Missouri Democratic Rep. Cori Bush narrowly lost the Democratic congressional primary on Tuesday against St. Louis prosecutor Wesley Bell, a challenger backed by the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. The race was AIPAC’s second targeted attack on a Squad member this cycle. 

With roughly 95 percent of precincts reporting election results, Bush trailed by less than 6,000 of the 112,000 cast. The Associated Press called the race two hours after polls closed.

After spending more than $17 million to topple Rep. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., in July, AIPAC shifted its focus toward ousting Bush. The group poured more than $8 million into the race to unseat Bush in less than two months.

Outside groups dumped $18.2 million into the race. Bell’s backers outspent groups supporting Bush roughly four to one. AIPAC’s super PAC spent $8.5 million backing Bell’s campaign. Democratic Majority for Israel PAC spent half a million and Major Democratic donor Reid Hoffman’s Mainstream Democrats PAC spent $1.5 million in support of Bell.

Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party spent just under $3 million in support of Bush

The infusion of cash made the race the fourth most expensive primary in House history, according to the Working Families Party. 

AIPAC’s money was spent on voter engagement efforts and phone banking in addition to digital and mail ads. One of the mailers, first reported by The Intercept, included images that distorted Bush’s features. AIPAC also helped bundle at least two-thirds of Bell’s campaign haul, Sludge reported.

Bush’s loss marks another victory for a pro-Israel movement seeking to silence critics of Israel’s human rights abuses and its ongoing war on Gaza. 

Bush was one of the first members of Congress to call for a ceasefire in Gaza, alongside Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., the only Palestinian American member of Congress. Tlaib won her uncontested primary Tuesday after AIPAC’s efforts to recruit a challenger failed. 

Bush was first elected in 2020 when she beat former Rep. William Lacy Clay in the Democratic primary by less than three points. The win marked a seismic shift in St. Louis politics and the end of the Clay dynasty, which represented the area for a half-century. 

Bowman and Bush’s wins that year grew the incipient Squad from four to six, and, with the victories, progressives’ hopes for building a base in Congress that could work toward policies like Medicare for All, a Green New Deal, and criminal justice reforms. 

Bell built his career as a reformer, elected as the first Black lead prosecutor in St. Louis County on a platform of police accountability and restorative justice reforms. He beat a three-decade incumbent who failed to indict the police officer who killed Michael Brown in 2014. Some prosecutors working in the office were so enraged by Bell’s win that they joined the police union. 

In a phone call last summer, Bell promised Bush he would not run against her. At the time, he was running for the U.S. Senate in Missouri. As AIPAC beefed up its campaign last fall to oust Squad members over ceasefire calls, Bell abandoned the Senate run and entered the House race. 

As the congressional race heated up, Bell’s critics in Missouri said he had failed to follow through on promises he made while campaigning for prosecutor. Civil rights groups published a report last month criticizing Bell’s office for failing to implement reforms and overseeing a steady rise in the jail population during his time in office. Others noted that while he campaigned on not seeking the death penalty, he let death penalty cases proceed without a challenge. 

Bell’s critics have also complained about comments he made shortly after Brown’s killing in 2014 that downplayed the racial divide in Ferguson. 

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Three months after police officer Darren Wilson killed 18-year-old Michael Brown in Ferguson, Missouri, in 2014, setting off what became the Black Lives Matter movement, Wesley Bell — the current St. Louis prosecutor running to unseat Rep. Cori Bush — told a local news radio show that there wasn’t a strong racial divide in Ferguson. 

Bell, who was serving as a municipal court judge and community college professor at the time, said he hoped Brown’s killing would “wake some people up” to get Black residents more engaged in their community and that the real “tragedy” of the situation was that the prosecutors hadn’t shared Wilson’s side of the story with the public, which was fomenting distrust in the process.

In Bell’s opinion, not releasing evidence that spoke to “the officer’s side of the story” was a mistake on the part of the prosecution. “To me that’s the tragedy of it — is that months later, I can’t even tell you whether I believe the officer should be indicted or not, because I don’t have the evidence,” Bell said.

Bell is now running with more than $8 million in backing from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee against Bush in the Democratic primary next week in Missouri’s 1st Congressional District. Bush rose to national prominence as a Black Lives Matter organizer in Ferguson. Bell was elected to Ferguson City Council in the first election following the surge of local protests, beating out a candidate supported by protester groups, and went on to unseat the St. Louis prosecutor, Bob McCulloch, whom he criticized in this interview for his handling of the Brown case.

Bell made the comments about Ferguson in November 2014 on the Nick Taliaferro Show, which went off the air in 2017. At the time, Bell was a municipal court judge in the small St. Louis suburb of Velda City, which was sued in 2015 in a federal civil rights case over running an unlawful bail system. 

Brown’s killing wasn’t unique to Ferguson, Bell said during the radio segment. “These are issues that have been plaguing our country since the beginning of our country. So when I hear, ‘Well it’s just Ferguson, it’s just Ferguson,’ even in this area, it’s not just Ferguson. These issues have been happening all over our region, it’s just this particular one happened in Ferguson and that’s what’s been playing in the media.” 

In the wake of Brown’s killing, there was a sense that the racial divide in Ferguson was comparable to that of Selma, Alabama, in the 1960s, Taliaferro said. “That’s just not the case,” Bell said. “In the United States, there is a racial divide. I think we agree with that. I’m saying, relatively speaking, Ferguson is not as bad.” 

Ferguson’s racial divide was “less than normal,” Bell said, notwithstanding issues that still needed work, including diversity in the police force and government. But the need for accountability was “on both sides,” Bell said. “African Americans need to get more involved.” When he ran for a council seat, Black people weren’t involved in the political process, he said. “I’m hoping this wakes some people up.” 

“That quote is pretty astonishing coming from not only a Black man in St. Louis but a Black man who lived in Ferguson and was a municipal court judge,” said Thomas Harvey, a civil rights lawyer who ran the nonprofit law firm in St. Louis that sued Velda City under Bell’s judgeship; Harvey is currently based in Los Angeles. “It’s also an indication of the deep racism in St. Louis that you could look at Ferguson and say, ‘It’s not that bad,’” Harvey said. 

The Bell campaign commented on the 2014 interview in a statement. “Cori Bush and her allies are intentionally mischaracterizing Wesley’s comments,” wrote Anjan Mukherjee, a spokesperson for the Bell campaign. “In the interview, he was criticizing then-Prosecuting Attorney McCulloch for being secretive and not releasing the evidence on Wilson, a criticism he felt so strongly about, that he ultimately ran against McCulloch and beat him.”

Compared to other cities in Missouri at the time, it’s accurate to say that Ferguson was in the middle of the spectrum of unconstitutional practices and racist policing, according to Harvey. “It’s just that they were all so racist, it’s weird to hear someone say Ferguson wasn’t that bad. I think it’s actually indicative of how bad racism is in St. Louis overall and the whole region. What you’re doing is comparing it to the worst, most explicit forms of racism, and saying, that isn’t exactly happening in Ferguson.”

Arrest rates, police violence, stops, tickets, fines, and jailing were overwhelmingly disproportionately targeted against Black people living in Ferguson or passing through, Harvey said. “That is well known,” he added, and at the time, it was common knowledge.

Clients who lived in and near Ferguson would tell him that they wouldn’t travel to see friends and family around holidays because they didn’t want to get arrested and spend Thanksgiving or Christmas in jail, he said. Harvey said he used to work with pregnant women in St. Louis, many of whom didn’t want to drive to get prenatal care for the same reason. They arranged taxis instead. 

“Wesley was a judge in a town where the exact same thing was happening,” Harvey said. The prevailing logic at the time was that it was better to have a Black judge who could empathize with the population even if the system was still operating in a racist way, Harvey said. “I think that just kind of reflects Wesley’s overall politics, which is, the system can still be racist, we can still be jailing people illegally, holding them for $50, exploiting them, destroying their lives, so long as there’s a sort of kinder, gentler person who is able to empathize with them when they come before the court.” 

