-Sayed, an American of Egyptian origin, compared to 36 percent for Rogers, while the percentage of support for the Democratic candidate for state governor, Jocelyn Benson, was, 79 percent among the participants themselves.
The poll included 482 Jewish voters who cast their ballots early, and the difference between the approval ratings for Mr. and Benson shows that some Jewish voters preferred other candidates in the Senate race, despite their support for the Democratic Party in the state governor’s elections.
In a field investigation published by the “Times of Israel” website, today (Wednesday), from the city of Detroit, the largest city in the US state of Michigan, Jordan Acker, an elected Jewish Democratic official in the state, indicated that Al-Sayyid’s positions on Israeli policies do not necessarily differ much from the positions of the majority of Jews in Michigan, especially regarding the treatment of Palestinians and settler violence in the West Bank.
“The source of concern for the majority of community members about El-Sayed is that he and his allies seem willing to sever the connection that links the vast majority of Jews to the Land of Israel,” Acker said.
Israel in the accounts of Jewish voters
Poll data published by The Forward showed that 23 percent of participants who voted for Democrat Elissa Slotkin in the 2024 Senate elections chose Rogers this time. Among those who refused to vote for Mr., 92 percent said his positions on Israel and their concerns about anti-Semitism were a major reason for their decision.
These results reveal that Al-Sayed's position on Israel was a factor influencing the decision of some Jewish voters, but it did not prevent the majority of survey participants from supporting him. However, the results remain limited to a sample of voters who voted early, and do not necessarily represent all Jewish voters in Michigan.
Michigan Jews' varying attitudes toward Mr
Al-Sayed's statements following a terrorist attack targeting the Temple Israel synagogue in the suburbs of Detroit, on March 12, raised objections among some Jews in Michigan. Al-Sayed condemned the attack, stressing that there was no justification for it, but he also spoke about the suffering of its perpetrator, who lost members of his family in an Israeli raid on Lebanon, which sparked criticism of his statements. Al-Sayed also faced criticism over his relationship with left-wing commentator Hassan Bekir, who was accused of using anti-Semitic rhetoric.
On the other hand, other Jewish voters believed that their disagreement with El-Sayed regarding Israel did not justify supporting a Republican candidate linked to Trump. Among them is Steve Gold, one of the founders of the group “Jews for Abdul” (in support of Abdul), who linked the security of Jews to the strength of American democracy, and criticized treating unconditional support for Israel as a criterion for Jewish identity.
The severity of the differences also appeared in the statements of Jewish activists who supported Republican Rogers in the Senate race, including American-Israeli businessman Shimon Levy, who spoke of the tension in his personal relations with Jewish supporters of Mr. Rogers during the election campaign.
These data indicate that attitudes toward Israel influenced the electoral choices of some Michigan Jews, but they were not the only factor in determining their vote. Some of them supported Al-Sayed despite their reservations, while others chose his Republican competitor in the Senate race, while continuing to support Democratic candidates in other races. But the difference in the choices of Jewish voters does not necessarily mean a decline in their support for Israel, as some of them can oppose its government’s policies without abandoning their support for them.
