After a night of mixed results in Tuesday’s primary elections, AIPAC’s United Democracy Project super PAC is turning its eyes toward the special election runoff in California’s 14th Congressional District, where progressive state Sen. Aisha Wahab and moderate local Mayor Michelle Hernandez are competing to replace disgraced former Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA).

Wahab entered the race as the heavy favorite and dominated the primaries for both the regular and special elections. In the special election primary, Wahab finished with 43% to Hernandez’s 17%, and led Hernandez 38%-17% in the regular primary. The special election runoff is set for Aug. 18.

Her record raises concerns for some members of the Jewish community — she has not been supportive of numerous priority bills and resolutions aimed at tackling antisemitism and has been a vocal critic of Israel, including describing the war in Gaza as a genocide and championing legislation in the state Senate on the issue.

UDP’s initial ad buy in the race totaled $1.2 million.

One of UDP’s ads accuses Wahab of being soft on crime — pointing to an amendment she led to a sex trafficking bill — and describes Hernandez as tough on crime and supported by police. Other pro-Hernandez groups are running with a similar message. Another highlights her background and work on affordability issues.

In a page on her website responding to attacks, Wahab’s campaign accused Hernandez of “relying on misleading attacks and AIPAC-linked dark-money PACs to tear Aisha Wahab down.” The page takes aim at Hernandez for having “denied the genocide in Gaza” — she declined to provide a yes-or-no answer on the subject at a candidate forum — and shared a spreadsheet naming all of the individual “AIPAC-linked donors” supporting Hernandez’s campaign.

“Wahab has accused Israel of committing genocide and has separately published the names of Jewish donors to her opponent on her website. She’s pretty extreme in her points of view on Israel,” UDP spokesperson Patrick Dorton told Jewish Insider. “It’s a race where Wahab is talking about ideological issues and Hernandez is talking about economic and affordability issues that are important to voters in the district.”

Bold America PAC, linked to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, has spent more than $2 million so far attacking Wahab and supporting Hernandez. The group has taken some donations from an AIPAC-affiliated group. A new pro-Hernandez group, Safer Alameda County, has spent $51,000 so far.

Daniel Klein, the CEO of Jewish Silicon Valley — which is nonpartisan and does not take stances in elections — said that Jewish community leaders are paying close attention to the race, and he has heard significant concern about Wahab’s votes on major antisemitism legislation and her close relationship with state teachers’ unions, which have opposed antisemitism bills.

“That is, I think, creating some angst — or at least more attention to this race — amongst many members of the Jewish community and Jewish communal organizations,” he continued, relating conversations he’s had with members of the community. “These are pieces of legislation that are intended to protect our children, right? They should be fairly non-controversial.”

Wahab was one of three senators who voted against SB 1287, which required overhauls of campus codes of conduct to address antisemitic and anti-Israel demonstrations, and abstained from a floor vote on AB 715, which aimed to address antisemitism in K-12 schools.

Klein said he has not had the opportunity to meet with Wahab personally and is happy to meet with any elected leader. He said he had spoken with Hernandez, who seemed to him primarily focused on local issues and national partisan politics, rather than foreign policy, though he said that she seems to understand the Jewish community’s concerns about antisemitism and is receptive to hearing from the community.

“My record speaks for itself: I have consistently stood against antisemitism, supported the safety and security of Jewish communities, worked in partnership with Jewish colleagues, and defended Israel’s right to exist —  while also maintaining that as an American elected official, I have both the right and the responsibility to question the policies of any foreign government and to speak out when innocent civilians are suffering,” Wahab said in a statement to JI.

Though she did not support the two bills mentioned by Klein, she has supported other priority legislation for the Jewish community in the state Senate. She also introduced a resolution in 2025 with Jewish state Sen. Scott Weiner calling for the release of hostages and an end to the humanitarian crisis in Gaza.

Another Jewish leader said Hernandez had attended various Jewish community events and generally has good relationships with the community but isn’t particularly involved with its issues. The district itself is not home to a sizable Jewish community.

Oleg Ivanov, executive director of StandWithUs Northern California, said, “We’re of course concerned that as a state senator, Aisha Wahhab has called Israel’s defense against the Hamas attack [on Oct. 7, 2023,] genocide. So we’re concerned that she is spreading this debunked blood libel about Israel, which we feel all that does is it makes Jews and Israelis here in her district unsafe. As we’ve seen in many cases, this kind of irresponsible language has led to direct violence against Jews and Israelis.”

Ivanov said he hasn’t had any interaction with Hernandez, but praised her for declining to describe the war in Gaza as a genocide. He also criticized Wahab’s opposition to antisemitism-related legislation.

But another Jewish leader in the district, who requested anonymity to speak candidly, said that the strong consensus among political observers in the area is that Wahab “pretty much [has] this in the bag, and that Hernandez is a lazy campaigner.” Other moderate groups that had looked at the district “just have not been impressed with Hernandez,” the leader continued.

The Jewish community, the leader said, doesn’t want Wahab to win, but that might already be a foregone conclusion.

“I’m not in principle against AIPAC getting involved in these kinds of primaries like some other people [are], but based on all the local knowledge that we’re hearing from politicos, it’s not a good use of time or money,” the leader said. “People are kind of scratching their heads — not because there aren’t concerns about Wahab … but let’s play where we can win.”

The leader said they’re also concerned that AIPAC’s involvement risks pushing Wahab further to left, describing Wahab currently as a less-than-ideal choice but necessarily aligned with the Squad — i.e., not opposed to Israel’s existence or outright at odds with the Jewish community.

The leader noted Wahab abstained on, rather than outright opposed, AB 715, one of the antisemitism bills. They also noted that Wahab’s family are refugees who escaped radical Islam in Afghanistan during the Soviet-Afghan war. Wahab has relationships with some Jewish community groups in the Bay Area, particularly social services organizations that have been involved in Afghan refugee resettlement work.

“I don’t like the idea that the pro-Israel community is jumping into a race they can’t win against the presumptive winner and potentially pushing her into the arms of the worst members of Congress,” the leader said. “I think that people need to play their cards carefully here. There’s shades of gray at play.”