Follow us on social

Aipac

AIPAC's new strategy: Spend millions on elections, don't mention Israel

The lobbying org's first foray into electoral politics has been marked by spending GOP megadonor dollars on Democratic primaries. Why?

Analysis | Reporting | Middle East

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s announcement late last year that it would launch a super PAC, the United Democracy Project, and endorse candidates sent shockwaves through foreign policy and advocacy communities. 

AIPAC had long refrained from engaging in electoral politics, preferring instead to lobby members of Congress to support maintaining Israel’s nearly $4 billion in annual military and other aid from the United States and to oppose diplomatic efforts to constrain Iran’s nuclear program. 

But now that the super PAC is active, raising over $27 million, and running ads to support or oppose Democratic primary candidates for the 2022 midterms, it’s becoming clear what UDP’s fundraising and spending strategy is: raise money from hawkish Trump supporting GOP big donors and spend on ads to benefit Democratic candidates who won’t question U.S. policy towards the U.S.’s biggest foreign military aid recipient.

Curiously though, the ads paid for by UDP, affiliated with the largest pro-Israel group in the country, don’t mention  the groups’ central issue: Israel.

That might be because AIPAC’s central issue, Israel, has remarkably little salience with U.S. voters. Polling conducted between 2010 and 2020 by the J Street, a Democratic Party aligned group often at odds with AIPAC on a host of issues including Iran nuclear deal and aid to the Palestinian Authority, reveals that Jewish voters — a demographic often expected to prioritize candidates’ views on Israel — place an extremely low priority on Israel-related issue in elections. In a decade of polling, J Street found that Israel was a top-two voting issue for between -four and ten percent of Jewish voters.

In June, AIPAC rankled Democrats and earned extensive coverage in Jewish American and Israeli news outlets by endorsing 37 Republicans who voted against certifying President Joe Biden’s election victory.

AIPAC defended its decision to endorse the candidates to Ron Kampeas at the Jewish Telegraph Agency. “As a single-issue organization, we remain focused on our mission of building bipartisan support in Congress to strengthen the U.S.-Israel relationship,” AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittman told Kampeas.

But AIPAC’s super PAC didn’t seem to get that message. Their ads don’t mention Israel, AIPAC’s “single-Issue,” and explicitly made an issue of the contested election in an ad boosting Michigan State Senator Adam Hollier. “When Donald Trump tried to throw out Detroit’s presidential vote, Adam Hollier fought alongside Governor Whitmer to stop him,” said an ad supporting Hollier in the August 2 Democratic primary for Michigan’s 13th district. Hollier lost the primary but the ad revealed the cynical opportunism behind AIPAC’s electoral strategy that leads the organization to endorse candidates who opposed certifying the election results while running ads promoting another candidate’s work to certify the election, all while avoiding mention of the “single issue” that qualifies candidates from both sides of the contested election to earn AIPAC’s support.

Last week, AIPAC PAC Director Marilyn Rosenthal and United Democracy Project CEO Rob Bassin answered questions about their electoral strategy from Jewish Insider. Rosenthal said their campaign work  “is allowing us to clearly define who is and who is not pro-Israel.”

When asked about Israel not playing a significant role in AIPAC’s campaign messaging, Bassin responded, “I would just say about that, first of all, the issues that UDP has focused on have been the issues that are foremost on the minds of voters.” 

“That being said, I think the views of the candidates on the U.S.-Israel relationship have been made clear on their websites and their position papers and in their voting records,” he added.

Perhaps the most telling aspect of UDP’s work has been where the group raises and spends its money. Two of UDP’s biggest individual funders are Home Depot co-founder Bernard Marcus and hedge fund manager Paul Singer. Both contributed $1 million to the UDP super PAC. Both are Trump backers and Republican Party megadonors, regularly contributing millions of dollars to Republican candidates in each election cycle. That’s in sharp contrast to where UDP spends its money: Democratic primaries.

UDP’s decision to influence Democratic primaries in order to defeat incumbents deemed inufficiently pro-Israel, with funds partially originating from Republican megadonors, while actively avoiding mention of the group’s organizing principle — “the belief that America’s partnership with our democratic ally Israel benefits both countries” — may be a symptom of the Democratic Party’s drift away from unconditional support for Israel.

