Van Hollen wins Democratic nod for MD Senate seat

WASHINGTON — Rep. Chris Van Hollen won the Democratic nomination for Maryland’s open US Senate seat Tuesday night, defeating Rep. Donna Edwards in one of the most contentious and competitive Democratic primaries this year.

Van Hollen won with roughly 53 percent of Maryland’s Democratic voters supporting him over the 39 percent who voted for Edwards. He will now face Republican challenger Kathy Szeliga, a state delegate who won Tuesday’s GOP Senate primary, in the general election.

In a state that is heavily Democratic — and during a presidential election cycle that naturally sees higher voter turnout — Van Hollen is the heavy favorite to win in November and replace outgoing Sen. Barbara Mikulski, the longest-serving female senator in American history, who is stepping down after nearly three decades in that chamber.

State Sen. Jamie Raskin, who is Jewish, bested eight other candidates to win the Democratic nomination to contest Van Hollen’s seat. The district, comprising much of Montgomery County in suburban Washington, is solidly Democratic, and Raskin, backed by an array of progressive groups, is seen as a shoo-in for the next Congress.

Katie McGinty, a chief of staff for Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf, beat Joe Sestak a former congressman, in the race to face incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Toomey. McGinty was picked by Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., likely to become the next leader of his party in the Senate. Democrats are still furious with Sestak for beating late Sen. Arlen Specter in a 2010 primary.

Specter, one of the few Jewish Republicans in Congress, switched parties the year previous to help pass President Barack Obama’s health reforms, and Democrats hoped to reward him with reelection. Sestak went on to lose to Toomey, who used against Sestak his signing onto a letter criticizing Israel for its actions during the 2009 Gaza war.

Josh Shapiro won the Democratic nomination to be Pennsylvania’s attorney general, an office that has been plagued by charges of corruption in recent years. Shapiro, the chairman of the board of commissioners of Montgomery County, a suburban Philadelphia area, acted as an Obama surrogate to Jewish voters during the 2012 election, when he was a state representative.

The race between Van Hollen and Edwards exposed deep differences regarding their records on Israel during their House tenures.

“It’s probably one of the strongest contrasts that I’ve ever seen in a congressional or Senate race,” Rabbi Stuart Weinblatt, leader in Maryland’s Jewish community and founder of Congregation B’nai Tzedek, told The Times of Israel.

Van Hollen, who was first elected to Congress in 2002, has been a consistent supporter of Israel. He’s co-sponsored a series of resolutions affirming the US commitment to Israel’s security, and he was an early proponent of sanctioning Iran’s nuclear program.

Aside from writing a letter to then-secretary of state Condoleezza Rice during the 2006 Lebanon War expressing concern about Israel’s military campaign against Hezbollah and the mounting civilian death toll, Van Hollen is widely considered to be reliably pro-Israel.

Edwards, who was first elected to Congress in 2008, calls herself a “staunch supporter of Israel,” but has also been a vocal critic of the country’s policies and how it has managed its conflict with the Palestinians.

While she supported an emergency appropriations bill that gave Israel $225 million to resupply its Iron Dome missile defense program during the 2014 Gaza war, when a measure regarding Israel has come before the House, she’s routinely refrained from offering her full support for the Jewish state.

She voted against a 2009 House resolution condemning the UN Goldstone Report, which alleged Israel committed war crimes by deliberately targeting civilians during its 2009 war in the Gaza Strip (a claim that was later retracted, in 2011, by the report’s main author, South African jurist Richard Goldstone); and on other occasions, she’s refrained from casting an unequivocal “no” vote on such motions, instead voting “present.”

Edwards exercised this option for a 2009 resolution that supported Israel’s right to defend itself from Hamas rocket attacks during Operation Cast Lead; for a 2011 resolution that criticized the PA for seeking unilateral statehood and urged the US to suspend its aid to the PA over its unity agreement with Hamas; and for a 2012 resolution that reiterated US support for the defense of Israel.

Van Hollen voted in favor of all those resolutions, and co-sponsored two of them. He also co-sponsored and voted in favor of a 2013 bill imposing sanctions on Iran’s nuclear program. Edwards was one of 17 Democrats to vote no on that bill.

Both candidates, however, supported the Iran nuclear accord struck between Tehran and world powers last summer.

Most recently, more than 90 percent of House members signed a joint letter to President Barack Obama urging him to reject a possible upcoming resolution at the UN Security Council. The resolution may condemn Israel’s West Bank policies and delineate the framework of a final status two-state outcome.

Van Hollen was among the 394 Democrat and Republican legislators who signed the letter, whereas Edwards was among the 41 who did not.

“We share your frustration with the lack of significant progress toward a lasting peace between Israelis and Palestinians,” the letter to Obama said, but “only the parties themselves can agree to end their conflict through a negotiated resolution.”

Congressional critics of this action call it a “one-sided initiative” that seeks to impose a solution on the two sides and enable the Palestinian leadership to circumvent direct negotiations with its Israeli counterpart.

Despite these differences, Van Hollen and Edwards were each backed by the liberal pro-Israel group J Street, classified as “on the street” candidates who support the basic platform of a two-state outcome between Israel and the Palestinians and the preferred use of diplomacy over force.