“That was really surprising to hear, especially that then it was 2014, after Mike Brown was murdered,” Harvey said. “This was common knowledge well before Mike Brown was murdered, and it was especially common knowledge among any Black person I met who lived in or around North County,” he said. “It’s just shocking to hear him say that. He must mean Ferguson isn’t the worst city in that region, and I agree, there are worse,” he said. “It’s hard to understand.”

Bell was elected St. Louis County prosecuting attorney against a three-decade incumbent with close ties to the local police. Bell was lauded as the first Black head prosecutor in the jurisdiction, someone who would champion the progressive reforms St. Louis had been pushing for since before Brown’s killing. Staff attorneys in the St. Louis prosecutors’ office were so angered by his win that they left the prosecutors union to join the local police union, The Intercept reported. 

But Bell later disappointed supporters when he declined to charge Wilson in Brown’s killing after reviewing the case. 

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On the radio in 2014, Taliaferro asked Bell what he thought would happen if the grand jury decided not to indict Wilson. Bell said he didn’t think there was any chance Wilson would remain an officer in Ferguson, but that the “worst-case scenario” from a perspective of safety and unrest was if the grand jury decided not to indict. “There’s going to be some kind of violent response. It’s just a matter of how much. And obviously we’re all praying that it’s not a lot.” Bell said he believed in nonviolent protest “as opposed to violence.” 

Last month as the race against Bush heated up, civil rights groups issued a report claiming that his office had not delivered on the reforms he promised on the campaign trail, and that the jail population had steadily climbed under his leadership.

“Wesley Bell has exposed himself as a fraud,” said Working Families Party spokesperson Ravi Mangla. “He’s running on being a Ferguson reformer, when it’s clear he couldn’t see the deep-lying issues in his own community.” WFP is backing Bush in the race.

Harvey, who was co-counsel on the suit over the bail system while Bell was judge in Velda City, said they would have sued Bell personally if they could have. “If judges didn’t have qualified immunity, we would have sued the judges in those cities,” he said.

“They’re very clearly participants in this system and know what’s happening, and are frequently the reason people are incarcerated,” Harvey said. “It’s ridiculous to think they don’t know. It’s impossible for Wesley Bell or any municipal court judge to say they didn’t know what was happening.”

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All eyes are on Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz, who’s emerged as a leading contender for Kamala Harris’s vice presidential pick for the 2024 Democratic ticket. As the national spotlight focuses on Walz, critics have drawn attention to his decision to call the National Guard on protesters against police brutality in 2020. And now, Minnesota police are calling on Walz to remove a reform prosecutor from police use of force cases.

After Minneapolis police killed George Floyd in 2020, voters elected a reform prosecutor, Mary Moriarty, who promised to prosecute police misconduct and take a restorative justice approach to prosecution. 

The letter to Walz sent Wednesday from the Minnesota Police and Peace Officers Association, a copy of which was obtained by The Intercept, asks the governor to remove Moriarty’s office from all past, present, and future police use of force cases. With a former prosecutor as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee, this pressure on Walz brings to the fore the split within the Democratic Party over how to handle the demand for continued police and criminal justice reform, as conservatives and law enforcement push to undo the reforms that have been put in place.

The push against Moriarty isn’t unique to Minnesota. Critics of reform have moved to oust or restrict the authority of prosecutors in dozens of states as reformers started winning elections more frequently amid the growing push for criminal justice reform. Between 2017 and early 2023, more than 37 bills to remove or limit the power of reform prosecutors were introduced in 17 states. As of early 2023, that number grew to more than 53 measures in 26 states, including efforts to restrict the power of prosecutors who refused to charge people who sought abortions. 

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In the letter to Walz, MPPOA general counsel Imran Ali wrote that police were concerned about Moriarty’s handling of use-of-force cases and that the association had “deep concerns about the impartiality and bias” from Moriarty against law enforcement. He suggested that Attorney General Keith Ellison could handle the cases “with proper funding.” Ellison built his career on reform and was once an ally of Moriarty’s. Last year, he removed a case from Moriarty’s office in which she declined to charge two teenage brothers accused of murder as adults.

“There is no way County Attorney Moriarty can act without bias and be impartial,” Ali wrote. “A significant number of peace officers have reached out to me and are troubled and fearful of this county attorney handling any use of force matters.” 

Moriarty’s critics in Minneapolis have been pushing to remove her from certain cases and oust her from the office since shortly after her term began in January 2023.

Last week, MPPOA filed an ethics complaint against Moriarty’s office for her handling of murder charges against a state trooper who killed a 33-year-old Black man, Ricky Cobb II, during a traffic stop last year. Moriarty’s office dropped the charges in June after the trooper’s defense team claimed that he was in fear for his partner’s life during the stop. Moriarty said the trooper used lawful force, and that her office couldn’t disprove his defense, but that she was “not backing down.”

Earlier this year, two Minnesota police unions sent a letter to Walz asking him to remove Moriarty from that case. At the time, four Republican members of Congress from Minnesota called for an investigation into Moriarty over the case, and at least one called on her to resign. Walz, MPPOA, and Moriarty’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

“We expect nothing less from a thoroughly corrupt police union that will do anything to prevent accountability for law enforcement accused of misconduct,” said Michael Collins, senior director of government affairs at Color of Change, a racial justice group. “Governor Tim Walz opened the door to these requests when he sided with the union in the Ricky Cobb II case. His behavior was shameful, up to and including calling the trooper’s defense lawyer to ask if they wanted the case to be reassigned to another county attorney. It’s no wonder the police union thinks he’s their guy. He should denounce the request and stop trying to pander to the right on criminal justice by undermining police accountability.”

Moriarty responded to the MPPOA’s ethics complaint last week, criticizing the police union for lobbying against efforts to hold police accountable and opposing regulations that would ban law enforcement from being involved in white supremacists groups.

The police union objected to Moriarty’s critiques in their letter to Walz this week. “These divisive comments were meant to divide our communities and elucidate her bias and belief that all peace officers are tied to white supremacist organizations,” Ali wrote. “As a person of color, and the general counsel of MPPOA, I find her comments offensive, repulsive and intend to injure and harm law enforcement all over the state, including harming my personal reputation.” 

Walz is not the only vice presidential candidate with a fraught relationship with the criminal justice reform movement. Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro, another pick on Harris’s list, has also backed efforts to strip Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner of his authority to prosecute certain crimes. When Shapiro was state attorney general in 2019, his office pushed the Philadelphia Inquirer to be more critical of Krasner, The Intercept reported. Shapiro also backed a controversial bill passed by Pennsylvania lawmakers to strip Krasner’s ability to prosecute certain gun crimes in the city and give concurrent jurisdiction to the AG’s office. Shapiro’s office later said he would not use the measure to “act unilaterally or go around DA Krasner.” Local activists later pressured Shapiro into saying he would support a repeal of the bill. 

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Progressives in Congress have been some of the most vocal critics of President Joe Biden’s handling of Israel’s war on Gaza. They have urged him to end U.S. military funding for Israel and called for a permanent ceasefire in Gaza. But as questions mount over whether Biden should step down as the party’s presidential nominee and let another Democrat challenge former President Donald Trump, progressives have been anything but unified.

At least four members of the Squad have expressed support for Biden since the first presidential debate. Two have enthusiastically backed him, including Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., and Ilhan Omar, D-Minn. Rep. Ayanna Pressley, D-Mass., reiterated that Biden was the nominee and said questions to the contrary were “losing the plot.” Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., said she and Biden were facing the same fight against extremist Republicans. Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., and Congressional Progressive Caucus Chair Rep. Pramila Jayapal, D-Wash., have also affirmed their support.

The boost from progressives comes even as former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said Wednesday that Biden was running out of time to decide whether to stay in the race. 

It has left media outlets asking why the Squad among all Democrats is backing Biden “so forcefully”?

But not all progressives are lining up behind Biden. Rep. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., one of the most vocal members criticizing U.S. military support for the war on Gaza, has said she will not endorse the president for reelection. And last week, Rep. Summer Lee, D-Penn., said that if Biden decided to step down, she would support Vice President Kamala Harris as the party’s nominee.

