They once called him a ‘goose-stepping extremist.’ They’re now sitting out his comeback bid.

Brandon Herrera, a gun shop owner and YouTuber running for Congress in Texas' 23rd District, is now the presumptive GOP nominee after rival Rep. Tony Gonzales dropped out of the runoff, despite facing past criticism for videos mimicking Nazi marches and joking about the Holocaust. The Republican Jewish Coalition and AIPAC, which spent nearly $1.4 million combined to oppose him in 2024, are now sitting out the general election rather than backing a Democrat or continuing their fight against him. President Trump endorsed Herrera last week, and Speaker Mike Johnson followed with House GOP leadership backing him as an "America First grassroots leader," signaling the establishment has moved to embrace him in the GOP-leaning district Trump won by 17 points in 2024. Pro-Israel donors and Jewish Republican groups are now caught between supporting Herrera or a Democrat, a choice Gabriel Groisman, a Florida GOP donor, called "a very, very difficult question to answer." The Jewish Democratic Council of America is considering an unusual investment in the heavily Republican district to defeat Herrera, a move that would deviate from their typical strategy of engaging only in areas with significant Jewish populations.