Pro-Israel groups dump millions into Democrat primaries against progressives

Josh Hypes, DCNF

The top-spending political action committee in the primary election cycle is targeting anti-Israel progressive Democrats while boosting their opponents, according to Politico.

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), have targeted nine safe-seat Democratic congressional primaries to boost pro-Israel Democrats to victory, according to OpenSecrets.

UDP has deployed more than $22 million in races in Ohio, Michigan, Maryland, North Carolina, Texas and California, according to OpenSecrets. UDP and AIPAC have helped six preferred candidates move past the primary while only experiencing one loss this election cycle, Politico reported.

One of the most contentious battlegrounds is taking place in the Democratic suburbs of Detroit due to redistricting, pitting two incumbents against one another, according to Politico. Rep. Haley Stevens, a former Obama administration official, faces Rep. Andy Levin, scion of a prominent and politically active Jewish family.

Levin is the author of a bill that would have made the two-state solution the official U.S. policy toward Israel and Palestine, according to Politico.

The United Democracy Project has poured more than $3 million into the Michigan district, flooding the airwaves with ads propping up Stevens, OpenSecrets showed. Levin accused AIPAC, in an interview with Politico, of playing a “politics of domination” where the organization uses its funding “to control or to prevent open space to have a rational dialogue about Israel and Palestine.”

Most recently, AIPAC deployed more than $4 million to defeat former Maryland Democratic Rep. Donna Edwards’s primary bid. Edwards scathingly criticized the group on Twitter as “Republican donors” who “have no place in Democratic primaries.”

We’re running a real grassroots campaign— and if you think Republican donors have no place in Democratic primaries chip in a few dollars to help us cross the finish line! https://t.co/TxQruTcC4e

— Donna F. Edwards (@DonnaFEdwards) July 14, 2022

Conservative hedge fund manager Paul Singer and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus are among AIPAC’s top donors, according to Politico. More liberal pro-Israel groups like J Street have pushed this line of attack in their defense of Levin in Michigan.

J Street ran ads in the Detroit metro area attacking Stevens for taking “hundreds of thousands of dollars from a group that’s supporting Republicans who voted to overturn the 2020 election,” the ad’s narrator states over images of protesters storming the Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021.

Stevens also supports a two-state solution in Israel and Palestine, according to her campaign website. However, unlike Levin, she does not support defunding U.S. aid to Israel’s weapons systems.

In addition to Stevens, UDP supported Democratic candidates like Michigan State Sen. Adam Hollier and North Carolina State Sens. Valerie Foushee and Don Davis, according to Open Secrets.

AIPAC, UDP, Levin and Stevens did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.

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