Progressives in Washington insisted that members of the Squad and their staffs were not frustrated with each other over how each member approached questions about Biden. They explained the division as merely a difference in messaging between political allies. 

Two sources who work closely with Squad offices said progressive efforts to boost Biden had less to do with him as the presidential candidate and more to do with protecting their own political futures.

No progressive members have explicitly called on Biden to drop out of the race.

Shortly after the debate, observers criticized Squad members for not immediately joining calls from at least 10 Democrats in nine states, including a slew of moderates, for Biden to step down. Progressives waited to see how the fallout would play out after the debate and over the July 4 holiday weekend. 

There wasn’t a specific plan for how the Squad would respond, and there was no coordination with offices that wanted to stay silent, sources said. Some strategists questioned whether progressives calling on Biden to step down would have had the opposite effect and if it was more effective to have moderate Democrats make the case instead. But as members faced mounting questions from the media, different members took more deliberate stances in support of the president.

One progressive strategist who spoke with The Intercept on the condition of anonymity in order to speak freely said there were pragmatic reasons for each member’s decision to speak out or keep quiet on Biden. “There is a divide between the most progressive members who feel like they need to show fealty for self-preservation or for future ambition and those who are willing to just hang back and not offer support because they don’t need anything,” said the strategist, who is in regular communication with Squad members’ staff. 

Several Squad members have so far managed to stay silent on the Biden question.

There wasn’t a specific plan for how the Squad would respond, and there was no coordination with offices that wanted to stay silent, sources said.

Rep. Greg Casar, D-Texas, has not weighed in on whether Biden should stay in the race. He is reportedly eyeing a run for chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus next year, which makes it less likely that he would take a vocal stance against Biden. Casar’s office did not respond to a request for comment.

Rep. Delia Ramirez, who says she has been focused on making sure that former President Donald Trump doesn’t win reelection, is not taking a position on Biden’s campaign. “At the moment, Congresswoman Ramirez is not commenting on the issue,” communications director Jowen Ortiz Cintrón said in a statement to The Intercept. 

Rep. Jamaal Bowman, who lost his reelection last month, has not spoken out about Biden’s campaign. His office did not respond to a request for comment. 

The offices of Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, Pressley, Bush, and Jayapal did not respond to a request for comment. Tlaib’s office declined to comment. Lee’s office directed questions about her position to her full interview with WESA. 

Squad members had previously led a solid block of opposition to Biden’s funding for Israel’s war on Gaza. Those efforts have slowly given way to support for his campaign among some members as the presidential election looms nearer, leaving Tlaib as one of the lone voices withholding her endorsement over Biden’s support for Israel. Even before the debate, Omar reiterated her support for Biden despite his handling of Gaza. 

Sanders backed Biden in an interview over the weekend. On Monday, Ocasio-Cortez, Omar, and Pressley joined him. Ocasio-Cortez told reporters at the Capitol that she had spoken with Biden, that he was not leaving the race, and that she would continue to support him as the nominee. The same day, Omar reiterated her support for Biden and called him “the best president of my lifetime.” Pressley said Biden was the nominee, “and I think we’re losing the plot here.” 

On Tuesday, Bush compared her reelection fight to Biden’s and said the party should unite to defeat extremist Republicans. Bush’s office did not respond to a request for comment. 

Jayapal also expressed support for Biden but said she was “listening carefully” to members in a statement on Monday. Jayapal said she would continue working to ensure that Democrats defeated Trump in November. 

Jayapal’s statement avoided taking a definitive stance on Biden’s campaign and invited criticism that progressives have diluted what was once a strong opposition to Biden’s policy toward Israel. After Jayapal faced intense blowback for calling Israel a “racist state,” she has since affirmed her support of funding for Israel’s Iron Dome, along with Ocasio-Cortez, who has also been campaigning for Biden. 

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As Democrats nationwide pressure President Joe Biden to abandon his reelection bid, voters aligned with the “uncommitted” movement to protest his handling of the war in Gaza say they won’t get behind any nominee who doesn’t make a clear commitment to a permanent ceasefire.

“I think it would be a big mistake for the Democratic Party to switch gears but stay the course on this particular issue that has galvanized so many people in an unprecedented way in the primaries and to continue showing up and trying to advocate to be heard in a system that is continuing, they feel, to ignore them,” said Halah Ahmad, a policy analyst and spokesperson with Listen to Wisconsin, the state’s “uninstructed” campaign. 

“They should let that policy die with this administration and move towards being a party that stands by its actual values,” Ahmad continued, “which are meant to be anti-war and pro-peace and pro-human rights and international law — which is in direct contrast to everything a Trump candidacy stands for.”

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The anti-war movement to vote “uncommitted” instead of supporting Biden took off earlier this year ahead of Michigan’s Democratic primary in February. Advocates for the protest vote later launched chapters in other critical swing states including Wisconsin and Pennsylvania and have netted more than half a million votes in more than a dozen primaries. The movement has garnered support for at least 25 delegates at the upcoming Democratic National Convention. 

Activists from around the country told The Intercept that they will advocate for an anti-war agenda at the convention in August and withhold their vote in November unless an adequate candidate steps up, listing policy priorities such as support for a permanent ceasefire and standing up to the pro-Israel lobby as it intervenes in Democratic primaries. Even as the Biden campaign insists that he will not step aside, many Democrats appear to be lining up behind Vice President Kamala Harris as an alternative candidate, with some Democratic governors being floated as well. 

“My number one criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza.”

“My number one criteria for any candidate is opposing the genocide in Gaza,” said Saad Farooq, an uncommitted voter in Massachusetts. Farooq said it was unlikely that the Democratic National Committee would select any candidate who took a stance against Israel’s ongoing war, and that he would support Green Party candidate Jill Stein if she were to appear on the ballot in Massachusetts. 

Cole Sandick, who left his primary ballot in New York blank, said his apprehension over supporting Biden stemmed completely from his handling of the war on Gaza. “The rest of his presidency has been imperfect but better than I thought it was going to be, and I was fully on board to vote for him prior to October 7,” Sandick wrote. “Really all I want from an alternative candidate is simply *some* moderation on this issue. Some commitment to a ceasefire, some recognition of the carnage that’s taken place. Some concern for the civil liberties being ripped away from all those like me who dissent and protest.”

Sandick said he would support Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer or Harris. “Nominating Biden at this point is a death sentence.” 

Shaneez Hameed, an uncommitted voter in California, also said that the war in Gaza is a red line for him as a voter. 

“Any new candidate will have to do something about stopping the genocide in Palestine and also be open to making changes with the supreme Court and filibuster,” Hameed wrote. “Or else, nothing changes and there is no point in voting.” 

He mentioned Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., who has called for a ceasefire in Gaza, as a candidate who might fit the bill, but conceded that there is no “realistic chance of him being nominated.” Hameed said he wasn’t familiar with Harris’s policies, “but if she even entertains the idea of a ceasefire, I will vote.”

Harris, for her part, reportedly pushed the White House to be more sympathetic toward Palestinian suffering in public statements about the war. In March, Harris delivered a speech that symbolized a U.S. escalation, as she more forcefully called for an “immediate ceasefire” and urged Israel to do more to increase the flow of aid to Gaza. “No excuses,” she said. Even then, reports surfaced that National Security Council officials had watered down parts of her speech. 

“We have to have a goal that we start working on right now, for peace and for an equal measure of security for Israelis and Palestinians,” Harris said later that month. “Palestinians have a right to self-determination; they have a right to dignity, and we’re going to have to work on that.”

For some activists, Harris’s association with Biden makes her candidacy a non-starter. Mohamed Hussein, an uncommitted voter in Minnesota, said that he didn’t want to see anyone from the current administration replace Biden. “I would have no faith in them to speak up when they can’t even speak up to the obvious circus going on,” he said. “I would question their ability to handle difficult situations and decisions because it seems like no one in the administration is pulling the alarm on the embarrassing situation.” 

