Who is AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby, supporting in this week’s Illinois congressional primaries? Not the Jewish candidates, or the most traditionally pro-Israel one, but it made a last-minute spend on a candidate who says Israel is guilty of genocide.
The topsy-turvy spending, totalling more than $20 million in disclosed ad buys, comes amid an election cycle in which AIPAC has become a dirty word on both the left and the right. At the same time, the group’s affiliated PACs are spending more than ever on electoral politics. Private donors tied to AIPAC are spending even more.
The Illinois primaries follow two other elections where AIPAC was heavily involved: a New Jersey special election where it bet against a self-proclaimed Zionist who offered mild criticism of Israel, and who lost to a harsh critic of Israel, and a primary in North Carolina in which the specter of the group loomed large even as it did not put any money on the line. There, the candidate who previously took AIPAC donations only barely eked out a win.
But the Illinois spending, all in reliably safe Democratic districts, far outpaces the outlay in New Jersey. AIPAC’s intense interest in Illinois may be deliberate tone-setting: According to an Agudath Israel of Illinois newsletter obtained by the Washington Post, an AIPAC director gave a presentation warning that the success of progressive candidates in the state’s early primary could embolden progressive candidates in other states.
Many candidates in the races have negatively invoked AIPAC during their campaigns, and a longtime Jewish representative rescinded one endorsement because her candidate was benefiting from AIPAC support. Two Jewish potential 2028 presidential contenders from Illinois, Gov. JB Pritzker and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel, also recently spoke out against AIPAC.
What Jewish voters should be watching for
As the transformative power of pro-Israel spending runs up against a left that treats pro-Israel views as toxic, here’s what Jewish voters should be watching for on Tuesday in Illinois:
District 9, where it is Jew vs. Jew vs. a Palestinian-American
One of the most dramatic and jam-packed Democratic primaries in the country, and one of the most closely watched for Jews, is unfolding in Chicago’s northern suburbs.
A whopping 15 Democratic candidates are vying for the chance to replace retiring Jewish Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has held the seat since 1999, and whose predecessor for decades was also Jewish. The race includes four Jews and two pro-Palestinian activists.
Of that field, Evanston mayor Daniel Biss, a Jewish progressive, has a marginal lead in polling, along with Schakowsky’s endorsement and the backing of liberal pro-Israel group J Street.
Biss is a self-proclaimed Zionist and critic of the Israeli government. He has visited the country many times, his mother was born there, and his maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors.
But Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American and former journalist who has the backing of the pro-Palestinian PAL PAC, has strong fundraising and has narrowed the polling gap.
Abughazaleh accuses Israel of genocide and has made YouTube videos decrying Illinois laws that target the boycott Israel movement.
She also spoke out against some forms of antisemitism. “Pretty much every major conspiracy theory is rooted in antisemitism,” the candidate told the JAAM podcast in January. “It drives me crazy when people who had no idea where Gaza was before Oct. 7 have a lot of thoughts about how antisemitism isn’t a real problem.”
A different Jewish politician, state Sen. Laura Fine, is AIPAC’s preferred candidate: A PAC with ties to AIPAC, Elect Chicago Women, has reported spending $2.7 million on pro-Fine and anti-Biss ads. Biss’s campaign has accused Fine’s campaign of illegally coordinating with Elect Chicago Women. It’s a rare race where AIPAC has aligned one Jewish candidate against another.
“It’s dark money. Our campaign does not coordinate,” Fine said when asked about the ad spending on a recent televised debate. “I have asked publicly for them to reveal who their donors are because we don’t know.”
When asked if she supported unconditional aid to Israel, an AIPAC priority, she responded, “There are conditions on all foreign aid.” Later, she criticized Biss for, she said, asking for AIPAC’s support, as Biss, in turn, accused Fine’s campaign of being “bankrolled by AIPAC and MAGA donors.”
Biss, in the same debate, acknowledged he had met with AIPAC, “but I stayed true to my values,” and said, “We cannot allow unconditional aid to the Israeli government, no matter what they do in Gaza. I don’t think it’s right.”
J Street PAC, which is associated with the liberal Zionist group, has spent money backing Biss. He has backed proposed legislation that would limit military aid to Israel, but did not answer a question on a questionnaire from the Chicago public radio station WBEZ about whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.
“AIPAC wants to be able to dismiss any criticism of the conduct of the current Israeli government as being from people who are against the idea of Israel existing as a Jewish democratic state in the first place, and who are knee-jerk, reflexively opposed,” Biss told Jewish Currents recently. “They can’t pull it off with someone like me, and that worries them.”
In the race’s final days, a new Super PAC linked to Elect Chicago Women, and, by association, to AIPAC, spent another $1 million specifically targeting Abughazaleh. The lobby may have learned a lesson from the New Jersey special election, when the more hard-line Israel critic won the primary.
Dark horses in the race include economist Jeff Cohen; deaf civil rights lawyer Howard Rosenblum; and Skokie school board member Bushra Amiwala, a Muslim-American who has accused Israel of genocide and complained that she grew up on a school curriculum that taught any criticism of Israel is antisemitism.
In a last-minute twist, a super PAC with links to AIPAC has run ads supporting Amiwala, an effort her campaign denounced, and Abughazaleh’s campaign alleged was done to split the progressive vote and blunt her momentum. Abughazaleh theorized that AIPAC was trying to hurt her in order to elect Biss, whom she called “the only candidate that they have left that they could possibly consider to be an ally.”