The UDP did not respond to a request for comment about why their campaign ads avoid mention of Israel.

Only 0.5 percent of Democrats listed Israel as their first choice when asked to “[n]ame the TWO countries that you think are the most important allies of the United States today,” according to a University of Maryland survey conducted in March. Only 0.9 percent listed Israel as their second choice. (The most popular choices by Democrats were The United Kingdom and Canada.) Among Republicans, 20 percent listed Israel as their first choice selection and 9.3 percent listed Israel as their second choice.

With those starkly contrasting numbers, it’s clear that AIPAC has its work cut out for it in boosting its preferred candidates in Democratic primaries. Under the circumstances, it makes good sense to use Republican megadonors’ money and make no mention of Israel if AIPAC wants to raise money and effectively engage Democratic voters.


The homepage of AIPAC's recently launched super PAC the United Democracy Project.
Analysis | Reporting | Middle East
President Trump with reporters
Top photo credit: President Donald Trump speaks with members of the media at Joint Base Andrews, Maryland on Sunday, September 7, 2025. (Official White House Photo by Daniel Torok)

Is Israel forcing Trump to be the capitulator in chief?

Middle East

President Donald Trump told reporters outside a Washington restaurant Tuesday evening that he is deeply displeased with Israel’s bombardment of Qatar, a close U.S. partner in the Persian Gulf that, at Washington’s request, has hosted Hamas’s political leadership since 2012.

“I am not thrilled about it. I am not thrilled about the whole situation,” Trump said, denying that Israel had given him advance notice. “I was very unhappy about it, very unhappy about every aspect of it,” he continued. “We’ve got to get the hostages back. But I was very unhappy with the way that went down.”

keep readingShow less
Europe Ukraine
Top image credit: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, French President Emmanuel Macron, Volodymyr Zelenskyi, President of Ukraine, Keir Starmer, Prime Minister of the UK, and Donald Tusk, Prime Minister of Poland, emerge from St. Mary's Palace for a press conference as part of the Coalition of the Willing meeting in Kiev, May 10 2025, Kay Nietfeld/dpa via Reuters Connect

Is Europe deliberately sabotaging Ukraine War negotiations?

Europe

After last week’s meeting of the “coalition of the willing” in Paris, 26 countries have supposedly agreed to contribute — in some fashion — to a military force that would be deployed on Ukrainian soil after hostilities have concluded.

Three weeks prior, at the Anchorage leaders’ summit press conference, Russian President Vladimir Putin noted that Ukraine’s security should be ensured as part of any negotiated settlement. But Russian officials have continued to reiterate that this cannot take the form of Western combat forces stationed in Ukraine. In the wake of last week’s meeting, Putin has upped the ante by declaring that any such troops would be legitimate targets for the Russian military.

keep readingShow less
After bombing, time to demystify the 'Qatar lobby'
Top photo credit: The Prime Minister and Minister of Foreign Affairs of Qatar, Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani, is standing third from the left in the front row, alongside the Minister of Culture of Qatar, Abdulrahman bin Hamad bin Jassim bin Hamad Al Thani, who is at the center, and the Minister of Culture, Sports and Youth of Oman, Sayyid Theyazin bin Haitham Al Said, who is second from the right in Doha, Qatar, on May 9, 2024. (Photo by Noushad Thekkayil/NurPhoto)

After bombing, time to demystify the 'Qatar lobby'

Middle East

On Tuesday, Israel bombed Doha, killing at least five Hamas staffers and a member of Qatari security. Israeli officials initially claimed the US green-lit the operation, despite Qatar hosting the largest U.S. military in the region.

The White House has since contradicted that version of events, saying the White House was given notice “just before” the bombing and claiming the strike was an “unfortunate" attack that "could serve as an opportunity for peace.”

keep readingShow less

LATEST

QIOSK

Newsletter

Subscribe now to our weekly round-up and don't miss a beat with your favorite RS contributors and reporters, as well as staff analysis, opinion, and news promoting a positive, non-partisan vision of U.S. foreign policy.