Harris is “guilty by association,” Hussein wrote. “In my eyes, she’s either ok with Biden running as president again or she’s not able to talk him out of it. Both are bad qualities in a president.”

Hussein added that he was interested in a governor possibly replacing Biden on the Democratic ticket because they might be less tied to D.C. politics. “I feel like they’re less likely to be influenced by people in Washington,” he said. 

Will Dawson, an uncommitted voter in Washington, D.C., named several factors that could get him to switch his vote from the Green Party’s Stein to another politician. First on his list is a promise to call for an immediate ceasefire and fighting the influence of the pro-Israel lobby and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee in Congress. 

“This candidate would also ideally work toward pulling further away from the Israeli colonial project over time, with the goal being repealing our absurd financial support, ending the foreign interest agency of AIPAC, and pushing for a nation-wide boycott a la South America during their apartheid,” Dawson said. 

The candidate would also have to push to reform the Supreme Court, he added. “The candidate would have to promise to both push for justice impeachment, and expand the courts,” Dawson said.“If a replacement candidate met both of these requirements, I would absolutely consider switching my vote from Jill Stein. Hell, I might even knock doors/canvass for them!”  

As uncommitted voters list their conditions, concerns around backing a candidate who supports Israel’s war are spreading to others within the Democratic Party apparatus. One DNC delegate, who was granted anonymity to speak freely, told The Intercept they have been experiencing reservations as a delegate due to Biden’s unrelenting support for Israel. “Do I really want to, you know, even in any way, whether it’s symbolic or not, contribute to Biden being our nominee? And I struggled, because it’s — do I want to vote for someone who’s supporting a genocide? No.”

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People have been talking behind closed doors about President Joe Biden’s cognitive decline for the past several years. After the Wall Street Journal published a story earlier this month raising concerns about Biden’s health, Democrats slammed the article, deflected the criticism, and characterized it as a hit piece. But after his performance in the first presidential debate on Thursday night, party operatives were no longer able to hide the problem. 

Now, as Democrats scramble to assess the damage, the question has turned to how – or if – the party will address Biden’s candidacy crisis at the Democratic National Convention in August. 

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“They’ve just been trying to skate to the general election with as minimal exposure as possible to the public. And now it’s blown up on them,” said Thomas Kennedy, a former delegate to the Democratic National Committee who resigned in January over Biden’s support for Israel’s war on Gaza. “The delegates knew, the electeds knew, the donors knew, obviously the staffers know,” he said. “Everybody knew.” 

Efforts to raise concerns within the DNC about Biden’s health have been definitively shut down for years, Kennedy said. One DNC member who suggested that another candidate should run in 2024 said he was attacked by other members and faced with a vote to remove him from the committee. “That’s the sort of pushback that any sort of — not just dissent, but any sort of mentioning of this topic — has been happening for two years,” Kennedy said. 

Biden’s campaign, for its part, made clear on Friday that he has no intention of backing down. Asked about his debate performance, campaign spokesperson Lauren Hitt emphasized that Biden would not be stepping down and pointed to the campaign’s $14 million fundraising haul after the debate and a campaign rally in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Friday. “He just gave a very forceful speech at a rally in NC with a fired up crowd,” Hitt wrote to The Intercept. In comments made on Air Force One on Friday afternoon, Biden campaign communications director Michael Tyler doubled down: “Joe Biden is the nominee,” Tyler said. 

Current and former delegates told The Intercept there is little chance that the DNC would change course. The convention, the delegates said, would likely follow the same pro forma processes that have sidelined reform efforts and with them, the party’s progressive wing. The convention has already moved the vote for the presidential nomination online, weeks before the actual convention is held in person in Chicago. 

There are mechanisms to allow for an open convention to nominate another candidate, but the party has avoided that option as a last resort and it would be too late at this point, said Nadia Ahmad, a DNC member in Florida. Biden would have to decide to step aside on his own accord. Or, delegates would have to organize themselves quickly to commit to another candidate. Given that the nomination vote will take place ahead of the convention, Ahmad said that any open nomination process would have to take place online too, which is unlikely. 

“There’s definitely an appetite for what I would call the combustion factor,” Ahmad said. “People are willing to burn things down to maybe get them to work. That’s where you see the rise of a third party.” 

The convention has long stopped serving as a place for democratic decision-making, she added. “The Democratic Party is more invested in trying to maintain control than it is in trying to win an election in November.” 

Another DNC member who requested anonymity to avoid reprisal said the debate only emphasized what progressives have been saying about the DNC in recent cycles. “Unless Biden withdraws, the convention is a stage managed coronation.” 

Kennedy noted that the days of action-packed political conventions are far behind us. “These are not the conventions of 1968 or 1972 that we read about,” he said. “They’re just highly choreographed top-down affairs where there’s not a lot of room for political maneuvering or opposing sides, or anything that strays away from the establishment. And the delegates are carefully chosen and funneled in a way that they’re part of the party machinery and hackery.” 

Days before the debate, the New York Times published a story about how the president was battling “misleading videos” showing his age-related deterioration. Very quickly into the debate on Thursday evening, Biden’s campaign was battling on another front: how to stop the bleeding as coverage swirled about how the performance would affect his chances at winning the November election. During a routine, post-debate call with surrogates last night, campaign staff acknowledged that the debate was rocky, according to a source who attended. By the next day, the party apparatus was back to normal messaging.

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Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s Tuesday upset defeat by Westchester County Executive George Latimer generated many perspectives on what exactly precipitated his downfall.

The New York Times published the headline “Bowman Falls in House Primary, Overtaken by Flood of Pro-Israel Money” — before swapping it out for “Bowman Falls to Latimer in a Loss for Progressive Democrats.” Other coverage emphasized that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s spending wasn’t the only factor in the race and that Bowman’s flaws made him particularly vulnerable, as did changed district lines that made his reelection even tougher. 

“This was an act of desperation from a pro-war lobby that is at odds with the majority of Americans, including American Jews.”

Progressive strategists, however, had a much more clear takeaway from the results. 

“You don’t drop $15 million on an election if your positions are popular,” said Eva Borgwardt⁩, national spokesperson for the Jewish advocacy group IfNotNow, which endorsed Bowman. “This was an act of desperation from a pro-war lobby that is at odds with the majority of Americans, including American Jews.”

Borgwardt⁩ was referring to nearly $15 million spent on the race by AIPAC, the Israel lobby’s flagship in the U.S. Millions more poured in from AIPAC-aligned groups and donors, bringing the outside spending total to around $25 million.

Bowman’s supporters emphasized that AIPAC attacked him not only because of his criticism of human rights abuses in Israel, but also because he has supported progressive policies that are popular among the party’s base. 

“Congressman Bowman’s progressive platform — which includes defending Palestinian rights and halting weapons to the Israeli military — is popular among Democratic voters,” said Beth Miller, political director for Jewish Voice for Peace Action, which endorsed Bowman. “AIPAC had to spend a truly unprecedented amount of money in order to buy NY-16.” 

“It is noteworthy that many of AIPAC’s ads did not even mention Israel,” she said. “AIPAC understands that they are losing on the issues, because voters and constituents do not want to fund a genocide.”  

The amount of spending on the race should be alarming to everyone who cares about democracy, said Sophie Ellman-Golan, director of strategic communications at Jews for Racial and Economic Justice.

“Now we know how much it costs to buy an election,” she said. “That price tag was nearly $25 million.”

AIPAC invested historic amounts of money in the race because it saw that unconditional support for Israel was unpopular among Democratic voters, Ellman-Golan said. “They would not have spent this much money if they were not scared,” she said. “You don’t spend $25 million — an unheard of amount in a primary — if you’re feeling confident in your candidate.”

Progressive groups were outspent 8 to 1 in their support for Bowman, which totaled $1.75 million. Justice Democrats, which backed Bowman’s first campaign in 2020, spent $1.3 million on Tuesday’s race and helped raise more than $200,000 for Bowman’s campaign, with an average contribution of $35. The Working Families Party spent more than $500,000 on ads in the race and sent more than 300,000 text messages on Bowman’s behalf. 

