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

Rick Crosson

Democrat · U.S. House, Wisconsin District 8
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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 Crosson taking a position on U.S. weapons or money for the government of Israel, or on U.S. aid to Palestinians. His campaign's six issue sections do not reach these questions, and neither do the questions he answered on Ballotpedia.

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Deep Dive

Rick Crosson is the Democratic nominee in Wisconsin's 8th District, which covers eleven counties in the northeastern corner of the state. He served in the U.S. Army from 1980 to 2000, retiring as a lieutenant colonel and Army aviator, worked afterward in logistics and transportation, and sat on the Green Bay Area Public School District Board of Education until 2025. He won the Democratic primary on August 11, 2026 with 35.2 percent of the vote in a three-way race. On November 3, 2026 he faces Tony Wied, the Republican incumbent, who is the only other candidate on the district's ballot.

This is an empty record on these questions rather than a thin one. His issues page sets out six sections: affordability, health care, women's health and reproductive health, veterans, farming and the rural economy, and immigration. None of them is about foreign policy, and the words Israel, Gaza, Palestinian, Hamas and foreign aid appear nowhere on it. The same is true of every other page his campaign publishes, from what he stands for and his biography to his endorsements, his events and the list of interviews he has given. He answered Ballotpedia's candidate questionnaire in January 2026, naming health care as a human right, affordable housing and a livable wage, and education as the three things he wants voters to remember, and executive overreach as the subject he is most passionate about. No question on that form asks about foreign policy, and he raised none. An empty record carries no implication either way.

There is one place an answer may exist. Our research points to two question and answer sessions he is reported to have held on Reddit in December 2025, and says he was asked there both about the war in Gaza and about the money behind his campaign. Those pages do not open for us, the wording has not been checked against them, and so nothing from them is used here. Their addresses are on his research page for anyone who can open them. His campaign's accounts on Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and Threads do not open for us either, and the podcast interviews his own site lists carry no transcripts.

You are better placed to change this than we are. Ask Crosson 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 2026-09-20 unless the entry says otherwise. Bands: Position (2024-01-26 onward), Reaction window (2023-10-07 to 2024-01-25), Earlier record (before 2023-10-07), Undated. He has never served in Congress, so there are no roll calls on this record, and the committees this site tracks record no funding on it.

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

  • Nothing located at any date. No statement of his was found on arms sales, military aid, conditions on that aid, or an embargo, on any page his campaign publishes, in his answers to Ballotpedia's questionnaire, or in any report of this year's primary campaign.

U.S. aid to Palestinians

  • Nothing located at any date. No statement of his was found on humanitarian aid to Gaza, on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, or on any appropriation for Palestinian civilians.

Characterization of the conflict

  • [Reported December 2025, not confirmed] Our research reports that he took questions on Reddit in December 2025 and was asked whether he considered the Israeli military campaign in Gaza a genocide. It reports that he refused to answer in one word, said that Netanyahu is in his opinion a criminal whose actions have resulted in the deaths of thousands, that there must be a reckoning for that carnage, that the acts of Hamas against Israeli citizens are not condoned, and that he believes in a two-state solution. The two addresses given for it are printed further down this page. Neither opens for us by any means available here, so none of that wording has been checked against the page it is said to sit on, and none of it is used on the card. Our research says of the passage itself that it is uncorroborated anywhere outside that site, and nothing else found on this candidate refers to it.

Related rhetoric and lobbying

  • [Reported December 2025, not confirmed] At the same session, our research reports that he was asked whether he would accept campaign contributions from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee or from super political action committees, that he pointed the questioner to a video about money on his campaign's TikTok account, and that he said he will not accept money from any group expecting him to bend a knee to its agenda. The same caution applies: the page does not open for us and the wording has not been checked. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee is a lobbying organization that works to strengthen the United States relationship with the government of Israel and, since 2021, runs political committees that give directly to candidates. A refusal of political money is a separate thing from a position on what the United States sends, and neither half of this is on the card.
  • The committees this site tracks record no funding on this record. Ballotpedia's summary of his federal filings shows $75,430 raised and $39,307 spent in this cycle, with no breakdown by donor.