In District 7, spending against a Jewish leader
On paper, a longtime Jewish communal leader with a strongly pro-Israel position would seem like the ideal AIPAC candidate. Not so in Illinois’ 7th district, which includes downtown Chicago as well as suburbs to the south and west.
One of the candidates, Jason Friedman, is a real-estate developer who spent 15 years on the board of the Jewish United Fund, the Chicagoland federation, as well as serving as its director of government affairs.
Friedman’s views on Israel also appear in keeping with AIPAC’s stated policy goals. He recently told Jewish Insider he is a “firm believer” in military aid to Israel, and argued, “Israel should not be uniquely targeted or positioned” when it comes to conditions on aid.
At first, AIPAC-aligned donors did appear to back Friedman in the race, funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign as early as last fall. But that has changed. The group is now formally supporting one of his non-Jewish opponents, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, having recently committed to spending $2.8 million on her campaign via its shell PAC, United Democracy Project.
Part of that spending has included negative ads against Friedman. Still, Friedman has not formally denounced the group, unlike other candidates who have lost favor with the lobby.
Friedman’s campaign declined to comment for this story, and AIPAC did not answer questions sent to its press relations. But one progressive journalist, quoting an unnamed source, said the group had determined Friedman was “too obviously aligned,” suggesting AIPAC favored the chances of Conyears-Ervin, a Black candidate who has not staked her candidacy on Israel issues, in a district with a plurality of Black voters. Conyears-Ervin did not respond to questions by WBEZ about whether Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and whether aid should be conditioned.
Another candidate in the race, Reed Showalter, earned the ire of some local Jews after a candidate event held at an Oak Park synagogue. During the event, Showalter launched into an attack on the Netanyahu government. Later, his campaign used footage of his answer in ads that were deeply critical of his opponents’ views on Israel, leading two members of the congregation to criticize him for “using a Jewish community forum as a setting to score points off his opponents for clicks.”
In District 2, the Jew of color who called for a ceasefire
Robert Peters, an Illinois state senator running for the House in the state’s 2nd Congressional District, has one of the more unusual Jewish stories of any candidate this year.
Peters, 40, who was born deaf, identifies as a Black man. He was an adopted child who, in 2022, reconnected with his Jewish biological father. Not long after, he formally converted to Judaism and joined a local congregation, speaking openly of his roots in Ukraine and Lithuania.
He then drew on this Jewish heritage in explaining his decision to protest at the Israeli consulate for a ceasefire in Gaza less than a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.
“I was taught that as Jews, we must speak out against injustice,” Peters, who holds Barack Obama’s old seat in the statehouse and has won several leading progressive endorsements including from Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders, wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times in November 2023. He added that he “felt ill as I read about Hamas’ brutal violence targeting Israeli civilians,” but that the Jewish concept of pikuach nefesh, saving a life, soon compelled him to speak out against the war.
Fast-forward to his current congressional campaign, and Peters, who says Israel committed genocide in Gaza, has penned an op-ed for the Forward blasting AIPAC for targeting his campaign. He linked himself to Biss as two Jews who are critical of Israel.
“Groups like AIPAC are concerned that if Jewish people like us can speak out against Israel and still win elections, then others who may have been nervously hanging back may feel like they can take bolder action as well,” Peters wrote. He criticized the lobbyists for obscuring their spending against him in a shell PAC, Affordable Chicago Now, whose ads do not mention Israel.
Peters is running against four other candidates; his supporters have said he would be the first Black Jew in Congress if elected. A new AIPAC-linked Super PAC named Affordable Chicago Now! has spent around $4.4 million on its preferred candidate, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller, who lost Schakowsky’s endorsement over the AIPAC support. (Schakowsky herself once boasted of being aligned with AIPAC, before political headwinds on Israel changed.)
District 8: Attacking from the left
In addition to the above three congressional races, AIPAC affiliates are also spending heavily in a fourth Chicago-area district, Illinois’ 8th, where no Jews are running.
Former U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean, who is Serbian Christian, is the beneficiary of nearly $4 million in campaign spending from Elect Chicago Women, the AIPAC-aligned PAC. Bean’s campaign says she backs a two-state solution.
Of the seven candidates running in the 8th, however, the one who’s garnered the most outside attention is Indian-American tech entrepreneur Junaid Ahmed, who has the backing of several progressive groups including Sanders and PAL PAC.
Ahmed, who is Muslim, has “Peace in Gaza and Palestinian Self-Determination” as one of his leading campaign platforms, and has declared Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide. As with Abhugazaleh in District 9, AIPAC-affiliated groups have run ads attacking Ahmed from the left.
Senate concerns
The Democratic contest to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin has been relatively low-key when it comes to Jews and Israel, compared to some of the state’s congressional races. Yet it has not been immune to controversies.
During a recent debate, one of the candidates, Rep. Robin Kelly, shocked viewers by accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza, and challenging her opponents to do the same.
“Every candidate on stage tonight had the opportunity to condemn genocide in Gaza,” Kelly, who received AIPAC support only a year ago, wrote on X. “I’m the only one who did.”
Meanwhile, one of Kelly’s two principal opponents, the AIPAC-endorsed Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, drew the ire of some progressives over his vote last year condemning an attack on a march for Israeli hostages in Boulder, Colorado.
The critics objected that the resolution’s language noted that the alleged assailant didn’t have legal status to be in the United States and that it thanked U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement officers “for protecting the homeland.” After ICE activity in cities like Chicago and Minneapolis enraged the larger body politic, such language proved toxic, and as a result, rival PACs, including one funded by the Pritzker family, have dinged Krishnamoorthi for “thanking ICE.”