“Republican billionaires just bought a safe Democratic seat through a Democratic primary,” said WFP National Director Maurice Mitchell. “That’s something that should alarm everyone in the coalition, not just progressives.”

Justice Democrats’ communications director, Usamah Andrabi, said the takeaway from Tuesday’s race is that Democrats are allowing big money — and Republican donors — to shape elections.  

Bowman’s loss is not a death knell for progressives, he added, but proof that the left represents a threat to the status quo that’s worth tens of millions of dollars for its opponents. 

“AIPAC knows that its policies and positions are deeply out of step with the majority of Democratic voters, who support a permanent ceasefire, who support conditioning military funding to Israel, and who believe that Israel is committing a genocide,” Andrabi said, pointing to another AIPAC target, Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo., who is fighting for her seat against a primary opponent. “Jamaal Bowman, Cori Bush, and the Squad have always represented the mainstream positions of the Democratic Party, and that is why they’re such a threat to AIPAC and corporate interests.”

“It is just such a cynical, false attack, and it’s so dangerous.”

With AIPAC’s entry into electoral politics — the group launched two PACs in 2021 after decades of lobbying on Capitol Hill — some liberals and progressives have struggled to talk about the group’s spending because of antisemitic tropes about Jewish people using wealth to exert secret control. Ellman-Golan, of Jews for Racial and Economic Justice, however, thinks circumstances now dictate an open discussion. 

“It’s extremely concerning to not only see people defending the political conditions in which antisemitism is most likely to be fueled, but then decrying those of us who dare to speak out against this undemocratic purchasing of votes,” she said. “It is just such a cynical, false attack, and it’s so dangerous. If we’re going to dismantle antisemitism, that project lives squarely on the left. We’re the ones who can do it, and we’re trying. And they’re not helping.”

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The most expensive Democratic House primary in history concludes Tuesday, as New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman fights to retain his seat despite massive spending from the pro-Israel lobby aimed at sidelining progressives in Congress.

Polls in the Bronx and Westchester close at 9 p.m., and results are expected Tuesday night. Polling in the race, including one funded by consultants working against Bowman, suggested that he was heading for a loss. Bowman’s internal polling showed him leading by 1 percentage point. 

In total, outside groups have spent $23 million on the race to unseat Bowman. More than 60 percent of that money has come from one group, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, which poured more than $14 million into the race over the course of five weeks. In total, progressive groups backing Bowman spent $1.75 million on the race. 

AIPAC’s spending funded ads that clogged TV spots in New York, as well as a barrage of mailers, text messages, and phone calls attacking Bowman and supporting his opponent, Westchester County Executive George Latimer. The expenditure — unmatched by any other single outside group spending on Democratic primaries this cycle and historically unprecedented — has turned the race into a referendum on the power of the pro-Israel lobby to oust progressives critical of Israel’s human rights abuses from Congress. 

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Outside Groups Spent $285,000 Backing Jamaal Bowman. AIPAC Alone Just Dropped Nearly $2 Million to Attack Him.

AIPAC encouraged Latimer to run against Bowman and helped funnel Republican money into his campaign as part of its plan to spend $100 million to oust members of the Squad who led calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

After AIPAC failed to recruit its preferred candidates to challenge Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., and challengers against other Squad members failed to pick up steam, AIPAC shifted its focus to propelling challengers against Bowman and Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. 

AIPAC has spent just over $2 million so far on the race against Bush and is backing her opponent, St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Wesley Bell.

Bowman’s race is the biggest test yet of AIPAC’s new strategy. The group shifted its priorities from lobbying Congress to spending directly on campaigns by launching a political action committee and a super PAC in 2021. 

Other groups in AIPAC’s orbit have joined its electoral push. Democratic Majority for Israel, a group that shares donors and other ties with AIPAC, has spent just over $1 million on the race against Bowman.

The influx of AIPAC election spending has shifted the electoral calculus of the Democratic Party. Historically, Democrats took drastic measures to protect incumbents from primary challenges, but party leaders have done little to support progressive incumbents facing an onslaught of attacks from AIPAC and its allies. 

What changed? In the past, party leaders went all in to protect their own against progressive insurgents.

During the 2018 cycle, Democrats blacklisted campaign vendors who worked with progressive primary challengers. When several incumbents faced challengers from their left last cycle, House Democratic leaders, including Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., launched a new political action committee to back their members. And a new dark-money group cropped up to help the cause. 

Party leaders have been active in fighting off progressive challengers. Jeffries has campaigned around the country alongside incumbents facing challengers from their left. 

As leading pro-Israel lobbying groups poured millions into the race to oust Bowman, however, Democratic leaders have been less unified in their outspoken support for incumbents than in previous cycles.

Jeffries has not appeared on the campaign circuit with Bowman, even though both members represent districts in New York. Jeffries endorsed Bowman in March, and his leadership PAC gave $5,000 to Bowman’s campaign in December. He recorded a robocall for Bowman’s campaign in the days before the primary. (Jeffries’s office did not respond to a request for comment.)

Asked last year what he and other Democratic leaders would do to protect incumbents facing attacks from AIPAC and groups like Democratic Majority for Israel and Mainstream Democrats PAC, Jeffries responded briefly: “Outside groups are gonna do what outside groups are gonna do. I think House Democrats are going to continue to support each other.”

Another difference from the time when Democrats would rally aggressively around incumbents is that this time, the group funding the primary challenge is also funding and endorsing Democratic leaders who have endorsed Bowman. Democrats, especially the party’s heavy hitters, have long had close relationships with AIPAC, speaking at its annual conferences and leading its sponsored junkets to Israel. Since AIPAC started giving directly to candidates last cycle, Jeffries has received more than $1.5 million from its PAC and been endorsed by the group.

That leaves figures like Jeffries, as well as the next top two Democratic House leaders, both endorsing Bowman and accepting millions of dollars from the group funding his ouster. Jeffries; House Minority Whip Katherine Clark, D-Mass.; and House Democratic Caucus Chair Pete Aguilar, D-Calif., have taken more than $3 million from AIPAC’s PAC since 2021. Two other AIPAC-backed members in New York, Reps. Gregory Meeks and Yvette Clarke, have endorsed Bowman. Meeks has received just under $800,000 from AIPAC’s PAC since 2021, and Clarke has received just under $48,000. (Spokespersons for Clark, Aguilar, Meeks, and Clarke did not respond to requests for comment.)

AIPAC has given millions more to other Democratic leaders who have similarly built a reputation for protecting incumbents. When Jeffries launched a political action committee to protect members in 2021, he did it alongside Rep. Josh Gottheimer, D-N.J., who has received more than $1.6 million from AIPAC’s PAC since 2021. 

On Monday, Gottheimer endorsed Latimer. 

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The Netzah Yehuda battalion is an all-male unit of the Israel Defense Forces that was formed to allow ultra-Orthodox Jews to serve in the military while still complying with their religious beliefs, through accommodations like providing time for prayer and limiting interactions with women. 

The battalion is also notorious for its alleged abuses of Palestinians and human rights violations in the West Bank, including an incident that led to the death of a 78-year-old Palestinian American man in 2022. These allegations landed the group, formally known as the Nahal Haredi, on a short list of IDF units that Secretary of State Antony Blinken intended to sanction last month. That move would have cut off the battalion’s supply of U.S. weapons and other military aid — until the Biden administration backed away from those plans under pressure from Israeli officials.

But the battalion has another reliable source of international support: a charitable nonprofit in the U.S.

The man leading that organization, which has funneled millions to the IDF group in recent years, is also a donor to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the leading pro-Israel lobbying group, which is running a multimillion-dollar campaign to oust critics of Israel’s human rights abuses from Congress and install stalwart pro-Israel allies in their place.

“It’s absolutely incomprehensible that we provide tax write-offs to American citizens who use their funds to support groups and activities that are clear violators of human rights and violators of what is essentially American policy,” said Jim Zogby, co-founder and president of the Arab American Institute. “And now, some of the very groups that we are holding up as sanctionable for their human rights behavior similarly are getting tax write-offs. It’s simply something that ought to end.”

