Two House Democrats say they will force a vote to expel Maureen Galindo from Congress every single day if the Texas candidate wins her way to Washington, a rare threat from lawmakers against a member of their own party, driven by a string of antisemitic statements that Democratic leadership itself has called "disqualifying."

Galindo, a sex therapist running in a San Antonio-based district, is competing in a May 26 Democratic runoff after finishing first in the primary. Her campaign social media posts have called for jailing "American Zionists," accused Zionists of being pedophiles who should be castrated, and proposed converting a local ICE detention center into a prison for "American Zionists and former ICE officers for human trafficking."

The backlash from her own party has been swift and unsparing. But the fact that Galindo got this far, topping the primary field, tells a story that Democratic leaders would rather not confront.

Moskowitz and Gottheimer draw the line

Rep. Jared Moskowitz, a Florida Democrat, did not mince words when Fox News reported on the growing intra-party revolt against Galindo's candidacy.

"I don't care if she gets sent here. I will vote to expel her and force a vote to expel her every single day."

Moskowitz grounded his opposition in personal history, telling Fox News Digital that his grandmother was part of the Kindertransport out of Germany and that her parents were killed in Auschwitz.

"My kids are never going to concentration camps."

Rep. Josh Gottheimer of New Jersey joined Moskowitz in threatening repeated expulsion votes. Gottheimer, who penned a New York Times op-ed in May criticizing fellow Democrats for associating with far-left streamer Hasan Piker, framed the issue as bipartisan.

"Both parties: There should be zero tolerance for antisemitic-driven hatred that we're seeing right now."

The calls for zero tolerance are welcome. The question is why the tolerance existed long enough for Galindo to lead a primary in the first place.

What Galindo actually said

Galindo's remarks go well beyond the usual political provocation. Her campaign posted on social media that she would introduce legislation declaring "all Zionism and support of Zionism" to be antisemitic, a statement that inverts the term's meaning to target those who support the Jewish people's right to self-determination in their ancestral homeland.

She accused her runoff opponent, Bexar County sheriff's deputy Johnny Garcia, of being paid by "Zionist terrorism and trafficking." She proposed repurposing the Karnes ICE Detention Center into a facility for imprisoning "American Zionists."

The Washington Times reported that Galindo's Instagram posts called for sending "American Zionists" to internment camps, and noted that even the New York Times editorial pages called on Democrats not to allow Galindo to win the May 26 runoff. Her campaign finances told their own story: just $10,917 raised, more than $18,000 spent, and over $3,200 in debt.

A shoestring campaign fueled by open bigotry, and it still topped the Democratic primary field.

Leadership condemns but deflects

House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries and DCCC Chairwoman Suzan DelBene issued a joint statement calling Galindo's comments "disqualifying" and predicting that "Texans will not be fooled and will reject her at the ballot box next week."

But Jeffries also pointed a finger across the aisle, accusing unnamed GOP groups of seeking to prop up Galindo's candidacy. The Associated Press reported that Democratic leaders accused Republicans of funding a PAC supporting Galindo's campaign through what was identified as the Lead Left PAC. The joint statement from Jeffries and DelBene went further, demanding that "House Republican leadership must immediately cease propping up this antisemitic candidacy."

That accusation may or may not hold up. But it does not answer the more uncomfortable question: how did a candidate running on a platform of jailing American Jews win the most votes among Democratic primary voters in a Texas congressional district?

Galindo received 29 percent of votes in the March 3 primary, leading Garcia, who took 27 percent, AP reported. Garcia, her runoff opponent, offered a pointed contrast, saying, "We should be bringing people together, not spreading hate, division or dangerous rhetoric."

The Galindo campaign did not respond to a request for comment from Fox News.

A broader pattern Democrats cannot ignore

Moskowitz was blunt about what Galindo's candidacy represents. He told Fox News Digital that the Democratic Party "can't get to power because we've expanded our tent so big to include this sort of insane behavior." He described the trajectory of antisemitism in the political sphere as accelerating.

