AIPAC doesn’t like Kentucky Republican Thomas Massie, whose record they claim is “radical anti-Israel.” In this year’s primary, AIPAC spent $319,783 slamming him. Massie wasn’t impacted by their attacks. He won every county in his northeast Kentucky district with over 70% of the vote in the 3-man race. 5 of the counties gave him over 80%. In the end, despite AIPAC, these were the results:
Thomas Massie- 39,929 (75.9%)
Michael McGinnis- 6,604 (12.6%)
Eric Deters- 6,060 (11.5%)
There were other Republican primaries AIPAC and it’s coalition of pro-genocide groups spent money in— but not many and not much. This cycle, AIPAC’s United Democracy Project, the Republican-funded SuperPAC that is the main vehicle for AIPAC’s interference in elections, spent money in 9 races. Four of them against anti-semitic Republican challengers to establishment GOP Republicans who toe the Israeli line. But the amount of money was minuscule compared to what they spent so far against Democrats:
John Hostettler (R-IN)- $1,567,919 [Hostettler lost]
Brandon Herrera (R-TX)- $1,061,286 [Herrera lost]
Thomas Massie (R-KY)- $319,783 [Massie won]
Bob Good (R-VA)- $132,230 [too close to call but Good is behind]
Now let’s look at what they spent in Democratic primaries so far:
Against Jamaal Bowman (D-NY)- $14.5 million
Against Dave Min (D-CA)- $4.7 million [Min won]
For Sarah Elfreth (D-MD)- $4.2 million [Elfreth won]
Against Cori Bush (D-MO)- $1.7 million [August 6 primary— AIPAC is expected to spent over $5 million more]
Against Kina Collins (D-IL)- $488,067 [Collins lost]
Tomorrow is primary day in New York. The biggest spenders in the race to defeat Bowman:
AIPAC- $14,590,261
Fairshake (the crypto-criminal PAC)- $2,078,023
DMFI- $1,005,923
This is more money than has been spent, in total, in the U.K. general election (July 4) by all parties. It’s also the most ever spent in a congressional primary. At this point, it’s too late for contributions for Jamaal (although you can contribute to Cori Bush here). The task for progressives is to defeat AIPAC itself and make sure their embrace of any politician is a kiss of death. A couple of weeks ago, Branko Marcetic exposed the corporate power brokers behind the curtain, writing “a story about the progressive resistance to this onslaught of money poisoning American democracy, a pushback that may finally be weakening AIPAC’s influence. By training its sights on left-wing members of Congress, AIPAC is setting up a battle not just over U.S. policy surrounding Israel and Palestine, but for the soul of the Democratic Party — and a progressive future... Those backing Israel’s assault on Gaza now hope to deliver another bloody nose to the Left, in particular by defeating Bowman and Bush, the politically vulnerable duo that made up the Squad’s 2021 class and are also outspoken critics of the Israeli government. Bowman has referred to Israel as an ‘apartheid’ state, while Bush has condemned what she calls ‘Israel’s ethnic cleansing campaign’ and ‘atrocities against Palestinians.’”
Since fall 2022, some of those in the progressive wing of the Democratic Party have twice tried to ban Super PAC funding from primaries through a resolution to the Democratic National Committee. But the resolution was never even raised for debate, despite having 31 co-sponsors, including four state party chairs and two vice chairs. “When it comes down to it, they want the option to interfere in the primary elections if they feel that’s in the interest of the [party],” says former Nevada State Democratic Party Chair Judith Whitmer, who co-authored the resolution.
The impact of the party’s refusal to rein in outside spending has become apparent. As she competed for reelection this year, [Summer] Lee apparently became a target of billionaire Jeff Yass, who put $800,000 into a group called Moderate PAC, which helped finance ads accusing Lee of “opposing President Biden” at a time when abortion rights and democracy are under threat from former President Donald Trump and Republicans in Congress.
The irony runs deep: Yass was not only reportedly invested in one of Trump’s companies, but he’s also a prolific funder of right-wing causes and the largest single campaign donor overall this cycle, with 99% of the more than $70 million he’s spent going to Republicans.
“As a progressive and a Democrat, I don’t want to have Republicans coming in and picking nominees,” [ex-Rep Andy] Levin says. “This may have been pioneered by AIPAC, but Big Pharma isn’t stupid, the tobacco industry isn’t stupid, the fossil fuel industry isn’t stupid. Why won’t they just say: ‘Great idea, AIPAC. Thank you very much. We will pick the nominee of both parties and that’ll be great for us to advance our interests.’”
Or, as Bush recently explained to Politico, “AIPAC and their Republican mega donors are targeting Black and brown Democratic incumbents with the same right-wing playbook across the country.”
The data analyzed by In These Times shows these worries are not misplaced.
An In These Times analysis found that the 528 individuals and corporations who gave to UDP between January 2023 and February 2024 are largely top-level executives from the finance and real estate industries, along with a smattering of billionaires and other members of the 1%. Nearly 60% of UDP donors are high-level executives, including CEOs and other corporate officers.