Safety and antisemitism (context, not a position on what America sends)

  • Nothing located at any date.

What the campaign site and his own pages say

  • [Position, read 2026-09-20] His issues page, headed "Where Rick Stands". Six sections: affordability, health care, women's health and reproductive health, veterans, farming and the rural economy, and immigration, each with four sub-headings of its own. The page says it will grow as the campaign does and invites voters to name an issue they do not see. A case-insensitive search of the whole page for israel, gaza, palestin, hamas, antisemit, jewish, aipac, unrwa, weapon, arms, foreign aid, middle east, genocide and netanyahu returns one match, and it is the word farms.
  • [Position, read 2026-09-20] The rest of the site, read through the index the site itself publishes: the home page, Meet Rick, a values page, the media page listing seven interviews and articles between August 2025 and June 2026, an events page, an endorsements page, a get involved page and a privacy policy, plus one dated post from December 2025 that carries no content. The same search of every one of them returns nothing. There is no foreign policy section anywhere on the site and no statement of any kind about this conflict.
  • [Position, read 2026-09-20] Ballotpedia's page for him. He completed its Candidate Connection survey, submitted on January 26, 2026, and answered all four of its questions: who he is, his three key messages, the areas of public policy he is passionate about, and his endorsements. His three messages are health care as a fundamental human right, affordable housing with a livable wage and a stable economy, and a strong emphasis on education; the policy he names as his passion is executive overreach, and Congressional apathy and acquiescence. No question on that form asks about foreign policy and he raised none. The page carries no Israel, Gaza, Palestinian, Hamas or foreign aid content of any kind.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] The accounts his own site and Ballotpedia list for the campaign do not open for us: https://www.facebook.com/crossonforcongress/ returns an error page, and https://www.instagram.com/rickcrossonforcongress/ , https://www.tiktok.com/@rickcrossonforcongress and https://www.threads.com/@rickcrossonforcongress each serve a page with no readable text in it. Nothing is claimed from any of them.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] Four press releases his campaign issued through WisPolitics are listed publicly: two on his opponent and on the economy, one on a registry for undocumented workers, and one dated April 2, 2026 headed "Crosson campaign: Trump's Iran address offered spin, not strategy". Only the first paragraph of that one is served without a subscription. What it carries is that he called the presidential address on the Iran conflict a performance rather than a plan. Iran is a different question from what the United States sends to the government of Israel or to Palestinians, and the rest of the release cannot be read here, so nothing is claimed from it. Its address is https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/crosson-campaign-trumps-iran-address-offered-spin-not-strategy/ .
  • [Read 2026-09-20] The seven items his media page lists include four podcast and video appearances, in September and December 2025 and June 2026. None carries a transcript and none was listened to for this card. An answer to this question could be in any of them.

The race

  • [Read 2026-09-20] The Wisconsin Elections Commission's certified list of candidates on the November 3, 2026 ballot, printed August 25, 2026. Under Representative in Congress District 8 it records the incumbent as Tony Wied and lists two candidates: Tony Wied, Republican, first on the ballot, and Rick Crosson, Democratic, second. That is the whole field.
  • [Read 2026-09-20] Ballotpedia's page for the 2026 election in this district: "Incumbent Tony Wied and Rick Crosson are running in the general election for U.S. House Wisconsin District 8 on November 3, 2026." It gives the filing deadline as June 1, 2026 and Wisconsin's partisan primary as August 11, 2026, and it carries its own standing caution that a candidate list may not be complete. In the Democratic primary Crosson took 35.2 percent and 24,902 votes to Mark Scheffler's 33.0 percent and Katrina deVille's 31.6 percent; Benjamin Hable is listed as a withdrawn or disqualified candidate. Tony Wied was unopposed in the Republican primary. This agrees with the record, which holds the same two candidates in this race, and with the Commission's certified list. The other candidate's record belongs on his own card.

