But What Can You Do? tracks where 2026 candidates stand on U.S. weapons and funding for the government of Israel. How we check
Shelley Moore Capito
- Backed with $10K by PACs we track that support U.S. weapons funding for the government of Israel (lifetime)
- Endorsed by AIPAC
- Sits on Senate Appropriations
Capito said she found the withholding of offensive weapons from the government of Israel "quite disturbing", and joined a Senate resolution condemning the decision. Her votes run one way: against every resolution that would have blocked a U.S. arms sale to that government.
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Deep Dive
Capito is West Virginia's senior senator, seeking another term, and sits on the Appropriations Committee. Her votes on this question are on this card and they point in a single direction; the prose does not re-list them.
When the administration held back a shipment over the planned operation in Rafah, she objected on both process and principle. She had put the question to the defense secretary at an appropriations hearing the day before, and told West Virginia reporters what she thought of the answer: "I found that quite disturbing myself," and "I'm a firm believer that we need to support our friends, and we need to support Israel. I'm a strong believer in our great ties with Israel, and I think we ought to be a friend and an ally and not dangle things in front of a country and not take them away when they don't do the strategies that the president doesn't think are the right strategies." The following week she joined a Senate resolution condemning the decision to withhold weapons.
She has said the same on the floor. After the Israeli prime minister's address to Congress in July 2024 she said the relationship should not be conditional: "Israel is a country at war, and as the only democracy in the Middle East and a friend of freedom, Israel deserves the unwavering support of the United States." And: "Now more than ever, our nation must reject terrorism and stand with our ally Israel. While the White House has left our relationship in limbo, Republicans will not let it falter."
The one place she has proposed cutting American money is at the United Nations. In November 2024 she joined thirty-three Republican colleagues in introducing a bill to end U.S. contributions to any United Nations agency that expels, demotes, suspends or otherwise limits Israel's participation, saying: "The UN and its agencies have increasingly become a platform for anti-Israel forces to target the world's only Jewish state." That is a bill about United Nations membership rather than about the agency that funds Palestinian refugees, and nothing was located from her on humanitarian funding for Gaza or on that agency by name.
The record
Supported sending weapons or funding in 10 of 10 tracked votes
Senate Committee on Appropriations
• Voted against all nine Senate Joint Resolutions of Disapproval of arms sales to Israel (Nov 2024, Apr 2025, Jul 2025, Apr 2026), voting Nay on each motion to discharge and thereby supporting continued weapons transfers.
• Co-sponsored the Stand with Israel Act (Nov 2024), which would cut U.S. funding to UN agencies that expel, downgrade, suspend, or otherwise restrict Israel's participation.
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.
Voted to send weapons or funding in more than half of their recorded tracked votes. (Supported sending weapons or funding in 10 of 10 tracked votes.)
The money
$10K in lifetime support from the five lobbying groups we track
In their words
AIPAC (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, 2024-05-09] Remarks to West Virginia reporters on the administration's decision to withhold offensive weapons over a planned ground operation in Rafah, reported by West Virginia MetroNews and read and confirmed word for word: "He's holding those because they're waiting to see what the strategy is and what strategy Israel is using around their Rafah initiative, and I found that quite disturbing myself," and "I think Congress passed this. You saw it take months to go. And I'm a firm believer that we need to support our friends, and we need to support Israel. I'm a strong believer in our great ties with Israel, and I think we ought to be a friend and an ally and not dangle things in front of a country and not take them away when they don't do the strategies that the president doesn't think are the right strategies." The same report records that she had questioned the defense secretary about the delayed supply the previous day. Note on wording: a summary of this passage in circulation drops the second negative from the dangle sentence; the version above is what the page says.
- [Position, 2024-05-15] Joined a Senate resolution condemning the decision to withhold weapons and ammunition, announced on her own page, which is dated on the page. Her Senate site builds its body text by script and does not serve it to us, so the item is taken from the page's own heading and date and nothing from it is quoted.
