Politics

AIPAC faces calls to reassess strategy after split results in Illinois

Published

7 months ago

March 18, 2026

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee saw mixed results in the first major test of its political muscle in the midterms, drawing fresh recriminations from its foes — and some allies — for its interference in four competitive Illinois House primaries.

Two of AIPAC’s supported candidates won their races Tuesday night, with Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller denying former Rep. Jesse Jackson Jr. a comeback in the 2nd District and former Rep. Melissa Bean defeating a slew of progressive challengers in the 8th District.

But the group faced criticism from within the pro-Israel Democratic community and harsh words from its opponents after it failed to secure its preferred outcome in the two races where it spent the most money.

In the 9th District, the group spent $7 million, some of it aimed at attacking Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, whose mother is Israeli, making an enemy of a likely soon-to-be U.S. representative who has been critical of Israel’s actions in Gaza but who had previously been willing to engage with the group. Biss won the crowded primary Tuesday night, after AIPAC pivoted from attacking him to instead concentrate its negative ads on progressive social media influencer and Palestinian American Kat Abughazaleh. And in the 7th District, an AIPAC-affiliated super PAC spent nearly $5 million backing Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, who lost to state Rep. La Shawn Ford.

The split scorecard comes a month after AIPAC angered its own centrist allies by going after another fairly pro-Israel candidate, former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.) — a move that ended up handing the primary to a stronger critic of Israel, progressive Analilia Mejia.

“There was once again a vast amount of money spent and wasted trying to dust up a candidate who, by almost anybody’s reasonable analysis, Israel should be happy to have in Congress supporting a strong U.S.-Israel relationship,” one longtime AIPAC member, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said of the group’s spending against Biss.

AIPAC, the person added, “should take a look at the results in [the 9th District] and New Jersey and reconsider their strategy.”

AIPAC-aligned super PACs spent nearly$22 million in the Illinois primaries, more than one-fifth the total $100 million warchest it has in hand so far for the 2026 midterms, to win two of four open-seat races while losing the one that drove the most national attention.

At his victory party Tuesday night, Biss slammed the group for spending heavily “to buy this seat to support the idea that we can’t accept nuance” on the U.S.-Israel relationship.

“AIPAC found out the hard way — the 9th District is not for sale,” Biss told supporters.

AIPAC pushed back against the notion that the group struggled in Tuesday night’s elections.

“Illinois voters rejected half a dozen anti-Israel candidates across several heavily Democratic open-seat races,” Deryn Sousa, an AIPAC spokesperson, said in a statement Tuesday night. “These results further demonstrate that campaigns defined largely by opposition to AIPAC, our members, and the values we represent continue to fall short on election night.”

The controversial organization, already a foil for Democrats grappling with growing anti-Israel sentiment in their party, is facing fresh animosity and renewed scrutiny over its campaign spending as the U.S. and Israel wage a joint war on Iran that’s further soured Americans on their longtime ally.

Recent polling shows Americans — and Democrats, in particular — shifting further away from Israel. A NBC News poll released this week showed 57 percent of Democrats view Israel negatively, a dramatic shift from when just 35 percent held a negative view of the country after Hamas attacked it on Oct. 7, 2023. A Quinnipiac University survey showed 44 percent of voters think the U.S. is too supportive of Israel — the highest percentage since the pollsters started asking the question in 2017. Among Democrats, 62 percent think America is too supportive of Israel, compared with just 22 percent who think the support is about right and 8 percent who think it’s not supportive enough.

It’s clear the organization is aware of its standing in Democratic primaries — its ads focused on everything but Israel, accusing candidates of not being progressive enough on other issues. But AIPAC’s involvement became a major talking point for those it was attacking, especially in the 9th District.

The Illinois Democratic delegation likely won’t have a significant ideological shift on Israel from the races’ results. Bean will replace Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi, another pro-Israel candidate, who lost his Senate primary contest to Illinois Lt. Gov. Juliana Stratton. Biss’s views on Israel aren’t far from those of outgoing Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who endorsed him and has sharply criticized AIPAC in the past. Rep. Danny Davis has supported Israel but denounced its Gaza intervention; Ford doesn’t appear to have said much publicly on the issue.

The biggest potential change is Miller replacing Rep. Robin Kelly, who has called the war in Gaza a “genocide.” She also didn’t advance through the Illinois Senate primary.

“We consider this a pro-Israel win. We are better off in the Chicago delegation than we were yesterday,” said Patrick Dorton, the spokesperson for the AIPAC super PAC United Democracy Project, pointing to the new incumbents in the Kelly, Schakowsky and Davis seats.

