As Abdul El-Sayed wins Michigan primary, is it the end of AIPAC?

There is a fierce struggle within the Democratic Party between powerful competing factions. The first has financial power and represents corporate elites who view their economic privilege as under threat. It also includes the Israel Lobby, whose supporters and donors largely overlap with the corporate faction. The second is the progressive left represented by the Democratic Socialists of America, which represents left-wing populism.

The resonance of the progressive message derives in part from the extremism of Donald Trump and the quiescent response of the moderate Congressional leadership to it. The majority of Americans are disgusted with the wreck of a nation the president has handed us. They are hungry for change; for restoration of human and constitutional rights; for a renewed commitment to democracy.

The oligarchs have money. The socialists have people. It's an age-old struggle between capital and class.

Often it's a pendulum swing: sometimes money wins when it floods the airwaves with smears and attack ads. Other times, the Party's left-wing harnesses the anger or passion of voters in a mass movement for change. The midterm elections are shaping up as one of those "corrections" in reaction to Trump's trashing of American democracy.

El-Sayed victory

Tuesday’s primary elections saw progressive Democratic candidates score major victories. The most important was the Michigan senate race in which Arab-American, Dr Abdul El-Sayed defeated AIPAC’s chosen candidate, Haley Stevens. The Israel Lobby group spent an unprecedented $32 million in attack ads against El-Sayed.

Other stealth PACs funded by corporate interests funnelled the rest into the race. They did have some impact given the close outcome. But it wasn’t enough. Now he will face a MAGA Republican in the November general election. Spending promises to surpass that of the primary.

The conflict between Stevens and El-Sayed was stark. He was endorsed by Bernie Sanders. Though not a DSA member, he espouses many of its policies. As a medical doctor, he supports single-payer federal health insurance, also known as Medicare for All. He calls for an end to military aid to Israel, declares Gaza a genocide, and calls for getting money out of politics. Given the astronomical sums spent to defeat him, this issue resonated with voters.

For the Lobby, he is a four-alarm fire. The AIPAC PAC, United Democracy Project, poured tens of millions into attack ads smearing El-Sayed. Other dark money PACs financed by GOP billionaires poured a similar sum into the race. They outspent El-Sayed 10 to 1. 

A respected political forecasting website gives El-Sayed a 62% chance of beating the Republican nominee in the November general election. This is one of those races where the passion and commitment of voters appears to be holding off the power of the monied class.

Indeed, this primary was a watershed moment in the battle between the left and the Lobby. The latter has gone all in. It had to win, and it failed. This will further discredit the Lobby in the eyes of any candidates who align themselves with pro-Israel policies. Some of its donors may reconsider the strategy AIPAC has adopted altogether.

Unfortunately, that doesn't mean they've given up on promoting Israel. But it does mean they will have to devise new strategies.

The Lobby vs the People

Years ago, Bernie Sanders rode this wave in his two presidential campaigns, which led to the resurgence of DSA. Currently, the Party's left is ascendant, with major wins in Congressional and mayoral races in multiple states. The pro-Palestinian PAC, A New Policy, established by a State Department diplomat who resigned over Biden's refusal to denounce Israel’s genocide, noted that 14 Congressional candidates it supported won their primaries.

DSA's membership has swelled to 120,000 from its early days when it hovered between 10,000-20,000. A recent poll found that one in three Democrats considers themselves a democratic socialist. These are heady days for the democratic left.

Compared to the Republicans, the Party has fewer billionaire oligarchs (with the exceptions being George Soros, JB Pritzker, and Tom Steyer). This has created an opening for Republican billionaires to plough hundreds of millions into Democratic primaries via PACs and dark money.

The Lobby is fighting back with a torrent of campaign cash. Often their funds are funnelled via AIPAC. And, total Lobby spending could reach an unprecedented $200 million during the 2026 election cycle. The goal, of course, is defeating candidates calling Israel's war on Gaza a genocide; and those voting to restrict or eliminate military aid. 

For too long, Democrats have permitted Republican billionaires and AIPAC to sabotage not only the Party, but American democracy. Only in the past few months has AIPAC and Israel itself fallen into such disfavour that a number of former allies have foresworn accepting their donations.

Similarly, Peter Beinart argues that "establishment Jewry has abandoned liberal democracy in the US." AIPAC is a poster child of this phenomenon.

One of the most prominent of the left's earlier victories was the New York primary in which Zohran Mamdani and three other insurgents defeated the Party machine in electrifying victories. They did so despite tens of millions ($21 million on Mamdani's race alone) spent by Wall Street oligarchs to defeat them. It was like a lightning bolt striking both the Party and American domestic politics.

Israel’s prospects plummet in US

There has been a corresponding backlash by the corporate elite in league with the Israel Lobby. They employ Red Scare cries of "communism" and a new charge of anti-Semitism, based on the left's critique of Israeli genocide, apartheid and ethnic cleansing. The Lobby and Party mandarins have adopted a tacit loyalty oath demanding that candidates endorse "the right of Israel to exist as a Jewish state."

Another charge is that slogans like "from the river to the sea" are a call for the eradication of Israel. Similarly, the pro-Israel backlash has attempted to demonise the G-word (genocide) as a blood libel (an ancient anti-Semitic calumny charging Jews with killing Christian babies). 

The emptiness of these charges seems self-evident not only to those on the left, but to most Americans. Yet the Party's right-wing has sought to transform these slogans into a campaign to discredit Mamdani in particular and the left in general. It is a strategy of death by a thousand paper cuts, seeking to accumulate enough momentum to destroy his appeal to the electorate.

The problem with this strategy is that the majority of Americans and even Jews disagree with the Lobby and agree with Mamdani. In fact, 44% of American Jews view him favourably. Which means one thing: the Israel Lobby may have the money, but they don’t have the truth. Jews know the truth and can’t be bought with the money. They see through the claims, which further discredits Zionists and buttresses Mamdani’s support.

DSA has been tarred with the "communist" moniker by no less than Trump himself and pro-Israel "Democrat" Sen. John Fetterman, among others. It's accused of seeking to destroy the American way of life. 

Party centrists like Matthew Yglesias have even blamed the media for the group's rise in popularity, stating that there are "very strong financial incentives throughout the media to tell an unrepresentative group of highly engaged, educated, younger progressives what they want to hear."

Somehow the democratic left has become the issue du jour, which the press promotes to bring eyeballs (and hence ad revenue) to its newscasts. This places the focus on anything but the actual populist policies the progressive wing espouses, which resonate with the American public beset by the gut punch of Trumpism.

Ultimately, Israel faces a downward trend among Americans. There is little prospect it will abandon its genocide and occupations of Lebanon, Syria and Palestine any time soon or ever.

What a CNN pollster called "mammoth" and a "generational change" in plummeting support for Israel means it can likely never recover its former popularity. That will translate into declining Congressional support for tens of billions in weapons, which Israel has employed to kill nearly 100,000 people in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. It will also embolden nations and international bodies like the UN and the International Criminal Court to hold Israel and its leaders accountable for their crimes. 

All this will mark a fateful decline in Israel's power domestically (in the US), regionally and globally. The only good to come out of the genocide is that it will weaken Israel, end its impunity, and bolster the pro-Palestine struggle for national rights.

Richard Silverstein writes the Tikun Olam blog and is a freelance journalist specialising in exposing secrets of the Israeli national security state. He campaigns against opacity and the negative impact of Israeli military censorship.

Follow Richard on X: @richards1052

Have questions or comments? Email us at: editorial-english@newarab.com

Opinions expressed in this article remain those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of The New Arab, its editorial board or staff.