The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC created two anonymous groups that spent more than $14 million to influence Crucial Democratic primaries for the House of Representatives in Illinois Tuesday – marking a new salvo in the battle over Israel policy within the Democratic Party.
United Democracy Project, an AIPAC-aligned super PAC that receives tens of millions of dollars from the group, openly spent another $5 million to support Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin in her unsuccessful campaign for the state’s 7th Congressional District. But her involvement in the other two groups – Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now! — had not been officially confirmed until Friday, when recently filed federal fundraising reports showed the UDP contributed $5.3 million of the $14.1 million the groups raised.
Donors who had already contributed to the UDP gave the groups millions more.
In total, the three super PACs accounted for 60% of all outside spending in this year’s Illinois House primaries. And while progressives had accused the pro-Israel group of being behind the spending, these direct links were not confirmed until days after voters went to the polls.
“The UDP was happy to support these local committees, as well as Chicago donors, to ensure pro-Israel voices were heard,” UDP spokesman Patrick Dorton told NBC News on Friday. “Like many other groups, we are using a number of different tools to compete in races this cycle,”
“Ultimately, AIPAC is working to ensure that we have the largest bipartisan pro-Israel majority in Congress,” Dorton continued, later adding, “By every measure, the Chicago delegation is more pro-Israel today than it was before the primary election. »
Protected Spending and Recent Election Results Arrive in the midst of radical change in how American voters – particularly Democratic voters – view Israel. A recent NBC News poll found that two-thirds of Democrats say their sympathies lie more with the Palestinians than the Israelis, and a majority of Democrats have an overall negative view of Israel.
The combined pro-Israeli effort won two races on Tuesdaywith former Rep. Melissa Bean and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller winning two crowded primaries. Both Democratic groups included progressives who had taken more critical approaches to U.S. policy toward Israel.
The AIPAC-backed effort failed in two other districts, with state Rep. La Shawn Ford narrowly defeating Conyears-Ervin in a primary, while Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss won the highest-profile and most controversial race, which exposed deep Democratic divisions on the issue.
Chicago elected women have spent more than $5 million in this race, first to support Sen. Laura Fine and then to attack Biss, who is Jewish, has criticized the Israeli government and calls himself a “progressive Zionist.”
When Biss proved to be a durable opponent, the spending against him finally stopped. Another group, Chicago Progressive Partnership, began trying to eliminate a rising progressive candidate, Kat Abughazaleh, and then boost another low-voting progressive, Bushra Amiwala, in an apparent attempt to split the progressive vote. Both Abughazaleh And He ate them have been deeply critical of Israel and have called Israel’s conduct in Gaza a “genocide.”
As of Friday evening, the Chicago Progressive Partnership had not yet filed its February campaign finance report.
Biss specifically raised the issue of Israeli policy in his victory speech, saying his campaign understood “the nuance and complexity” of complex issues around Israel and had rebuffed pressure from groups like AIPAC.
“AIPAC found out the hard way: the 9th district is not for sale,” Biss said.
Usamah Andrabi, communications director for the progressive group Justice Democrats, joined a parade of progressives celebrating Biss and Ford’s victories and casting them as a rejection of AIPAC’s tactics and views.
“If ‘being pro-Israel was good policy,’ as AIPAC says, they wouldn’t have to completely avoid mentioning Israel in $21 million ads and use fictitious PACs to hide their spending,” Andrabi said in a statement.
Dorton, the UDP spokesperson, objected to this wording. He argued that “no candidate who made AIPAC or Israel a centerpiece of his campaign has won in Chicago, except for Biss,” which Dorton called acceptable — despite massive spending by AIPAC groups to try to undercut him weeks ago.
“We obviously have our differences with Daniel Biss, but at least he is a Zionist – and he is much better than Kat Abughazaleh,” Dorton said.
“We are going to use every tool at our disposal to try to achieve the best pro-Israel results possible,” Dorton continued. “Sometimes that means we will have an extremely pro-Israel candidate, but in those areas where there are multiple candidates, sometimes it will be a very good candidate that we can live with. »
The split decision emboldened both sides as the primary season continues to build. But a new poll shows Israel’s standing among Democrats has fallen significantly in recent years, and criticism of AIPAC’s spending has surfacing in primaries across the country – including those where pro-Israeli groups don’t play.
Meanwhile, many prominent Democratic politicians feel more comfortable distancing themselves from AIPAC or questioning U.S. aid to Israel.
During an appearance on a “Crooked Media” podcast earlier this monthCalifornia’s Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom said Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s governance is “taking us down this path where I don’t think you have any choice” but to rethink U.S. military support for the country. This week, Illinois Democratic Governor JB Pritzker, who is Jewish, said: The associated press that he considers AIPAC “an organization that supported Donald Trump,” adding that “AIPAC is really not an organization that I think today I would want to be a part of.”
Jim Kessler, executive vice president for policy at Third Way, a think tank aligned with Democratic moderates, told NBC News that AIPAC’s participation in a special legislative election in New Jersey The start of the year was a “watershed moment” for centrist Democrats like him, who believe AIPAC’s spending directly led to the election of “someone far left on every issue.”
In that race, the AIPAC super PAC attacked former Rep. Tom Malinowski for considering conditions for aid to Israel, which helped progressive activist Analilia Mejia, who was far more critical of Israel, win the Democratic primary.
“There’s this divide that’s been growing for a while, but what happens when there’s an election one day, instead of November where there’s an election across the country, this race in New Jersey was a real, crystallizing moment that their influence is not helpful,” Kessler said, adding that AIPAC is “moving away from the Democratic Party” given the organization’s alignment with the pro-Trump Netanyahu government.
“The existence of Israel, the security of the Jewish people, is not helped when the main lobbying group for the country is seen as opposing a single party,” he said.
Asked about criticism of AIPAC from Democrats on different sides, Dorton said that while he would not respond to individual criticism: “We represent millions of pro-Israel Democrats, we are not discouraged,” he said. “We will continue to use every tool at our disposal to ensure that a pro-Israel Democratic voice is represented. »