The Biden administration was considering sanctioning Netzah Yehuda under the Leahy Laws, which are intended to stop the country from funding, supplying, or training security forces credibly accused of human rights abuses. State Department staffers sent Blinken a report earlier this year recommending that the battalion be sanctioned in order to disqualify it from receiving U.S. aid, according to ProPublica reporting. After making noises that he intended to follow up on the recommendations, the State Department ultimately backed down in response to pressure from Israeli officials.

Those sanctions would only apply to military aid. The government has the power to impose separate economic sanctions on foreign violators of human rights but has similarly declined to act in the case of this battalion.

Friends of Nahal Haredi, the U.S. nonprofit that supports the battalion, is led by a man named Stephen Rosedale, the founder and chairman of a company that operates more than 100 long-term care, medical rehab, and other healthcare facilities across seven states. Rosedale, a registered Republican, has given a total of $33,500 to AIPAC and its affiliated political action committees this cycle, including $25,000 to AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, and $10,500 to AIPAC’s regular PAC. Rosedale is also backing the challengers picked by AIPAC to oust Reps. Jamaal Bowman, D-N.Y., and Cori Bush, D-Mo., in its plan to unseat the Squad. Rosedale has also given at least half a million dollars to various U.S. political campaigns since 2009. 

Rosedale, Friends of Nahal Haredi, and the United Democracy Project did not respond to requests for comment.

“We know that AIPAC’s primary role is to prevent any accountability for the Israeli government and military,” said Eva Borgwardt, national spokesperson for IfNotNow, a Jewish advocacy group. “So it’s not surprising that their donors are also backing IDF battalions with scores of documented human rights violations.” 

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Israeli Army Battalion Puts U.S. Ban on Funding Abusive Units to the Test

Netzah Yehuda’s alleged human rights violations include leaving a 78-year-old Palestinian American man detained during a raid in the West Bank outside overnight before he died of cardiac arrest. The man, Omar As’ad, was a U.S. citizen and had previously lived in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Israeli officials dismissed two battalion officers after As’ad died but said it was not possible to determine whether their conduct caused his death. The State Department said it was “deeply concerned” by the circumstances of As’ad’s death and called for a thorough criminal investigation. No one was ultimately prosecuted for As’ad’s death.

“The question here is really for the Democratic Party,” Borgwardt said. “Are they going to side with the majority of Americans who want a ceasefire and conditions on weapons to Israel? Or are they going to side with AIPAC and its unconditional backing of Netanyahu’s slaughter of Palestinians in Gaza?”

AIPAC’s efforts to silence critics of Israel in Congress should make the group as repulsive to Democrats as the National Rifle Association, Borgwardt said. “Why are we not treating AIPAC like the NRA when we know it’s funded by people who also support weapons sales with zero accountability for civilian deaths including those of thousands of children?” 

Rosedale’s support for AIPAC’s super PAC is his largest campaign contribution so far this year, and more than double the rest of the contributions he’s made since January. In March, Rosedale gave $1,000 to the campaign for Westchester County Executive George Latimer, whom AIPAC recruited last year to challenge Bowman. Rosedale also gave $2,000 to Wesley Bell, who AIPAC endorsed against Bush. In 2022, Rosedale gave $50,000 to AIPAC’s super PAC and $6,000 to its regular PAC.

Rosedale has given mostly to Democrats in recent years, including regular contributions to state Democratic parties. He gave this year to state Democratic parties in Maine, Wisconsin, Montana, and Delaware. Since January, he’s given to several other candidates backed by the pro-Israel lobby including $1,000 each in January to Reps. Shontel Brown, D-Ohio, and Ritchie Torres, D-N.Y. Combined, Brown and Torres have taken close to $1 million from AIPAC since 2022. Across the aisle, Rosedale gave $4,000 to Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., in December.

AIPAC is expected to spend up to $20 million in each upcoming primary against Bowman and Bush. AIPAC recruited Latimer, Bowman’s challenger, and has endorsed both him and Bell, Bush’s opponent. AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, dropped close to $2 million in the last week on ads attacking Bowman. AIPAC has bundled almost a quarter of Latimer’s total contributions so far, including almost half of his contributions in the final quarter of 2023. Both Latimer and Bell have faced criticism for taking money from Republican donors seeking to oust progressives in Democratic primaries.

AIPAC had planned to spend $100 million this cycle to oust Squad members critical of U.S. military aid for Israel. But as several Squad members have shored up their support and held steady on calls for a ceasefire in Gaza, AIPAC has shifted its strategy to focus instead on ousting Bowman and Bush, whom the group determined were the most vulnerable. After failing to recruit two potential challengers to run against Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., AIPAC ended up not spending on her race. Lee won her May primary against challenger Bhavini Patel by more than 20 percentage points. Reps. Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich.; Ilhan Omar, D-Minn.; and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., have far outraised their current challengers.

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The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s super PAC has launched its first ads attacking Rep. Jamaal Bowman in the Democratic primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District. The ads claim that Bowman “has his own agenda” and refuses to work with President Joe Biden. 

United Democracy Project, the AIPAC super PAC, bought its first set of ads this week for $1.9 million, disclosing that it planned to spend the money in a week, to oppose Bowman in the race against Westchester County executive George Latimer. The primary election takes place June 25.

Latimer, who was recruited to run by AIPAC and has received huge contributions directly from the group, has had nearly a million dollars of support from outside groups before AIPAC weighed in. Bowman also has outside support, but it’s a fraction of AIPAC’s spending so far for Latimer. Known as “independent expenditures,” outside groups can weigh in on elections but not in coordination with campaigns. 

With the new AIPAC money to attack Bowman, outside groups in the race are spending nearly 10 times more in Latimer’s favor — with roughly $3 million total for Latimer and against Bowman, and Bowman supporters spending only about $285,000. 

Latimer is also raking in more cash than Bowman in direct campaign contributions. His campaign itself has raised $3.6 million so far to Bowman’s $2.7 million. Latimer’s haul includes major support from Republican donors — almost a quarter of it was bundled by AIPAC. In the last quarter of 2023, almost half of Latimer’s contributions came through AIPAC. 

“NY-16 Democrats are united in rejecting MAGA’s threat to our freedoms, which is why Trump Republicans are funding a $1.9 million ad spend to distract us from their attempt to buy our seat,” Bowman campaign spokesperson Lawrence Wang said in a statement to The Intercept. “But voters know the truth: if MAGA’s top priority is unseating Jamaal Bowman, ours is to re-elect him.”

United Democracy Project did not respond to a request for comment.

Latimer has courted Republican donors and held fundraisers hosted by Republicans, including a major GOP donor to former President Donald Trump. Another AIPAC donor has been encouraging Republicans to switch parties to vote against Bowman in the primary — one Republican voter told The Intercept he recently switched parties just to vote for Latimer. Latimer’s campaign distanced itself from the GOP-hosted fundraisers and said he had no control over who hosted fundraising events.

The big outside spending push by AIPAC helps cement its status as one of if not the biggest spender in Democratic Party primaries. The pro-Israel lobby planned to spend $100 million this cycle to oust members of the Squad who have been critical of U.S. military funding for Israel and led calls for a ceasefire in Gaza.

After failing to unseat Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa., AIPAC’s next top targets are Bowman and Rep. Cori Bush, D-Mo. AIPAC recruited Latimer to run against Bowman and has backed Bush’s challenger, Wesley Bell. Its super PAC is expected to spend up to $20 million on each race. 

Known as “independent expenditures,” outside groups like PACs can spend unlimited amounts on elections but are not supposed to coordinate with campaigns. In practical terms, however, a system of winks and nods can help campaigns point outside spenders to ideas about messaging — a tactic AIPAC has availed itself of.

AIPAC’s Primary Occupation

The race between Bowman and Latimer has been a chaotic one. Latimer’s campaign came under scrutiny when it first launched for leaving the Bronx, part of which is in the district, off of his website and only mentioning Westchester County, which is a primarily white suburb. Latimer was also criticized for comments claiming that Bowman took money from Hamas. Latimer told City & State that he wouldn’t be able to win if more Bronx voters were drawn in as part of redistricting. 

