Projected winner of California special election Aisha Wahab survives AIPAC onslaught

On Thursday, California State Senator Aisha Wahab became the projected winner of a California special election for US Congress, making her one of the latest progressives to win despite being far outspent by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

The race for California’s congressional District 14 to serve the remaining five months of a vacated seat was too close to call on election night Tuesday. This was after AIPAC injected an estimated $5 million in support of the campaign of Wahab’s opponent, Melissa Hernandez in the final weeks of the race.

“The amount of money was obscene and grotesque,” Wahab told local media on Thursday. “I knew that it was going to be close, but obviously I’m not the biggest fan about how close it was, but at the same time I knew we’d get more and more voters that saw through it.”

On Thursday, progressives celebrated another win in what has been something of a left-wing wave of in the 2026 Democratic primaries. With 95 percent of the vote counted, Wahab was projected to win with 53.1 percent of the vote on Thursday. For most of her campaign, however, she had been leading by around 20 points prior to the involvement of AIPAC-linked PACs.

“AIPAC has bit the dust,” Mirvette Judeh, president of the Arab American Caucus of California, told The New Arab following the election results. “This is a true progressive victory. Now, people are being hit by AIPAC and they’re still surviving.”

Once the election is certified, Wahab will be the first Afghan American to serve in Congress. She will be representing a district with a decades-long history of Afghan immigration.

Her win is considered significant, not only for immigrant communities, Muslims and progressives, but also for women. She will be replacing Eric Swalwell, who resigned in disgrace in April following multiple allegations of sexual misconduct.

"This is a new chapter in politics–or a continuation of this new chapter," said Judeh. "We're no longer having these mediocre people."

"We should never forget this day. Her win is historic on many levels," she added.

Wahab's win is one of many key progressive victories in the 2026 Democratic primaries. This week as well, Democratic Socialist Angie Nixon defeated the establishment candidate in the Democratic primary for US Senate in Florida. Two weeks earlier, progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed won the Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, defeating a sitting congressmember backed by the party establishment.

Wahab’s campaign for District 14 does not end this week. She will again compete against Hernandez in November for a fourth time when the two will face off with a newly redrawn district that will add around 26,000 more voters from the city of Dublin, where Hernandez previously served as mayor.