In a clear sign that “social media is not real life,” pro-Israel candidate Donna Miller won a decisive victory over anti-Israel candidate Robert Peters in the Democratic primary for Illinois’ Second Congressional District. With 92% of the votes counted, Miller led with 40.4%, while Peters trailed at 12%.
She also defeated Jesse Jackson Jr., who received 29% of the vote and was seeking to reclaim the seat he held from 1995 to 2012. He resigned from Congress one month after an investigation into his misuse of campaign funds was reported. Jackson later pleaded guilty and served time in prison.
Miller swept every county in the district, beating her nearest competitor by margins of 9 to 24 points.
IL-02 is a solidly blue district, meaning that Miller’s victory in the November general election is likely.
She will face Republican candidate Michael Scott Noack, who ran uncontested in the GOP primary.
As political analyst Josh Kraushaar noted on X, “social media isn’t real life.” In other words, the antisemitism that dominates online discussions does not reflect the views of the broader electorate.
Miller’s victory likely breaks the hearts of Democratic politicians and the vast majority of the legacy media who don’t even try to hide their opposition to the U.S.-Israel war against Iran or their hopes that the Iranian regime prevails.
Though just one race in one state, its broader message is one that politicians and the media should not ignore. While an extremely loud minority of Americans openly traffics in antisemitic rhetoric, most Americans continue to support Israel, and many back a hard line against Iran. Recent polling underscores this reality, with overwhelming Republican support and even a measurable share of Democrats favoring military action — revealing a public far less aligned with online discourse than recent media coverage would suggest.
This reality was made plain on Tuesday, when the far-left, anti-American, and anti-Israel media outlet Al Jazeera published an article arguing that the U.S.-Israeli strategy against Iran is working and that Trump must stay the course. The author, Assistant Professor of International Politics and Security at the Doha Institute for Graduate Studies, Muhanad Seloom, notes that, “Every aspect of Iran’s ability to project regional power is being successfully degraded.”
Two weeks into Operation Epic Fury, the dominant narrative has settled into a comfortable groove: The United States and Israel stumbled into a war without a plan. Iran is retaliating across the region. Oil prices are surging, and the world is facing another Middle Eastern quagmire. US senators have called it a blunder. Cable news has tallied the crises. Commentators have warned of a long war….But this narrative is wrong. Not because the costs are imaginary, but because the critics are measuring the wrong things. They are cataloguing the price of the campaign while ignoring the strategic ledger.When you look at what has actually happened to Iran’s principal instruments of power – its ballistic missile arsenal, its nuclear infrastructure, its air defences, its navy and its proxy command architecture – the picture is not one of US failure. It is one of systematic, phased degradation of a threat that previous administrations allowed to grow for four decades.
Seloom’s clear-eyed assessment of the current state of the war is refreshing. I highly recommend reading the full article.
Miller’s victory sends an unmistakable message: even in deep-blue Illinois, voters are rejecting the anti-Israel, anti-war propaganda being pushed by (mostly) Democratic politicians in Washington and amplified by the legacy media. They recognize the disconnect — and they’re rejecting it at the ballot box.
Elizabeth writes commentary for Legal Insurrection and The Washington Examiner. She is an academy fellow at The Heritage Foundation. Please follow Elizabeth on X or LinkedIn.
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