Bowman has had his own share of snafus. His decision to pull the fire alarm in Congress over the summer has plagued the campaign and become fodder in new attack ads. Critics have also raised questions about conspiratorial content he follows on YouTube, though it’s unclear whether he has watched or engaged with the videos. 

In a Twitter thread posted Thursday, Lee, the Pennsylvania representative who just won her primary, criticized AIPAC for targeting Black Democrats while using its support for members of the Congressional Black Caucus as cover. “While the biggest threat to Black America is white supremacist policymakers, they financially support the folks causing us the most harm,” Lee wrote. 

AIPAC supported several candidates of color last cycle, including Glenn Ivey, Adam Hollier, Henry Cuellar, Shontel Brown, Valerie Foushee, and Don Davis. Almost all of AIPAC’s independent expenditures against Democrats in the 2022 primaries were spent against candidates of color. The rest was spent against former Rep. Andy Levin, a Jewish member of Congress. 

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, which spent at least $165,000 on mail and digital ads supporting Bowman and attacking Latimer’s GOP ties, said that Republicans were using United Democracy Project to target Democrats of color. The Working Families Party has spent $118,000 so far to support Bowman, with plans for additional spending. 

“This is the same tactic we’ve seen across the country, Republican billionaires using AIPAC’s super PAC to spend millions of dollars targeting Democrats of color in Democratic primaries,” Andrabi said. “Voters should know that every ad they see attacking Jamaal Bowman or defending George Latimer is being funded by the same GOP megadonors who want to ban abortion, defend insurrectionists, and elect Donald Trump.”

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The American Israel Public Affairs Committee said its top priority this cycle was to oust members of the progressive Squad. But the group has also been quietly pouring money into another Democratic primary: a competitive race for an open congressional seat in Maryland. AIPAC’s target? Former Capitol Police officer Harry Dunn, who was in the Capitol during the January 6 attacks. 

Neither Dunn nor his rival, state Sen. Sarah Elfreth, has been particularly outspoken in support of or against Israel, raising the question of why AIPAC is involved in the race at all. 

In the last month, AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, has poured $4.1 million into the race to support Elfreth. Some 20 candidates are running for the open seat in Maryland’s 3rd Congressional District, where incumbent Rep. John Sarbanes announced in October he would not seek reelection. Dunn and Elfreth are leading fundraising.

In individual campaign contributions, Dunn has outraised Elfreth almost 4 to 1, with $4.5 million to her $1.4 million. But considering the outside boost from AIPAC, the group has given Elreth’s campaign a significant leg up: The pro-Israel group’s super PAC has spent almost as much as Dunn has raised. Elfreth has distanced herself from AIPAC’s support and said she was unaware that the group’s super PAC would be spending on her behalf. 

Elfreth’s campaign is also getting support from at least 12 donors who’ve given between $1,000 and $6,600 who have also given major support to far-right Republicans including former President Donald Trump, according to campaign filings reviewed by The Intercept. At least five of the donors are registered Republicans. 

More than 100 of Elfreth’s donors have also given significant amounts to AIPAC’s political action committees. In total, donors to Elfreth have given more than $2.8 million to those PACs. 

Dunn’s campaign released an ad last week criticizing Elfreth and claiming she’s aligned with far-right Republicans. Donors to Elfreth’s campaign include Larry Mizel, the former Colorado finance chair for Trump’s 2016 campaign; real estate developer Robert Sarver; former AIPAC President Edward Levy; and Daniel Kraft, president of Kraft Group International and the son of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft. Several of the donors have given to Republicans including Trump, Nikki Haley, Rep. Brian Mast, R-Fla.; Rep. Lauren Boebert, R-Colo.; and Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis. 

In a statement to The Intercept, Dunn criticized Elfreth’s campaign for accepting money from AIPAC’s super PAC and called on other candidates to condemn the outside spending, which he said was dark money “bankrolled by MAGA Republicans.” Taking the money in effect condones AIPAC’s actions, Dunn said, which include endorsing more than 100 candidates who voted to overturn the results of the 2020 presidential election. 

“Any candidate who receives this support refuses to condemn their meddling in this race and essentially accepts the endorsement of an organization that has backed over 100 candidates and members of Congress who incited the rioters I fought on January 6th and tried to overthrow our democracy,” Dunn said. “Right after I announced my plan to protect our democracy from outside special interests who try to influence elections, dark money was solicited into this race.”

Elfreth’s campaign recently removed from its website a red box: a common campaign tactic used to encourage outside spending on races without violating rules prohibiting campaigns from coordinating with super PACs. The red box provides material that outside PACs can use in their communications. Elfreth had previously acknowledged the red box and said that a teacher’s union might use it to support her, according to the nonprofit news site Maryland Reporter. 

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It’s not clear what drew AIPAC into the race. At a forum in April, both candidates offered support for efforts by Sen. Chris Van Hollen, D-Md., to condition aid to Israel. Dunn himself has been supportive of Israel and has said the country has a right to defend itself. He has supported sending U.S. funding to Israel and increasing humanitarian aid to Gaza. Dunn has not been outspoken against human rights abuses by Israel or U.S. military aid. And Elfreth is not running a particularly pro-Israel campaign. 

A United Democracy Project spokesperson told Jewish Insider the group was not concerned about Dunn’s position on Israel, but that it was spending on the race to ensure Elfreth won out over other candidates in the race it described as “anti-Israel.”

The super PAC said it was supporting Elfreth because of her position on other issues like the right to abortion, climate change, and domestic violence. Dunn is campaigning on a similar platform, emphasizing the right to abortion, strengthening voting rights, environmental protection, and working toward Medicare for All. 

United Democracy Project has not run negative ads against Dunn. 

Neither Elfreth’s campaign nor the United Democracy Project responded to a request for comment.

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No Labels abandoned its presidential primary bid last week after failing to recruit a centrist candidate to challenge President Joe Biden. Though it had been unable to recruit anyone, the group had already raised tens of millions of dollars — money that, despite its self-proclaimed centrism, ultimately would have gone toward trying to unseat a sitting Democratic president. The group has, for years, raised cash from Republican billionaires in service of its purportedly middle-of-the-road politics.

Now, one of No Labels’s founders is receiving Democratic support to take a congressional seat in New York. John Avlon, who helped found No Labels in 2010, is two months out from the Democratic primary in New York’s 1st Congressional District. Avlon’s website doesn’t list many specifics, and his media appearances have focused mostly on calls for “defending democracy.”

Aside from running against Donald Trump, Avlon’s stated purpose is to flip the district, which has spent nearly a decade in Republican hands, and help Democrats win the House back after losing the 2022 midterms. To do so, Avlon is turning to a Democrat who has received some blame for losing the House in the first place: On Friday, New York State Democratic Party Chair Jay Jacobs endorsed Avlon.

Democrats are still digging out from the damage done in the 2022 midterms. Progressive Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y., at the time blamed Jacobs and called for his resignation, but Jacobs denied any responsibility for the losses that likely cost the party its majority in Congress.

Jacobs is, in some ways, a good match for Avlon’s campaign. The state party chair, who did not respond to a request for comment, has long clashed with party progressives and staunchly backed the state’s centrist and conservative Democrats. The approach roughly aligns with Avlon’s primary campaign, as well as his political positions in years as a media commentator and founder of No Labels, which he says he hasn’t been involved with since 2013.

“There is a reason why John has energized Democratic voters in Suffolk County and why he has by far the most local support from Democratic activists, elected officials, and organizations,” Avlon campaign manager Bryan Sokolowski said in a statement to The Intercept. “They want to take back NY-1 from MAGA extremist Republican Nick LaLota so that Democrats can flip the House and get to work protecting a woman’s right to an abortion, defending democracy and rebuilding the middle class.”

“There is a reason why John has energized Democratic voters in Suffolk County.”