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

  • https://www.reddit.com/r/wisconsin/comments/1pe3u07/i_am_rick_crosson_and_i_am_running_for_congress/ and https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenBay/comments/1pej49n/i_am_rick_crosson_and_i_am_running_for_congress/ , the two sessions our research cites for everything it found on this candidate. Reddit serves us a challenge page instead of the thread by every means available here, three tried on 2026-09-20, and the Internet Archive holds no copy that could be retrieved. The addresses are printed here so that anyone who can open them may read the exchange for themselves.
  • https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/crosson-campaign-trumps-iran-address-offered-spin-not-strategy/ , which serves its first paragraph and then a subscription notice.
  • https://www.facebook.com/crossonforcongress/ , https://www.instagram.com/rickcrossonforcongress/ , https://www.tiktok.com/@rickcrossonforcongress and https://www.threads.com/@rickcrossonforcongress , his campaign's accounts.
  • The League of Women Voters guide for this race. One of his primary opponents answered its questionnaire in 2026; whether he did could not be established without an address lookup, and no page of it was read for this card.

Not on the card, and why

  • Everything our research reports from the December 2025 sessions, in every form: the answer about genocide, the sentences about Netanyahu and Hamas, the two-state solution, and the answer about campaign money. The pages do not open for us and the wording has not been checked, so it is set out above as reported rather than as his words, and it is on no card surface.
  • The reported refusal of money from groups, separately. A refusal of political money is not a position on what the United States sends, and this one names no organization that could be checked.
  • His campaign's statement of April 2, 2026 on the Iran conflict. Iran is a different question, and only its first paragraph can be read here.
  • Tony Wied's record. No one else's record is narrated on this card.

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

  • https://rickcrosson.com/issues/ (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://rickcrosson.com/ (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://rickcrosson.com/meet-rick/ (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://rickcrosson.com/media/ (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://rickcrosson.com/ and its published index of nine pages and one post, all read in full (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/Rick_Crosson (opened; 2026-09-20; survey submitted 2026-01-26)
  • https://ballotpedia.org/Wisconsin%27s_8th_Congressional_District_election,_2026 (opened; 2026-09-20)
  • https://elections.wi.gov/media/40951/download (opened; 2026-09-20; printed 2026-08-25)
  • https://wisconsinwatch.org/2026/08/wisconsin-democrats-election-primary-8th-congressional-district-seat-crosson-deville-scheffler-wied/ (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-08-04)
  • https://www.wbay.com/2026/08/11/wisconsins-8th-congressional-district-primary-draws-three-democrats-wied-runs-unopposed/ (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-08-11)
  • https://fox11online.com/news/political/crosson-wins-democratic-nomination-in-wisconsins-8th-setting-matchup-with-rep-tony-wied (opened; 2026-09-20; published 2026-08-12)
  • https://www.wispolitics.com/2026/crosson-campaign-trumps-iran-address-offered-spin-not-strategy/ (opened to its first paragraph only; 2026-09-20; published 2026-04-02)
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/wisconsin/comments/1pe3u07/i_am_rick_crosson_and_i_am_running_for_congress/ (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.reddit.com/r/GreenBay/comments/1pej49n/i_am_rick_crosson_and_i_am_running_for_congress/ (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.facebook.com/crossonforcongress/ (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.instagram.com/rickcrossonforcongress/ (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.tiktok.com/@rickcrossonforcongress (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • https://www.threads.com/@rickcrossonforcongress (could not open; 2026-09-20)
  • This is a record of what was checked on 2026-09-20, not a claim that no other statement exists.

Also in this race

  1. ✗ Tony Wied (Republican)

All Wisconsin 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.