Tom Barrett

Deep Dive

Barrett represents Michigan's 7th District, around Lansing, and is in his first term. He served twenty-two years in the Army.

His published platform, the six-pillar Blueprint for a Better America on his own House site, devotes one pillar to foreign policy and lists five actions under it, all of them congressional war-powers measures: expiry dates on authorizations for the use of military force, faster procedures for votes to end unauthorized force, and related bills. It names no recipient of American assistance abroad. None of his House press releases, from January 2025 to September 2026, is about U.S. weapons or funding for the government of Israel or about aid to Palestinians. His campaign's issues page, which is not linked from its own navigation, has a foreign-policy section entirely about the 2021 withdrawal from Afghanistan, and its text is left over from an earlier campaign.

In March 2025 he signed on as a cosponsor of the United States-Israel Defense Partnership Act, which would expand defense cooperation with the government of Israel through joint programs on countering unmanned systems and on emerging defense technologies, higher funding caps and later end dates for the existing U.S.-Israel anti-tunnel and counter-drone cooperation programs, a two-year extension of the war reserves stockpile authority, and a Defense Innovation Unit office in Israel. No statement of his about the bill was located.

His two recorded votes both ran the same way and are worth naming rather than counting. He voted against striking $500 million for Israeli Cooperative Programs, which is money for the Iron Dome, short-range ballistic missile defense and Arrow systems, and in July 2026 he voted against the amendment that would have barred the year's funds from being used for Israel and cut $3.3 billion from Foreign Military Financing, taken at a reported 73,246 people killed in Gaza. The Foundation for Middle East Peace compiled the members who spoke publicly about that vote, and its compilation carries no entry for him and none for any Michigan Republican.

What he has done on this subject is about safety at home. In a May 2024 letter obtained the following year through a records request he asked Michigan State University's president to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance definition of antisemitism, a definition whose critics say it can be used against criticism of the Israeli government, and in June 2026 he helped introduce a bill to expand federal security grants for Jewish institutions. Neither answers what America sends. A constituent in Lansing can get an answer faster than we can. Ask him whether he would vote to condition or withhold U.S. weapons for the government of Israel, and whether he would fund humanitarian aid for Palestinians, and send us the reply; it will go on his research page in his own words.

The record

Supported sending weapons or funding in 2 of 2 tracked votes

• His Blueprint for a Better America platform on his House site devotes one of its six pillars to foreign policy, and all five actions under that pillar are congressional war-powers measures, with nothing on U.S. weapons or money for the government of Israel or on U.S. aid to Palestinians.

• On April 22, 2026 he launched that foreign-policy pillar with three bills and one constitutional amendment, all of them about congressional authority over the use of military force.

The money

$18K in lifetime support from the five lobbying groups we track

In their words

AIPAC (2026 endorsement) · Republican Jewish Coalition (2026 endorsement)

