But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. How we check

Kelly Kirschner

Democrat · U.S. House, Florida District 16
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How this mark works

We track key votes on sending U.S. weapons and money to the government of Israel. A check means every tracked vote they cast came down against sending more, on the side of peace and de-escalation. A question mark means a mixed record: they sided with sending up to half of the time. An X means they voted to send more weapons and money in over half of their tracked votes, even as the way those weapons and dollars were being used became more and more obvious. At exactly half, money this election cycle from a lobbying group we track, or an endorsement from a group that backs sending weapons, makes it an X. Only votes actually cast are counted. Where a candidate has no recorded votes on these bills, the mark comes instead from a reviewed reading of their public record (money from the lobbying groups we track, endorsements, and their own words since January 26, 2024). There an X also covers fully backing the conduct of the war by the government of Israel without significant reservations, and a question mark also covers speaking about Israel without saying clearly where they stand on U.S. weapons and funding. A dash means No Position Found: we found nothing in their own words about Israel, Gaza or the war.

See a dash? Ask the candidate where they stand, then send us their answer and we'll review it and update the mark. Or volunteer to help review candidates.

No recorded votes on the bills we track. We found nothing in their own words about Israel, Gaza or the war.

Nothing located as of September 2026 has Kirschner taking a position on U.S. weapons or money for the government of Israel, or on U.S. aid to Palestinians. His platform's one plank on foreign policy is about ending what he calls wars of choice and names no country.

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Deep Dive

Kelly Kirschner is the Democratic nominee in Florida’s 16th District, the open seat Vern Buchanan is leaving. A third-generation Floridian whose family ran a citrus business in Manatee County, he was elected to the Sarasota City Commission in 2007 and served as mayor in 2010 and 2011, an office his father held before him. He spent four years in the Peace Corps in rural Guatemala, founded the immigrant education nonprofit UnidosNow and was a dean at Eckerd College. He won a five-candidate Democratic primary on August 18, 2026 with 43.3 percent of the vote and faces Sydney Gruters and Mark Davis, who has no party affiliation, on November 3.

The nearest thing to a position here is a plank about war powers, and it names no country. The sixth of the seven priorities on his campaign platform is headed “The Most Solemn Duty: Ending Wars of Choice”. It opens: “There is no higher responsibility for a Member of Congress than the power to send our sons and daughters into harm’s way.” It says that under the Constitution only Congress has the power to declare war, that Washington ducks the debate before “excursions” that cost American lives and money, and that “These poorly thought-out conflicts, funded with blank taxpayer checks and met with a Congressional blind eye, are eroding decades of trust throughout the world and putting our children’s future in peril.” It closes: “If it’s worth American blood, it is worth a full, public, and rigorous debate in the halls of Congress.” He submitted almost the same passage as one of his three key messages in the candidate questionnaire he filled in for Ballotpedia. Neither version names a country, a weapon, a dollar figure or a bill, and neither mentions Israel or Gaza.

Everything else on this question is empty. The words Israel, Gaza, Palestinian, Hamas and foreign aid appear nowhere on his campaign site, in its four press releases, in his Ballotpedia answers, or in the long interview WSLR News published on July 11, 2026, which covers campaign finance, property insurance, immigration, data centers, disaster money and Cuba. In that interview he put federal spending abroad against spending at home in general terms, saying “A country with the wealth that we have should have guaranteed funding for FEMA that gets our communities back before we have any conversation about any country in this world.” He named no country there either. On safety and antisemitism there is an appearance rather than a statement: on August 7, 2025, as board president of UnidosNow, he sat on a four-person panel at Selby Public Library in Sarasota at a summit whose subjects included racism, antisemitism and political polarization. The organizers’ account of the evening quotes no panelist and attributes no remark to him. An empty record carries no implication either way.

His campaign links to accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube, and none of them could be read here. Their addresses are on his research page so that anyone who can open them may look.

You are better placed to change this than we are. Ask Kirschner directly, or at a candidate forum, and send us the reply: it goes on this page in his own words, which is worth more than anything we could write about him.

The money

Checked the five lobbying groups we track; no direct 2026 support found

2026 support from the five lobbying groups we track
Nothing recorded (as of 2026-09-27) from the five lobbying groups we track; earlier cycles and earmarked donations not yet tracked.
Support-only OpenFEC data. Opposition independent expenditures are excluded.

Research log

The notes behind this card: what we looked at, what we found, and where each item came from.

Every page named below was opened and read on 2026-09-07 unless the entry says otherwise. His campaign site was read in full: the single page that carries its home, about, priorities, endorsements, district and press sections, its events page, and all four of its press releases. Bands: Position (2024-01-26 onward), Reaction window (2023-10-07 to 2024-01-25), Earlier record (before 2023-10-07), Undated. Kirschner has never held federal office, so none of the congressional votes this site tracks is his, and no funding from the committees this site tracks is recorded on this record.

