In late 2021, the pro-Israel lobbying group AIPAC announced it would soon begin wading directly into campaign politics — launching a bipartisan political action committee as well as a super PAC to wield its considerable resources in high-stakes congressional elections.  

The pivot, which marked a major shift in AIPAC’s 61-year history, was seen at the time as a risky and controversial maneuver threatening to sow backlash and risk diminishing its clout in Washington, where it has long been engaged in bipartisan lobbying to uphold support for Israel.

But nearly three years and two election cycles later, AIPAC’s new efforts have made a significant impact on the primary landscape, political strategists say, pointing in particular to a waning influence of the far left that had until recently been ascendant in the Democratic Party, where divisions over Israel have fueled rising tensions in the wake of Hamas’ Oct. 7 attacks.

“AIPAC has become a real force in Democratic primaries,” Chris Coffey, a Democratic strategist in New York, told Jewish Insider on Tuesday. The group has “picked races carefully and made a big mark. Campaigns will surely assess AIPAC’s future potential spending and how it affects their own races.”

The group scored its most notable wins this summer in helping to dislodge two Squad members — Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) and Cori Bush (D-MO) — who had been among the most outspoken critics of Israel in Congress and fell to challengers whose campaigns were boosted by millions of dollars from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups.

“When a member of Congress adopts a radical anti-Israel agenda, there’s going to be a response from the pro-Israel community — particularly post-Oct. 7,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project, which has spent more than $35 million during the primaries. “You saw that with Bowman and Bush, who were focused on fringe priorities that didn’t meet the priorities of their home districts.”

But AIPAC also notched victories in other races that drew less attention on the national stage, including an open-seat House contest in Maryland, where it boosted a pro-Israel Democrat, Sarah Elfreth, who won a hotly contested primary battle. In an Oregon House race, AIPAC quietly beat back a left-wing Democrat, Susheela Jayapal, who had expressed support for conditioning aid to Israel. Likewise, UDP invested nearly $1 million in a Detroit House primary to fend off a Democratic challenger to Rep. Shri Thanedar (D-MI), whom the group had targeted in 2022 but now supports after he traveled with an AIPAC-affiliated group to Israel last year.

Marshall Wittmann, a spokesperson for AIPAC, said in an email statement to JI on Wednesday that its “engagement over the past two election cycles has demonstrated the importance and effectiveness of the pro-Israel community in the political process,” adding: “It has clearly shown that the pro-Israel position is both good policies and good politics.”

While AIPAC largely targeted Democrats this cycle, it helped defeat some Republicans who have been hostile to Israel, including former Rep. John Hostettler (R-IN), who faced more than $1.5 million in attack ads from UDP. The group helped to defend Rep. Tony Gonzales (R-TX) in a close race against a GOP challenger who had posted videos on social media featuring Nazi imagery. 

“During this primary season, the pro-Israel mainstream has sent a powerful message that America stands with Israel as it battles Iranian terrorist proxies,” Wittmann added, claiming that “the power of the Democratic and Republican pro-Israel mainstream was demonstrated in the defeat of three House incumbents who lacked an ironclad commitment to the U.S.-Israel relationship.”

The group’s impact even appeared to reach some races in which AIPAC had not engaged directly — most prominently in an open-seat House primary in Washington state where a progressive Democrat, Emily Randall, quickly fired her campaign manager after being informed about the individual’s pro-Hamas social media activity.

“The fact that she went to such lengths to do that says something about what she was worried about,” said a Democratic consultant who was not involved in the race and spoke on the condition of anonymity to address AIPAC’s growing influence in Democratic primaries. “There’s reason to think it was less out of sincere commitment and more out of fear, and that fear speaks to political power.”

The consultant said it was too soon to tell if AIPAC’s successful efforts to unseat Bowman and Bush will “have a big impact” on other Squad members who won reelection without facing viable challengers. “But for people who are thinking about joining, it will likely make them think twice,” the consultant suggested to JI on Wednesday, noting recent developments in the primaries “speak to a significant change in the political dynamic and a narrowing of the influence of the far left.”

The group’s only major loss this cycle came early in the primary season, when it fell short of repelling a Democratic state legislator from California, Dave Min, who drew millions in attack ads from AIPAC in his bid for an open House seat in Orange County. Min is now facing Republican Scott Baugh in the general election, in what’s expected to be a competitive contest.

A Democratic consultant who is familiar with the race expressed “high confidence” that AIPAC “won’t be spending against” Min in the general election. “They spent millions against him and lost, and during that time his position toward Israel did not change,” the consultant, who was granted anonymity to address a sensitive topic, told JI earlier this week.