Research log

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

U.S. military aid and weapons to Israel

• [Position, 2025-03-18] Cosponsor of H.R. 1229, the United States-Israel Defense Partnership Act of 2025, introduced on February 12, 2025; the congress.gov cosponsor record lists "Rep. Barrett, Tom [R-MI-7]" with a sponsorship date of 2025-03-18, not an original cosponsor, and not withdrawn. The bill as introduced is titled "To enhance bilateral defense cooperation between the United States and Israel". It would establish a United States-Israel program on countering unmanned systems and an emerging-technology cooperation program; raise the funding caps of the existing anti-tunnel cooperation (from $50,000,000 to $80,000,000) and counter-unmanned-aerial-systems cooperation (from $55,000,000 to $75,000,000) and extend both to December 31, 2028; extend the war reserves stockpile authority from January 1, 2027 to January 1, 2029; set up a Defense Innovation Unit office in Israel; and require an assessment of integrated air and missile defense in the Central Command region. No statement of his about the bill was located.
• No statement of his located, after four separate readings of his own publications. His platform's foreign-policy pillar was read in full (3,270 words on the page) and confirmed: the pillar is about the human cost of war, repealing open-ended war authorizations and congressional control of the use of force, and it names no recipient of American assistance. The five actions listed under it include the Military Force Oversight Amendment, which would make authorizations expire after five years unless renewed, and the War Powers Priority Procedures Modernization Act.
• The record's own reading of his official press-release listing, eighteen listing pages carrying 179 titles dated 3 January 2025 to 4 August 2026, found no release about U.S. weapons or funding for the government of Israel. The release titles from 4 August to 24 September 2026, read on 2026-09-25 (the first two listing pages), include none on the subject either; they are about data centers, veterans and AI, rural health care, a post office, energy, town halls and visits across the district. The platform page now has six pillars: the sixth, Make America Healthy Again, was launched on July 28, 2026.
• The April 2026 announcement launching that pillar introduced four measures, all of them about congressional authority over the use of military force.
• His two recorded votes are badges on this card with their own sources, and no statement from him about either was located. The Foundation for Middle East Peace's compilation of members who spoke publicly about the July 2026 vote was read in full (22,251 words) and carries no entry for him and no entry for any Michigan Republican.
• The munitions and dollar figures used on the card come from this site's own tracked-legislation registry, and the death toll from its vote-context records. See the verification log. He was not in Congress for the four tracked votes of the 118th Congress, so none is recorded for him and none is claimed.
• [Earlier record, 2022-09-14] As a candidate he called the United States-Israel relationship "one of the key alliances geopolitically in the world" and said any political settlement "would have to originate from those that have the most at stake", in an interview with Jewish Insider. Read in full (2,786 words): the interview covers Iran, Afghanistan and campaign politics and contains nothing about U.S. aid or weapons transfers. Prior band, and not a position on this question.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

• Nothing located. Neither the platform, nor the 179 press releases, nor the campaign issues page mentions U.S. humanitarian aid, the aid pipeline, or the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees.

Characterization of the conflict

• [Position, 2026-04-09] Speaking about American military action in the Middle East he said "use of force and conflict is a very serious thing that I think we need to take seriously as members of Congress", per Michigan Public. About Iran and congressional authority, not about Israel or Gaza.
• [Position, 2026-08-06] An interview on his votes against war in Iran.
• [Position, 2025-11-04] In the May 2024 letter reported that month he characterized campus demonstrations as "protests and rioting on Michigan State University campus against the State of Israel and the Jewish race". The characterization is of the protests rather than of the conflict, and the date is the letter's, so the item sits under safety below.

Related rhetoric and lobbying

• [Position, 2025-08-21] One of seven signatories to the Michigan Republican delegation's letters asking the State Department to deny a visa to a Palestinian speaker at a Detroit conference and asking the Justice Department to investigate the conference, read in full on the lead signatory's site. Collective wording only. Shared with other candidates on this site, and the only document about this subject that carries his name alongside a demand.
• His funding block records support from two of the five tracked committees, which is a badge on this card. Nothing he has said about it was located.

Safety and antisemitism (context)

• [Position, 2024-05, reported 2025-11-04] In a letter obtained by The State News through a public records request, he urged the university's president to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance working definition of antisemitism. Read in full (2,398 words) and confirmed: the letter's tone is friendly, it notes a 2019 executive order on the definition and his support for pending legislation requiring the Department of Education to use it, and the university's president gave a non-committal reply. Critics of the definition, quoted in the same report, say it can be used to suppress criticism of the Israeli government. The letter's own date is May 2024, so it is position-band; the day is not recorded in the report and none is invented.
• [Position, 2026-06-10] Helped introduce H.R. 9211, the Jewish American Security Act, on law-enforcement coordination and federal security grants for Jewish places of worship, schools and community centers. His statement: "The rise in antisemitic attacks across our country needs to be addressed; this violence has no place in America."

Race and status context

• He is the incumbent and the nominee for this seat. His campaign's issues page, which its own navigation does not link, still names an opponent from an earlier race, so its text is not current. Ballotpedia's page on him was consulted and carries no position on this question.

Consulted

• His platform in full, his press-release listing across his whole service, his April 2026 platform announcement, his campaign issues page, Ballotpedia, The State News, Michigan Public, WKAR, Jewish Insider, and the Foundation for Middle East Peace compilation.