Democrats vying for the Long Island seat, which encompasses parts of Southampton, East Hampton and Riverhead, have come close in recent cycles. Considered a swing seat, the district has a slight Republican bent, according to polls, and the largest share of independents in the state. Trump won the district in both the 2016 and 2020 presidential races.

Avlon, a former political operative and journalist, is hoping to appeal to the large share of independent voters in the district. He first registered as a Democrat in Sag Harbor in 2020. Prior to that, he was registered as “blank” and had not voted in a Democratic primary in New York.

The Republican in the race, first-term incumbent Rep. Nick LaLota, criticized Avlon for entering the district by purchasing a vacation home in the Hamptons in 2020 and making inroads with the district’s elite. LaLota took office last year after former Republican Rep. Lee Zeldin held the seat for eight years.

At least five Democrats are running in the June 25 primary, including Avlon and Nancy Goroff, a candidate in the 2020 race against Zeldin. Avlon may have an edge in name recognition, but Goroff is currently leading the primacy race has and has led fundraising with $610,000 so far, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission. EMILY’s List endorsed Goroff in March. Avlon’s campaign has not yet filed disclosures with the FEC but said he had raised more than $1.1 million so far.

Centrist Stalwart

Avlon is running as a centrist who can combat Trump’s influence in the district. Mainstream media have portrayed him as candidate who can help Democrats finally win the seat with little scrutiny of his policy positions.

The longtime advocate for centrism used to be a Republican operative, working as a policy adviser and speechwriter for Rudy Giuliani when he was mayor and then for his presidential run in the 2008 election. Avlon now dismisses his role with Giuliani by saying that, at the time, Giuliani was “sane” — a reference to the mayor’s ties to Trump, strong advocacy for election denial, and erratic behavior.

Today, Avlon’s campaign is focused on attacking Trump. His website says he’s running against “unhinged extremism and poisonous polarization,” including veiled warnings about Trump without mentioning him by name, but throughout his decadeslong career, Avlon has voiced more conservative opinions on issues from abortion to labor rights.

“Now is one of those times in our nation’s history when we’re all called to stand up for something bigger than ourselves,” his website reads. “We can’t afford to pretend that a presidential nominee who praises dictators and threatens democracy is normal. We need to confront lies with facts and darkness with light.”

When No Labels sought to mount its presidential run this year, Avalon said the effort was an “extraordinarily reckless risk.”

Avlon has said, without any specific policy proposals, that he supports federal investment in mitigating climate change, improving transportation, expanding the child tax credit, and reducing the cost of living for working families.

In previous comments, including several articles in the Daily Beast, Avlon has praised Republicans, including former New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, and South Carolina Sen. Tim Scott, for taking positions that range from confronting unions to restricting abortions.

In an interview that was recently removed from his campaign website, Avlon compared unions to the religious right. He criticized opponents of Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis’s attacks on Disney over its to the state’s “Don’t Say Gay” bill.

Avlon previously suggested that there are “reasonable restrictions” on abortion access and that it was “an honorable goal” to reduce the number of abortions in the country, though “it should be a matter of persuasion, not legislation.” He also wrote that he didn’t believe that positions on abortion should be a litmus test for candidates. (Avlon’s campaign pointed to his keynote speech at a 2011 Planned Parenthood event as an example of his longtime support of abortion rights.)

Along with support from Jacobs, the Democratic state party chair, Avlon has also been endorsed by several state and local officials and regional Democratic groups.

The post Remember the Centrists Who Lost the House in 2022? They’re Back! appeared first on The Intercept.

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A political action committee funded by a Republican megadonor is running the first ads of the Pennsylvania primary season by an outside group attacking Rep. Summer Lee, D-Pa.

The group, Moderate PAC, launched in January 2023 to target progressives in Democratic primaries. It’s doing so with Republican money.

The ads back the candidate recruited by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee to run against Lee, Bhavini Patel, in hopes of making it to a general election against Republican candidate Laurie MacDonald.

Although Moderate PAC has employed Democratic consultants, including former Ohio Rep. Tim Ryan, its primary funder is Jeffrey Yass, one of the richest man in Pennsylvania and a major donor to the GOP. Yass, though formally registered as a libertarian, is one of former President Donald Trump’s picks for Treasury secretary should he win election in 2024.

Yass, a co-founder of a large hedge fund, has become increasingly involved in spending against progressives, aimed at keeping a regressive tax code in place and cutting funding for public schools in Pennsylvania.

“Take a cue from Laurie McDonald and just run as a Republican.”

“If you have to rely on a Super PAC bankrolled by Pennsylvania’s richest Republican — who has made it his mission to defund public education and ban abortion in PA — you’re not just unfit to run in a Democratic primary, you’re actively anti-democracy too,” said Usamah Andrabi, communications director for Justice Democrats, which is backing Lee. “Take a cue from Laurie McDonald and just run as a Republican.”

Moderate PAC Donors

Moderate PAC president and founder Ty Strong told The Intercept that other Pittsburgh area donors, including labor unions, had given to the PAC to fund ads against Lee in the race for the Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District.

“All the money raised for the ads in PA-12 were received from members of that community and Pittsburgh labor unions,” Strong said.

Though he didn’t identify the labor unions, Strong named six individual donors — including one registered Republican and five Democrats. Among them were private equity and venture capital executives Todd Reidbord and Gregg Perelman, who run the Pittsburgh private equity firm Walnut Capital; Richard and Arlene Weisman, who are active philanthropists in Pittsburgh’s Jewish community; and Evan Segal and Andy Rabin of the 412 Venture fund. Rabin is registered as a Republican.

Strong said the names of other donors would be revealed in the PAC’s next filings with the Federal Election Commission, which is due on April 15.

One of those donors, Segal, a Democrat who worked in the administration of former President Barack Obama, told The Intercept he hardly agreed with Yass on anything, including his reasons for funding the PAC in the first place.

“Mr. Yass’s reasons for funding this are in support of a very, very ultra-right-wing group of crazies who despise Summer Lee,” he said. Though he is supporting Yass’s PAC, Segal said, “I don’t support people on the extremes.”

Segal said he gave to Yass’s PAC not because he believes the enemy of his enemy is his friend, but that observers are anticipating further outside spending to back Lee. “We firmly believe that there will be money that will come in from the outside — from people who also hate marginalized communities — to support Summer Lee, as well as people from the right like Mr. Yass who want to run these Machiavellian games with their billions of dollars,” Segal said. (The other five identified donors did not respond to a request for comment.)

Segal said he’s backing Patel because she’ll support Democratic leaders including President Joe Biden, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., and House Majority Leader Hakeem Jeffries, D-N.Y., to fight for issues like reproductive freedom and women’s equality.

Past Spending Against Lee

For her part, in a press statement last week, Lee said, “Republican-funded Super PACs and their chosen candidate couldn’t stop us last cycle, and they won’t stop us this time.”

Lee faced an onslaught of spending from pro-Israel lobbying groups in 2022. AIPAC and its ally, Democratic Majority for Israel, spent millions against her.

It’s also not the first time Lee’s opponents have claimed she’s not really a Democrat — while themselves taking money from Republicans. Patel and her campaign have strategized about how to encourage Republicans to get involved in the primary, how Patel’s campaign appeals to Republican voters, and how the campaign can encourage Republicans to switch parties to vote in the April 23 primary.

Moderate PAC’s Strong compared the donors who funded the new ads, including Republicans, to one of Lee’s donors. “This is in contrast to Rep. Summer Lee, who receives money from people condemned by the White House,” Strong added.

Strong said he was referring to Nihad Awad, executive director of the Council on American-Islamic Relations, whom the White House denounced in December after he said he was happy to see the people of Gaza breaking the long-running siege against the territory on October 7. Awad has explicitly condemned the Hamas attack and clarified that his comments were in support of Palestinians’ fight against Israel’s illegal occupation, not in support of Hamas.

Yass is also a major donor to a far-right Israeli think tank that has tried to reconfigure the country’s judicial system and suppress criticism of human rights abuses by the Israeli government.

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