In many ways, the campaign playbook that AIPAC is now following was first tested by another leading pro-Israel group, Democratic Majority for Israel, in a bitterly contested special House election in Ohio three years ago. DMFI PAC, the group’s political arm, spent heavily to help a pro-Israel Democrat, Rep. Shontel Brown (D-OH), in an upset over Nina Turner, a progressive stalwart who faced scrutiny from Jewish voters for her views on Middle East policy.

“After the Shontel Brown race, we’d get calls from people saying, ‘How do we get right by you?’” Mark Mellman, DMFI PAC’s chairman and a Democratic pollster, said in an interview with JI on Wednesday. “That’s exactly what our opponents are afraid of. People see that being pro-Israel works, and they want to be on that side. That’s very much a part of our strategy.”

Mellman said he has received similar calls this cycle, after DMFI PAC worked to defeat Bowman and Bush in tandem with AIPAC and other groups such as the Jewish Democratic Council of America. 

Last cycle, both DMFI PAC and AIPAC invested in several contested House primaries to help elect pro-Israel Democrats, even amid criticism from the activist left for funding attack ads that were largely unrelated to Israel and instead sought to portray some candidates as unsupportive of mainstream Democratic priorities, including infrastructure investment. 

That strategy was repeated in the Bowman and Bush races this summer. But in a shift from past races, AIPAC and DMFI PAC chose this cycle to target incumbents whose antagonistic positions on Israel, ethical quagmires and lack of attention to constituent needs had made them uniquely vulnerable. “In the Bush race, there was a big focus on kitchen-table issues, and she was focused on a different agenda,” said Dorton, the spokesperson for UDP. “That’s an important factor when UDP looks at races.”

“I feel like they went out to collect some skulls,” a Democratic operative who has worked on several campaigns featuring sharp divisions over Israel said of AIPAC and DMFI PAC. “It’s a lot worse time to be an incumbent who is an enemy of the pro-Israel community than it is to be a challenger candidate.”

Jake Dilemani, a Democratic strategist in New York who worked with some outside groups that opposed Bowman and Bush, said that AIPAC’s response in particular has “made very clear there are multiple groups that will engage if they think their interests are not being represented” on key issues. “I do think that people may think twice about” deviating from pro-Israel viewpoints, he told JI, at risk of drawing attacks from AIPAC and other interest groups that are now emboldened by their electoral successes.

As the primary season comes to a close, it remains to be seen if AIPAC will engage as actively in the general election, where there are fewer discernible contrasts on Middle East policy issues. Dorton declined to share any plans at the moment, saying only that UDP is “looking hard at “general election opportunities.”

Wittmann, the AIPAC spokesperson, said broadly that “grassroots members are deeply engaged in supporting Senate and House champions of America’s alliance with Israel,” but would not disclose further details ahead of the November elections.

One possible race where UDP could get involved is in a swing district in Washington state, where Rep. Marie Gluesenkamp Perez (D-WA), who is backed by AIPAC’s PAC, is now preparing for a rematch against Joe Kent, a far-right Republican who has promoted a skeptical view of American engagement abroad. “Marie is, in this neighborhood, in a kind of class of her own,” said an AIPAC leader in Oregon who recently attended a fundraiser for the freshman Democrat, raising concerns that Kent is “more of an America First isolationist and in the Tucker Carlson camp.”

Looking ahead to future cycles, pro-Israel activists familiar with the AIPAC’s deliberations suggested that the group is keeping a close eye on incumbent Squad members such as Reps. Ilhan Omar (D-MN), Rashida Tlaib (D-MI) and Summer Lee (D-PA), who withstood UDP’s well-funded attacks in her first bid for a Pittsburgh House seat in 2022. 

Even as AIPAC chose not to back a challenger to Lee in this summer’s primary, a pro-Israel activist in the district said they could envision a scenario in which a more viable candidate emerges in the coming years — naming Rachael Heisler, the city controller, as one possible rival who is widely respected among Jewish voters.

“You need a candidate who is strong on their own,” Dilemani said, stressing that AIPAC and DMFI PAC were successful, in large part, because they backed popular challengers who were already established in their respective districts. “As the saying goes, you can’t beat someone with no one.”

But courting a credible challenger willing to take on an incumbent can be difficult and time-consuming. According to a source familiar with the situation, AIPAC had sought to recruit George Latimer, the Westchester County executive who defeated Bowman in July, in 2022, but he deferred until the next election cycle.

Mellman, the DMFI PAC chairman, said his group had “learned some lessons about recruitment and using other tools to shape the battlefield,” which he expects to draw on while weighing future races.

For his part, Dorton put his own takeaway more bluntly. “There will be, post-Oct. 7, a high degree of scrutiny and potential responses on members who have a radical anti-Israel point of view,” he told JI on Tuesday. “A campaign is one of those responses.”