Dorton also argued that if the group’s pop-up super PAC “didn’t go negative with more than a million dollars in spending to defeat Abughazaleh, she may well have beat Biss.”

And AIPAC allies took a more generous read on their group’s performance.

“You win some, you lose some,” said AIPAC ally Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), who backed Fine, Miller and Bean in their races. Schneider added that if a group wins every race they’re involved in, “you probably haven’t pushed the boundaries as far as you can.”

Brian Romick, president of the Democratic Majority for Israel, which often overlaps in its preferred candidates with AIPAC, said Tuesday’s results showed that “Israel wasn’t a determinative factor in these primaries” and “none of the extremist anti-Israel candidates won.”

Opponents of AIPAC crowed that voters had spurned the groups’ hardline tactics, including AIPAC’s use of shell PACs to obscure the source of the outside spending. And they held up Biss’ victory in particular as reassurance for candidates wary AIPAC will wade into their primaries that the group can be defeated. Democratic candidates and strategists are bracing for the group to intervene in a range of upcoming House primaries, as well as the Michigan and Minnesota Senate primaries.

Tuesday’s results “should send a clear message to candidates across the country: you do not have to fear AIPAC’s spending or intimidation,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, a rival organization that spent $350,000 backing Biss and worked to counter AIPAC in other Illinois House races, said in a statement.

Yet AIPAC is poised to remain formidable through the midterms. One pro-Israel Democratic donor adviser, granted anonymity to speak candidly, said even with AIPAC’s misfires, the money is likely to keep pouring in.

“Their donor talking points aren’t going to be, ‘we only got half.’ They’ll say, ‘we took out two of the worst people,’” said the donor adviser of Tuesday’s results. “They know how to sell it, and there’s no shortage of money.”

Shia Kapos contributed to this report.

Politics

Republicans wanted Rubio on the stump. Trump coaxed him there.

Published

7 hours ago

October 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday came as close to the campaign trail as he’s been all year. And even then, he tried to stay just offshore.

Rubio appeared with President Donald Trump in Corpus Christi, Texas, as he rallied alongside an oil tanker carrying Venezuelan crude. The visit helped spotlight a proud White House accomplishment — toppling the Venezuelan dictator Nicolás Maduro and opening the country’s energy supply — in a political battleground state.

The unexpected nature of Rubio’s presence, after the president coaxed him up on stage during the rally, is likely enough to shield the nation’s top diplomat from allegations that he is interfering in the midterm campaign. The former Florida senator has kept a careful distance from partisan politics, even as colleagues like Attorney General Todd Blanche have defied longstanding norms against some administration officials engaging in electioneering.

“It’s an honor to work for the greatest country in the world, for the greatest president in the history of the United States of America,” Rubio said in brief remarks from the stage. “We love you, Texas.”

A White House official, who like others in this article was granted anonymity to share details of the trip, said that Rubio was backstage during the rally when the president brought him up and that he was only there in his capacity as national security adviser, not to stump ahead of the midterms.

While Rubio, who was not expected to speak at the event, has maintained the tradition of secretaries of State not campaigning, Republicans have been clamoring for the potential 2028 presidential hopeful to do so, seeing him as one of the party’s strongest messengers in a bruising midterm cycle in which they have been desperate for any additional help. One GOP official in a state with a key Senate race, granted anonymity to share private conversations, said that they asked for Rubio to attend a recent political event but were told the secretary of State wasn’t doing political events given his role as chief diplomatic officer.

“Rubio is Trump’s best asset, and they know they are in a dog fight to win in Texas,” said Bill Cortese, a GOP operative who has advised Rep. Elise Stefanik (R-N.Y.). Even if Rubio had not come up on stage, “news of Rubio simply being in the state could potentially boost the GOP’s chances in places that they need it.”

Plus, the secretary of State had another good reason for being there: Rubio was one of the central architects of the administration’s Venezuela strategy and has been a leading figure in managing the country’s political transition and economic arrangements with the U.S. in the wake of Maduro’s ouster.

“It’s his win and his deal,” a Trump administration official added about Rubio and the Venezuela link.

Asked why Rubio accompanied Trump on the Texas trip, the White House referred to one of Trump’s Truth Social posts from August in which he credited Rubio and Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth for negotiating the oil deal with Venezuela.

A State Department spokesperson noted Rubio’s role as national security adviser and said that he “needs time with the president on all kinds of issues. The president will be on the go, so being on the plane with him gives him a chance to talk to him about these items.”

The secretary of State notably skipped the Republican National Committee’s midterm convention in Dallas last month, opting instead to go on a diplomatic trip to Colombia.