U.S. military aid and weapons to the government of Israel

  • Nothing located, at any date. No statement by him about arms transfers, weapons shipments, Foreign Military Financing, security assistance, a dollar figure, a condition on aid, or any bill on those subjects appears on his campaign site, in his Ballotpedia questionnaire, in the WSLR interview, in the Spectrum News forum report, or in any news report about his campaign read for this card.
  • [Position, undated; read 2026-09-07] The closest material is a plank that names no recipient. The sixth priority on his campaign platform is headed “The Most Solemn Duty: Ending Wars of Choice” and reads, in the parts quoted on the card: “There is no higher responsibility for a Member of Congress than the power to send our sons and daughters into harm’s way.” · “Yet, for too long, Washington has treated this solemn duty as a secondary concern. Under the Constitution, Congress — and only Congress — has the power to declare war.” · “It’s a moral outrage that when we face the prospect of “wars of choice,” leadership in Washington often ducks debate, choosing to take two-week vacations before even beginning a serious deliberation on “excursions” that cost American lives and billions of taxpayer dollars.” · “These poorly thought-out conflicts, funded with blank taxpayer checks and met with a Congressional blind eye, are eroding decades of trust throughout the world and putting our children’s future in peril.” · and three closing lines, set out separately on the page: “No more blank checks.” · “No more blind eyes.” · “If it’s worth American blood, it is worth a full, public, and rigorous debate in the halls of Congress.” No country, weapon, dollar figure or bill is named anywhere in it. The page carries no date and is recorded on the date it was read.
  • [Position, 2026; read 2026-09-07] He submitted almost the same passage as the second of three key messages in Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey. The wording differs in small ways from the campaign site: “Under the Constitution, only Congress has the power to declare war”; “leadership in Washington often ducks the debate, choosing to take vacations”; “These poorly planned conflicts, funded with blank taxpayer checks and met with a Congressional blind eye, are eroding decades of trust throughout the world and putting our children’s future in peril.” Ballotpedia records the year of the survey and not the day, so it is recorded on the date it was read rather than given a precision the page does not carry.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

  • Nothing located, at any date. Neither UNRWA, nor Gaza humanitarian funding, nor the aid pipeline appears anywhere in his published material.

Characterization of the conflict

  • Nothing located, at any date. The words Israel, Gaza, Palestinian, Hamas and Middle East appear nowhere on his campaign site, in his questionnaire answers or in his quoted remarks in any report read for this card, except for one biographical mention: his campaign biography says his brother “served multiple tours as a U.S. Army officer in the Middle East and Afghanistan.”

Israel-related rhetoric and lobbying

  • Nothing located, at any date. No statement by him about the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, about any other advocacy organization on this subject, or about money from any of them was found, and no pledge about their donations was found under his name. His campaign describes itself as powered by “Grassroots donors—not corporate PACs”, which is a statement about political action committees generally and is not a statement about this subject.
  • [Position, 2026-07-11] Adjacent, and quoted here in full because it is the only place he sets American spending abroad against spending at home. In the WSLR News interview, by Noah Bookstein, published July 11, 2026, he was asked about delayed disaster recovery money and answered at length about the war in Iran and about the cost of rebuilding there, ending: “A country with the wealth that we have should have guaranteed funding for FEMA that gets our communities back before we have any conversation about any country in this world.” The Iran material in that answer is his subject there, not this one; the closing sentence names no country. In the same interview he said of United States policy toward Cuba, “Let’s make Cubans suffer more than they’re already suffering under their regime, and if they suffer more, somehow this regime will collapse”, describing it as a policy he opposes, and said of bombing Iran that such measures are “in many ways inimical to the goals that we profess.”

Safety and antisemitism

  • [Position, event 2025-08-07; report published 2025-10-06] Sarasota Sister Cities’ account of Building Bridges: Sarasota Peace & Understanding Summit, held at Selby Public Library on the evening of August 7, 2025. It names the four panelists: “Kelly Kirschner, President of UnidosNow Board of Directors; Jen Ahearn-Koch, Sarasota City Commissioner; Liat Alon, Chief Learning & Engagement Officer at the Jewish Federation of Sarasota–Manatee; and Trevor Harvey, President of the Sarasota Chapter of the NAACP.” It says the panel “navigated tough questions about immigration, racism, antisemitism, political polarization, and the structural obstacles to belonging” and that panelists urged people to stay “informed about local hate or bias incidents” and to build “relationships across cultural and faith communities.” The account quotes no panelist and attributes no remark to Kirschner. It is the organizers’ own report of their own event.
  • Nothing else located, at any date. Nothing in his published material addresses antisemitism directly, and no statement by him at that summit was found anywhere.