This dynamic is essentially flipped when it comes to those funding Squad members like Lee, Bowman and Bush, whose 2023-24 donor pool is made up of just 4% CEOs and other top executives, while 60% are non-executives.
The list of donors to UDP includes dozens of current or former AIPAC officials, indicating their passion to maintain unconditional U.S. support for Israel. But a deeper look into the backgrounds of those funding the Super PAC suggests that foreign policy isn’t their sole motivation.
“It’s not just their personal pro-Israel interests that they’re advancing,” says Charlie Blaettler, senior campaign strategist at the progressive Working Families Party, which has supported several electoral campaigns of Squad members. “A lot of folks are also advancing their own professional and business interests with these donations.”
Many of the donors to UDP are true blue Democrats — donors like the Hillary Clinton-superfan Haim Saban (whose company once produced the Power Rangers franchise) and former Blackstone Senior Managing Director Steve Zelin (who backed the 2020 presidential campaigns of Kamala Harris, Pete Buttigieg and Joe Biden).
But UDP’s single biggest donor is Jan Koum, the multibillionaire former CEO of WhatsApp and prolific Republican donor. He has also been a major funder of groups like Friends of Ir David and the Central Fund of Israel, which fund and support illegal Israeli settlements. Koum’s propensity for sharing pro-Trump and anti-immigration stories from outlets like Breitbart and Fox News made news in 2018.
UDP’s heavy reliance on right-wing (even hard-right) oligarchs comes into stark relief when looking at its most elite donors. As of February, 43 individuals and corporations had given $200,000 or more each to UDP this cycle, accounting for $25.5 million, or 55% of total contributions. Of those, 26% are either primarily Republican donors or Trump donors (or both). Trump donors include the Kraft Group, helmed by billionaire Robert Kraft (the New England Patriots owner whose friendship with Trump goes back decades), as well as billionaire Bernie Marcus (the co-founder and former CEO of The Home Depot, who has promised to keep financing Trump’s presidential bid even if the Republican nominee ends up behind bars).AIPAC itself has become increasingly aligned with far-right politicians. The lobby has notoriously endorsed hundreds of anti-abortion candidates and election deniers since 2021, including recent Republican gubernatorial nominee Mark Robinson in North Carolina, who has a long history of Holocaust denial and anti-Semitic comments.
“Big money interests are always on the hunt for elected officials that will do their bidding,” [Nina] Turner explains. “Behind the curtain though, these groups could care less about the Democratic Party itself or the people who live in my district who need clean water, housing and jobs.”
Nearly half of UDP’s donors work in what’s collectively known as the FIRE sector — finance, insurance and real estate. WinnCompanies, for example, founded by Arthur Winn, is a member of the National Multifamily Housing Council, a powerful landlord and rental housing trade association. It was part of an industry coalition that lobbied Biden in June 2021 to end the pandemic-era eviction moratorium, a moratorium vocally backed by members of the Squad and successfully extended (albeit temporarily) thanks in large part to the efforts of Bush, who spent four days sleeping on the steps of Capitol Hill to pressure the White House to prolong the policy.
Squad members have also been highly critical of the private equity industry — a subset of the finance sector heavily represented among UDP donors — for, among other things, driving up housing costs.
Private equity was, along with a broad crosssection of Wall Street and corporate America, also a fierce opponent of Build Back Better, the $2.2 trillion social spending bill proposed by Biden and championed by Squad members and other progressives. At least a dozen UDP donors, including billionaire Paul Singer, are top executives at firms that are members or directors of the trade group American Investment Council, which fought Build Back Better to its death over the legislation’s tax increases on corporations and executives.
The failure of Build Back Better also came in large part because of the opposition of Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (then D-AZ), who “would do nothing at all on carried interest, so we’re just stuck on that,” according to one Democratic staffer complaining to Mother Jones. Sinema, long a magnet for finance sector cash, was also on the receiving end of the generosity of numerous UDP donors as she gummed up the works for what was supposed to be Biden’s signature piece of domestic legislation. One such donation, of $5,800, was sent to Sinema in September 2021— the exact time she was actively working to block Build Back Better — from billionaire Trump donor Marc Rowan, whose firm Apollo Global Management is represented on the board of the American Investment Council.
AIPAC’s recent big money onslaught isn’t just about defeating a handful of left-wing lawmakers; it appears to be in service of cultivating an aura of invincibility and enhancing AIPAC’s fearsome reputation as the one lobby you don’t dare cross on Capitol Hill.
“I’ve worked on campaigns where the candidate will say, ‘I’d like to stay with you guys, but they’re threatening to spend this much money against me and I can’t do it, so I’m going to retract the statement that I made,’” Zogby says.
Geoff Simpson, campaigns director for Justice Democrats, says potential attacks and spending from AIPAC are “always one of the first things on candidates’ minds.”
“There’s been at least a dozen conversations with candidates or prospective candidates where AIPAC is one of the first things brought up,” Simpson adds.