"It's gone from the super extreme side to now almost mainstream. We've crossed the Rubicon with the stuff."

Asked whether Democrats are doing enough to combat antisemitism, Moskowitz answered flatly: "No. We are not doing enough."

That admission carries weight precisely because it comes from inside the party. Gottheimer's New York Times op-ed took aim at Democratic figures, including Rep. Ro Khanna of California, Rep. Summer Lee of Pennsylvania, and Michigan Senate hopeful Abdul El-Sayed, for associating with Hasan Piker, a far-left streamer who doubled down on claims that Hamas is "a thousand times better" than Israel, referred to some Orthodox Jews as "inbred," and downplayed the sexual violence committed during the October 7, 2023, attacks.

Intra-party pressure to hold members accountable for conduct and associations is not unique to Democrats. Calls for resignation have surfaced on both sides of the aisle when members face questions about their judgment or affiliations.

But the pattern Moskowitz describes, antisemitic rhetoric migrating from the fringe toward the mainstream of Democratic politics, is one that party leadership has been slow to confront with the kind of force that matches the scale of the problem.

ActBlue cuts off the money

One institution did act. The Washington Examiner reported that ActBlue, the dominant Democratic fundraising platform, refused to process donations for Galindo's campaign, a significant step that effectively cut off her access to the party's small-dollar donor infrastructure.

That decision, combined with the joint statement from Jeffries and DelBene, the expulsion threats from Moskowitz and Gottheimer, and the condemnation from figures like Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, who, AP reported, publicly denounced Galindo's antisemitic rhetoric, suggests a party scrambling to contain a problem it did not prevent.

Gottheimer also called on Republicans to "uniformly condemn" podcaster Candace Owens, whom he described as frequently trafficking in antisemitic conspiracy theories. The call for bipartisan accountability is fair enough on its face. But it also functions as a deflection, an attempt to share blame for a candidate who emerged entirely from the Democratic primary electorate in Texas.

The runoff and what comes next

The May 26 runoff will determine whether Galindo advances to the general election. Republicans redrew the district lines earlier in the year to boost the GOP's chances of flipping the San Antonio-based seat, though Democrats could still make the race competitive. If Galindo wins the runoff, she would face a Republican opponent in November in a district that already leans right.

Moskowitz and Gottheimer have made clear they would pursue expulsion regardless. That threat is extraordinary. Expulsion from the House requires a two-thirds vote, a threshold rarely met in American history. Forcing a vote daily would be a procedural statement, dramatic, perhaps symbolic, but unmistakable in its message.

Just the News reported that Jeffries and DelBene described Galindo's language as "vile" and stated it "has no place in American politics, and certainly not in the Democratic Party."

That last phrase deserves scrutiny. The rhetoric may have no place in the Democratic Party as leadership defines it. But it found a place on the ballot. It found a place at the top of a primary. And it found an audience among enough Democratic voters in San Antonio to earn a runoff slot.

The real test

Credit where it is due: Moskowitz and Gottheimer are not hiding from the problem. Their willingness to publicly threaten expulsion of a fellow Democrat, and to acknowledge that their party has failed to contain antisemitism, is more candor than most politicians offer when the embarrassment sits on their own side of the aisle.

But candor after the fact is not the same as prevention. The Democratic Party's progressive wing has spent years flirting with rhetoric that treats support for Israel as a moral defect, that blurs the line between policy disagreement and ethnic hostility, and that grants institutional access to figures who trade in conspiracy theories about Jewish influence. Galindo did not emerge from nowhere. She emerged from a political culture that made her brand of extremism feel possible.

The runoff is May 26. Democratic voters in that San Antonio district will decide whether their party's leadership acted fast enough, or whether the tent really did get too big to police.

When a party has to promise daily expulsion votes against its own candidate, the problem is not one bad apple. It is the orchard.