What his platform actually says

  • [Undated; read 2026-09-07] His campaign site is a single page with seven numbered priorities: lowering the cost of living; protecting the Gulf Coast; building an affordable economy; health care; corporate tax loopholes and the national debt; ending wars of choice; and veterans. Six of the seven are domestic. Under a second heading, “A Representative for the New D16”, it lists disaster readiness, the insurance crisis, small business and accessibility. Its events page and its four press releases, on his first-week fundraising, on New College of Florida, on grassroots donor numbers and on an August 2026 district poll, carry nothing on this subject.
  • [Position, 2026; read 2026-09-07] Ballotpedia’s Candidate Connection survey. He answered every question on the form. His three key messages are price gouging and taxes, the war powers passage set out above, and Medicare and Medicaid. Asked what areas of public policy he is personally passionate about, he named lowering costs, a fully funded FEMA, affordable home and flood insurance, corporate tax loopholes and corruption in Washington. No question on the form asks about foreign policy. His answer listing endorsements names, among others, a former United States senator, a former Republican member of Congress, a Nobel Peace Prize laureate, and two former United States ambassadors, to Venezuela and to Bosnia; none of those endorsements is on this subject.
  • [Read 2026-09-07] His BallotReady profile carries no issue statements on this subject. iVoterGuide’s Florida guide lists all three candidates in this race with a link to each campaign site and carries no questionnaire answers from him that could be read.

Where he spoke, and what was asked

  • [Position, 2026-07-11] The WSLR News interview is the longest published conversation with him. Its subjects are campaign finance and Citizens United, his family and the citrus business, the Peace Corps, the redrawn district, property insurance and a national catastrophic reinsurance fund, immigration and enforcement, the proposed DeSoto County data center, FEMA and disaster money, Cuba, Iran, and Vern Buchanan’s town halls. Israel, Gaza, Palestinians and foreign aid appear nowhere in it.
  • [Position, 2026-07-22] Spectrum News’ report of its Community Conversation with congressional candidates for this district, published July 22, 2026. Kirschner was one of seven candidates who took part. The report quotes him on investor purchases of single-family homes. It also says, of the whole panel: “Lone Republican Eddie Speir was also the only candidate who didn't say he'd vote against authorizing the Iran war.” That sentence is the reporter’s account of the group and quotes nobody; it attributes no words to Kirschner, and it is about Iran rather than about this question. It is recorded here and is not on the card for both reasons.
  • [Position, 2026-06-03] WMNF’s report of a candidate event in Brandon covers two other candidates and mentions Kirschner only in a list of others running. The single occurrence of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee on that page is a reader’s comment posted under the article on July 9, 2026, not a candidate statement.
  • [Position, 2026-08-18] The Bradenton Times’ analysis of the Democratic primary, Tampa Bay 28’s report of the result and the Sarasota News Leader’s report of his entry into the race were each read in full. None of them mentions Israel, Gaza or foreign aid.

The race

  • [Read 2026-09-07] Ballotpedia’s page for the 2026 election in Florida’s 16th District: “Kelly Kirschner, Sydney Gruters, and Mark Davis are running in the general election for U.S. House Florida District 16 on November 3, 2026.” The Democratic primary on August 18, 2026 recorded 22,825 votes and 43.3 percent for Kirschner against Tamika Lyles, Jan Schneider, Jonathan Harris and Glenn Pearson. There is no incumbent in the race; Vern Buchanan is retiring. The district covers all of Manatee, DeSoto and Hardee counties and parts of Sarasota, Pinellas and Polk.

Places that could not be read, so nothing is claimed from them

  • The accounts his campaign site links to as his: https://www.facebook.com/kirschnerforcongress/ , https://www.instagram.com/kirschnerforcongress/ , https://www.tiktok.com/@kirschnerforcongress and https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChUm2GvSYTpdVqDoNOPDqiQ . The Facebook page returned nothing readable and the other three returned a page with no readable posts or video titles. His LinkedIn profile, https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellykirschner/ , did not open either. Their addresses are printed rather than linked because they do not open here.
  • Florida Politics, which covers this race closely and which ran a series putting the same questions to candidates in this primary, refuses every reader we have. Two of its reports were offered to us: https://floridapolitics.com/archives/794327-kelly-kirschner-jumps-into-race-for-open-cd-16-seat/ and https://floridapolitics.com/archives/812633-jan-schneider-tells-republicans-in-congress-to-develop-some-guts/ . No entry in that series under Kirschner’s own name was found by any search run for this card, and nothing from the host is used.
  • https://www.yourobserver.com/news/2026/may/03/sarasota-former-mayor-joins-congressional-race/ , which did not open here.

