Four progressive House candidates came together in the Chicago area on Tuesday to condemn reported pro-Israel spending in their districts, a sign of growing cross-district collaboration among candidates hostile to Israel as they seek to push back against pro-Israel interest groups.

The joint press conference included Evanston, Ill., Mayor Daniel Biss, state Sen. Robert Peters, activist Junaid Ahmed and union organizer Anthony Driver Jr. All four are endorsed by the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC.

Driver’s attendance was particularly notable given that he has little public record on Israel policy issues. He’s running in the 7th Congressional District, where the AIPAC-linked United Democracy Project has spent $753,000 — and reportedly plans close to $3 million in spending — in support of Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin. He was endorsed by the CPC on Tuesday.

“AIPAC is not your friend. … They are in the business of buying elections. They’re in the business of buying representation. They’re in the business of buying politicians,” Driver said. “Melissa Conyears-Ervin … is selling out our community.”

He added, addressing AIPAC directly: “You will lose, and when you do lose, may you never come back to this city again.”

Another anti-Israel candidate, Kina Collins, is also running for the seat.

“I was raised by a single mother on the West Side and I’m the full-time caretaker to my disabled sister who relies on SNAP and Medicaid. I’m going to fight for our communities in Washington because I know what Trump’s attacks have done to us,” Conyears-Ervin said in a statement to Jewish Insider. “I’m insulted that some of my opponents think a Black woman born and raised in this district would ever be anything but independent and fearless.”

The candidates broadly framed AIPAC as a pro-Trump, pro-Netanyahu group that is trying to buy the elections in their four districts, and suggested that accepting any funding from AIPAC affiliates will make lawmakers incapable of opposing the Trump administration.

Peters claimed that accepting support from the group means that candidates will be “a ‘yes man’ to Trump donors to commit unspeakable horrors in another part of the world,” activities in which he said AIPAC was directly involved.

Ahmed called the alleged AIPAC spending a “sinister plot” across all four races: “massive AIPAC spending designed to buy political power and silence the voices of the people. … [Former Democratic Rep.] Melissa Bean will look the other way as Israel commits a genocide. Melissa Bean will fight for the wealthy and the powerful and leave everyone else behind.”

Bean did not respond to a request for comment.

In the other districts — the 9th, 8th and 2nd — purported pro-Israel spending has come through newly created groups boosting three allied candidates: state Sen. Laura Fine, Bean and Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller.

Elect Chicago Women, the group backing Fine and Bean, has spent $1.26 million supporting Fine and $1.27 million supporting Bean thus far and Affordable Chicago Now, the group backing Miller, has spent $868,000.

In his race, Biss has been leaning aggressively into Israel and AIPAC-related attacks on Fine as a centerpiece of his campaign. 

The “red box” on Biss’ website — where candidates share messaging that they hope super PACs involved in the race will boost — lists as his top priority informing voters that Fine is “bankrolled by Trump donors, MAGA Republican donors, and AIPAC.”

“She will side with AIPAC on policies that starve children and will fund their war in Gaza with billions of U.S. taxpayer dollars,” the website states.

“This is further proof that professional political candidate Daniel Biss will say anything to get elected,” a Fine spokesperson responded to JI. “He said he’d serve his full term as mayor and broke his promise. He says he’ll protect Medicaid but voted to eliminate coverage for 25,000 working Illinois parents. He can’t run a campaign pitting his record against Laura Fine’s because he doesn’t have one. Laura stood up to the insurance industry, corporate polluters and the gun lobby — and won.”

At a recent candidate forum, video of which was obtained by JI, Biss repeatedly attacked Fine for receiving donations from AIPAC and Trump supporters and accused her of supporting a “blank check” for Israel. On one occasion when Biss repeated the attack line, loud groans and grumbling could be heard from members of the audience.

Fine has denied any knowledge of the funding behind the outside group backing her — an idea that Biss has declared is “not credible,” though super PACs are legally prohibited from coordinating with campaigns and the group’s donors have not been publicly disclosed — and said she would also like transparency on the issue.

Biss has also faced scrutiny for the more than $350,000 in outside spending supporting him from 314 Action Fund, a Democratic pro-science group — to which UDP donated funds in a 2024 Oregon primary race when they were backing the same candidate. Biss has dismissed the idea that there are similarities in the outside support both he and Fine are receiving as “preposterous.”

Outside of the pro-Israel spending, new outside spending by the cryptocurrency-aligned Fairshake super PAC is also shaking up the race. The group is set to spend at least $1 million against Peters and state Rep. LaShawn Ford, who’s running against Conyears-Ervin, Driver and others in the 7th Congressional District.

Leading the Future, a super PAC funded by OpenAI President Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna, and venture capitalist Ben Horowitz, co-founder of Andreessen Horowitz, has plans for a seven-figure ad spend supporting former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. (D-IL) in the 2nd District and Bean in the 8th.