Anti-Israel Congressional Candidate Michael Blake Has Deep Ties to Defense Contractor, Despite Campaign Rhetoric

Although Democratic congressional candidate Michael Blake has made opposition to US military spending and Israel’s war in Gaza a centerpiece of his insurgent left-wing campaign to unseat incumbent US Rep. Ritchie Torres in New York, newly surfaced documents reveal that Blake maintains deep ties to defense contractors.

Financial disclosures and employment records examined by New York Focus are complicating Blake’s message in the Democratic primary for New York’s 15th Congressional District, raising questions about whether his own professional history undercuts the left-wing, anti-militarism platform on which he is campaigning. The documents show that Blake himself has maintained a longstanding professional relationship with a defense contractor that has received millions of dollars in federal contracts, including from the US Department of Defense.

According to financial disclosure forms and public records reviewed by the New York outlet, Blake began working in 2018 as a vice president at Eccalon, a Maryland-based defense firm that provides services to federal agencies, including the Pentagon. Public filings show that Eccalon secured millions in Pentagon contracts. Ethics filings list Blake’s compensation in ranges that in later years reached the $100,000 to $250,000 range. Blake’s Linkedin Page indicates that he started working at the firm in 2018 as a “senior advisor” and continues his employment with the firm to this day.

Blake, a former New York Assemblymember and past Democratic National Committee vice chair, has accused Torres of profiting from investments in major aerospace and defense firms that receive Pentagon contracts. His campaign has sought to link those holdings to Torres’s staunch support for Israel and robust US military assistance, positions that have drawn fierce criticism from progressive activists.

In a campaign launch video, Blake took aim at Torres’s alleged connections with weapons manufacturers.

“Ritchie Torres invested in weapon makers,” a narrator said in the campaign video. “He profited from it.”

“I will invest in the community. Ritchie invests in Bombs,” Blake wrote on social media.

The issue is especially salient as Blake courts voters aligned with the Democratic Party’s left flank, many of whom are mobilized around opposition to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza and broader skepticism of the US defense industry. Blake has embraced that rhetoric on the campaign trail, casting himself as part of a new generation willing to challenge the foreign policy consensus in the federal government.

Torres, for his part, has defended his positions as consistent with his long-standing support for Israel’s security and US strategic alliances, while noting that his financial disclosures comply fully with congressional ethics rules.

The clash underscores a broader tension within the Democratic Party, where candidates increasingly run against defense spending and US support for Israel.

The congressional district, one of the poorest in the nation, has a child poverty rate of 37 percent, according to the US Census Bureau, the highest in the country and a figure Blake has cited to argue for redirecting attention to the needs of working families.

Blake’s attacks have prompted backlash of their own. As reported by the New York Post, the challenger appears to have deleted years of social-media posts praising Israel and AIPAC, the influential pro-Israel lobbying group he once openly supported. Between 2014 and 2017, Blake attended AIPAC events and heaped praise on the Jewish state. Blake subsequently deleted photos of himself at AIPAC events after receiving criticism.