Not on the card, and why

  • The whole of his platform and his questionnaire answers on the cost of living, the Gulf Coast, health care, taxes, veterans, insurance, immigration, data centers and disaster money: real positions, but not about U.S. weapons or money for the government of Israel, or about U.S. aid to Palestinians. They are listed above so the absence can be checked.
  • His remarks on Iran and on Cuba in the WSLR interview. The question this site asks is about U.S. weapons and money for the government of Israel, and remarks about other countries are not an answer to it. They are quoted above.
  • The Spectrum News sentence about who did and did not say he would vote against authorizing the war in Iran. It quotes nobody, it describes a panel rather than a person, and it is about Iran.
  • Two of his primary opponents were reported to have taken positions on U.S. military aid to the government of Israel. Those are their answers and belong on their own records; nothing about them is on this card, and Kirschner said nothing about them.
  • His endorsements, which are other people’s recommendations rather than statements by him.

Sources retrieved for this card (address; opened or could not open; date)

  • https://kellykirschner.com/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://kellykirschner.com/press/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://kellykirschner.com/events/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://kellykirschner.com/press/congressional-candidate-kelly-kirschner-raises-over-100000-in-the-first-week-0-from-corporate-pacs/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://kellykirschner.com/press/gruters-cronyism-machine/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://kellykirschner.com/press/kirschner-adds-grassroots-donors-nearly-3x-faster-than-gruters-as-national-democrats-put-fl-16-on-the-map-to-retake-the-house/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://kellykirschner.com/press/new-poll-kirschner-and-gruters-dead-heat-fl-16/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/Kelly_Kirschner (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/Florida%27s_16th_Congressional_District_election,_2026 (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://wslr.org/district-16-congressional-race-kelly-kirschner/ (opened; 2026-09-07; published 2026-07-11)
  • https://baynews9.com/fl/tampa/news/2026/07/23/seven-district-1-candidates-join-spectrum-news-forum (opened; 2026-09-07; published 2026-07-22)
  • https://sarasotasistercities.org/a-resounding-success-sarasota-peace-understanding-summit-brings-community-together/ (opened; 2026-09-07; published 2025-10-06; event 2025-08-07)
  • https://thebradentontimes.com/stories/race-analysis-congressional-district-16-democratic-primary,205475 (opened; 2026-09-07; published 2026-07-18)
  • https://sarasotanewsleader.com/kelly-kirschner-announces-campaign-for-u-s-house-district-16-seat/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.tampabay28.com/news/region-pinellas/gruters-kirschner-win-primaries-in-floridas-16th-congressional-district (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.ballotready.org/people/kelly-kirschner (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.predictionedge.com/elections/profile/kelly-kirschner/ (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://ivoterguide.com/voter-guide/state/fl (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.wmnf.org/florida-16th-district-candidates-priorities-election/ (opened; 2026-09-07; published 2026-06-03)
  • https://mynews13.com/fl/orlando/news/2026/08/19/cd-16-primary-results (opened; 2026-09-07)
  • https://smarter.vote/races/fl-house-16-2026/ (opened; 2026-09-07; not used, because the page states its candidate summaries are machine-generated)
  • https://floridapolitics.com/archives/794327-kelly-kirschner-jumps-into-race-for-open-cd-16-seat/ (could not open; 2026-09-07)
  • https://floridapolitics.com/archives/812633-jan-schneider-tells-republicans-in-congress-to-develop-some-guts/ (could not open; 2026-09-07)
  • https://floridapolitics.com/archives/813995-tamika-lyles-backs-phased-transition-to-universal-healthcare-suspending-offensive-aid-to-israel/ (could not open; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.yourobserver.com/news/2026/may/03/sarasota-former-mayor-joins-congressional-race/ (could not open; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.linkedin.com/in/kellykirschner/ (could not open; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.facebook.com/kirschnerforcongress/ (could not open; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.instagram.com/kirschnerforcongress/ (opened, no readable posts; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.tiktok.com/@kirschnerforcongress (opened, no readable posts; 2026-09-07)
  • https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChUm2GvSYTpdVqDoNOPDqiQ (opened, no readable video titles; 2026-09-07)
  • This is a record of what was checked on 2026-09-07, not a claim that no statement exists anywhere.

Also in this race

  1. – Sydney Gruters (Republican)
  2. ✓ Mark Davis (Other)

All Florida candidates.

But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. Every claim on this page goes through at least two verification steps. Open Find Your Candidates for votes, funding and contact details.