Andrabi notes that, recently, the message from some members of Congress is that “what’s going on in Palestine is awful … I would call for a cease-fire, but I just can’t risk an AIPAC primary.”
It’s a reputation AIPAC works hard to broadcast, posting a nearly 100% success rate. On Twitter this April, AIPAC announced that all of its endorsements in Pennsylvania came out on top.
But AIPAC also makes strategic choices to maintain that reputation — which suggests the lobby isn’t quite so unbeatable.
As Andrabi explains: “They’re desperate to spend money in races, even if it doesn’t really matter or it’s not that effectual, and then claim victory immediately.”
Jewish Insider noted early in the campaign cycle that a “sizable majority” of AIPAC’s list of House endorsees were running for seats that the Cook Political Report rated as far from competitive. In Pennsylvania, all but one of the 13 candidates AIPAC endorsed this cycle ran unopposed in their primaries, and Cook rated seven as uncompetitive in the general election, with only two rated as toss-ups.
Most tellingly, AIPAC only ensured its flawless record in Pennsylvania by eventually deciding not to contest the Lee race, despite having attempted to find a challenger to bankroll.
Lee’s opponent received neither the lobby’s endorsement nor the benefit of UDP’s outside spending. It was a curious move for an entity marshaling astronomical amounts to spend Israel critics out of existence, especially since Lee has accused Israel of carrying out “war crimes” and has backed cutting off military aid to the country.
“We know of four or five people AIPAC asked to run against Summer [Lee] in Pittsburgh who told them no, because they didn’t think that Summer was beatable,” Simpson says. The sum AIPAC was discussing putting toward the race, Simpson adds, was between $10 and $20 million.
“To be clear, AIPAC lost because they couldn’t win,” Lee says.
A further examination of the electoral landscape reveals this race was just one of several high-profile failures for AIPAC this cycle so far.
In March, AIPAC fell flat on its face in an early test of its power to shape Democratic primaries after the establishment-friendly Dave Min prevailed in the Democratic primary for Rep. Katie Porter’s seat in Orange County, Calif. UDP ran $4.6 million worth of attack ads against Min, whose pro-Israel stance is tempered with only mild criticism. He won by six points anyway.
In Michigan, two people came forward in November 2023 alleging they had been offered $20 million to run against Squad member Rashida Tlaib. Both refused, even though Tlaib’s controversies since October 7— including censure by the House for refusing to denounce the phrase “From the river to the sea”— should have made her an easy target, at least by AIPAC’s logic.
“I didn’t intend for a private phone call to turn public. But now that it has, here’s the truth. One of AIPAC’s biggest donors offered $20m if I dropped out of the U.S. Senate race to run against @RashidaTlaib. I said no. I won’t be bossed, bullied, or bought,” Hill Harper tweeted on November 22, 2023.
A spokesperson for AIPAC told Politico that they were not involved in the exchange with Harper. Five days later, Nasser Beydoun tweeted that he also “was offered $20 million to withdraw from the senatorial race and to run against my friend @rashidatlaib.”
The lobby appears to, at least so far, be staying away from the race.
Still, AIPAC has had a major impact when it chooses to spend. To the extent progressives have neutralized its influence, it’s been the result of deliberate, strategic efforts. Lee’s win, for instance, wasn’t just a matter of the politics around Israel changing at home; she was propelled into office as part of a progressive electoral wave that has reshaped Pittsburgh politics.
“It’s a situation where … if you’re going to run against Summer [Lee], you’re crossing Summer, but you’re also crossing Mayor Ed Gainey, the County Executive Sara Innamorato, and SEIU Healthcare, which has proven one of the biggest power players locally in Pittsburgh and across the state,” Simpson says.
And, he adds, Lee and her team have focused on continuing to provide effective constituent services while delivering money to her district. They boast, for example, of helping deliver $1 billion of federal money to western Pennsylvania for projects ranging from infrastructure repairs and affordable housing to clean energy manufacturing and lead removal.
“We help the constituents with their passports and their Social Security and Medicare,” says Wasi Mohamed, Lee’s chief of staff. “There’s a lot of this work that people don’t see.”
As a result, Lee blunted the emergence of a viable challenger while winning the endorsement of not just progressives but AIPAC-backed centrists — including Pennsylvania Sens. Bob Casey and John Fetterman, who has emerged as an unapologetic supporter of Israel’s devastating assault on Palestinians.
“They polled extensively in this district,” Lee says of AIPAC, “and last I heard, polls are not free, nor are they cheap.”
…According to Zogby, the threat of an AIPAC-funded challenge is intended to coax members of Congress away from the type of brazen progressive positions advocated by Bowman and Bush.
“It’s sort of like The Wizard of Oz,” Zogby says. “Pull back the curtain and what you see is a pretty sordid mess: a little guy at a computer grinding out hostile ads. They know that Israel is not a winning issue… They want to hide their own fear and project the omnipotence and power — ‘We can’t be bucked, we can’t be beat, so you ought to come on board.’ Unfortunately, all too many members do that.”
Comments