- [Position, 2024-08-05] Joined forty-seven Senate colleagues on a letter to the White House protesting a partial hold on arms and calling for immediate delivery, reported by the West Virginia Daily News. A collective letter; collective wording only.
- [Position, 2024 to 2026] Recorded votes against every motion to discharge a resolution disapproving a U.S. arms sale or defense export to the government of Israel, across four voting days, each cross-checked against the official roll call, for example S.J.Res. 111 and S.J.Res. 138. The card renders them; the prose does not re-list them or restate the tallies.
- [Position, 2024-04-23] Voted for the national security supplemental, the vehicle that carried military aid to the government of Israel (roll call). Also a badge.
- [Position, 2024-07-24] Senate floor remarks after the Israeli prime minister's address to Congress (her page), verified word for word: "Israel is a country at war, and as the only democracy in the Middle East and a friend of freedom, Israel deserves the unwavering support of the United States." and "Now more than ever, our nation must reject terrorism and stand with our ally Israel. While the White House has left our relationship in limbo, Republicans will not let it falter."
U.S. aid to Palestinians
- [Position, 2024-11-19] Cosponsored the Stand with Israel Act with thirty-three Republican colleagues, which would cut U.S. funding to United Nations agencies that expel, downgrade, suspend or otherwise restrict Israel's participation (her announcement), verified word for word: "The UN and its agencies have increasingly become a platform for anti-Israel forces to target the world's only Jewish state." She had announced the intention a month earlier. Direction named: against that channel of U.S. money. The bill is about United Nations membership treatment; it is not the agency that funds Palestinian refugees, and the card does not conflate the two.
- Nothing located from her on humanitarian funding for Gaza, on the aid pipeline, or on the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees by name, in either direction, in this record or in a fresh search of the open record in August 2026.
Characterization of the conflict
- [Position, 2025-10-07] Statement on the second anniversary of the attack on Israel, verified word for word: "I will continue to stand with the Jewish people and the State of Israel." The same statement urged Hamas to accept the peace proposal she says the government of Israel had already accepted.
- [Reaction window, 2023-10-18 and 2023-10-25] Two Senate floor speeches supporting Israel and condemning Hamas; their only carriers are video pages on her own site and on a video platform, with no readable transcript. Not on the card summary in any case.
Related rhetoric and lobbying
- [Reaction window, 2023-12] Co-signed a letter to the United Nations Secretary-General over the organization's response to sexual violence committed during the attack. Not on the card summary, and a collective document.
- American Israel Public Affairs Committee support and Republican Jewish Coalition support are badges on this card and are not restated.
Safety and antisemitism (context)
- Her office publishes a timeline of her work on campus antisemitism, which covers letters to the education department, a resolution condemning campus antisemitism introduced in May 2024, a bill on response times for civil rights complaints, and a 2024 letter with twenty-six colleagues on campus order. In June 2025 she questioned the education secretary on civil rights enforcement and the safety of Jewish students, also reported by the Washington Examiner. Several of these are collective documents and none of their wording is attributed to her personally.
Race and status context
- Incumbent senator seeking re-election, on the general-election ballot with three challengers, per Ballotpedia's race page. Her Democratic opponent has her own card on this site and her record is not used here.
- Source note: the two congress.gov interface addresses on this record, for her member entry and for a cosponsor roster, return a refusal to any reader without a key. They were used only to confirm identity and are not linked anywhere on this card.
- Reading note: her Senate site's pages are built by script and their body text does not survive being saved, so each quoted span here was read on the live page rather than from a stored copy, and pages whose bodies did not serve at all are used only for their headings and dates.
Also in this race
- ?Mixed Rachel Lee Fetty Anderson (Democrat)
- –No Position Found Rio Phillips (write-in) (Independent)
- ?Mixed Marshall Wilson (Other)
All West Virginia candidates.
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