Sen. Ted Cruz (R-Texas), center, listens to Trump speak during the Texas rally.

“Marco loves campaigns and politics and he cares desperately about making sure that the House and Senate remain in Republican hands, but I think he also realizes that part of being secretary of State is you don’t engage in overt political activity,” said a person close to Rubio.

In Trump’s first term, Secretary of State Mike Pompeo broke with tradition and made a handful of public appearances that directly or indirectly appeared campaign related, including delivering remarks to the Republican National Convention in 2020.

On a practical level, most secretaries of State travel overseas so much that it’s hard to spare time for campaigns. But Rubio travels more infrequently than his predecessors, in part because of his national security adviser role, which keeps him at the White House.

And Rubio also has a more nontraditional role even as secretary of State, focusing most of his energy on Latin America while the president’s special envoys, including Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner, have handled negotiations to try to end the wars in Iran, Ukraine and Gaza.

Yet the Texas visit — in which Trump sought to link one of his signature foreign policy accomplishments with efforts to reduce prices — came as a relief to the Republicans who believe Rubio is one of the party’s most trusted messengers on the economy and have for months wanted to see him on the trail.

Results from The Blue Light News Poll suggest Rubio can be a useful surrogate on the campaign trail. Across three polls this month, Republican midterm voters consistently selected Rubio as their third-highest choice to hit the campaign trail to help their party, behind Trump and Vice President JD Vance but ahead of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, Health Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and others.

Support for Rubio on the campaign trail is also fairly steady across Trump’s 2024 coalition, with only an 8-point gap between the MAGA base (31%) and non-MAGA Trump voters (23%) saying the secretary of State would help Republicans if he campaigned. Meanwhile, MAGA loyalists were significantly more likely than non-MAGA Trump voters to support Trump and Vance hitting the trail.

Notably, Rubio also generates less negative backlash than other figures. Democrats widely support the impeachment of Trump, Vance, Kennedy and others. But support for impeaching Rubio is lower than the other figures, pushing overall public opinion against impeachment.

“Marco Rubio is Republicans’ most valuable asset in this difficult environment. While he has broad support from the MAGA base, he also appeals to centrist voters and obviously to critical Hispanic voters. It makes sense that they would find a way to activate him,” said former Florida Rep. Carlos Curbelo.

Kimberly Leonard, Alex Gangitano and Seb Wride, chief pollster at PF Global, contributed to this report.

Politics

Trump is still the center of the GOP money universe

Published

20 hours ago

October 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Trump is still the center of the GOP money universe

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Politics

Trump’s fundraising dominance is masking a long-term problem for Republicans

Published

21 hours ago

October 27, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Republicans’ small-dollar donor base has contracted in recent years, leaving the party more dependent on a tiny group of wealthy megadonors for support.

The GOP has had a cash advantage all year thanks to a relatively small group of large donors who have funded super PACs — Elon Musk alone has given nearly half a billion dollars this cycle. But the campaigns themselves have raised relatively little, and there’s one major reason: Other than President Donald Trump, who is still the party’s biggest fundraiser, Republicans still haven’t figured out how to raise money online.

New campaign finance filings reveal just how deep the problem goes. While Republicans have long struggled to grow their grassroots donor base, they’ve moved in the wrong direction in recent years. The number of federal donors giving through WinRed, the major GOP online fundraising platform, is down, with roughly 1.5 million donors so far this cycle compared to 2.2 million at this time in 2022. Meanwhile the number of donors has increased by about one third on ActBlue, from 4.9 million to roughly 6.6 million.

The contrast is stark: A single Democratic candidate, James Talarico in Texas, has had roughly the same number of donors on ActBlue this cycle as all Republican candidates and committees combined had on WinRed, according to a Blue Light News analysis of reports ActBlue and WinRed submitted to the Federal Election Commission.

Republican digital strategists who have been sounding the alarm for years say lagging donations are a product of fatigue, driven by years of urgent messages to the same set of potential donors.

“We beat the absolute hell out of low-dollar donors with texts and emails without expanding our [donor lists], and now no one pays attention,” said Wesley Donehue, a South Carolina-based GOP digital strategist.

Republicans’ online fundraising struggles have put their House and Senate candidates at a particular disadvantage, as candidates — unlike super PACs — face strict contribution limits and need a far larger pool of donors from which to raise money. Poor candidate fundraising has major campaign implications: Democrats’ cash advantage on that front has helped them run nearly as many ads as Republicans despite having less money overall, because candidates and parties get better rates than super PACs on broadcast TV.

Democrats’ grassroots fundraising strength is in part because of how decentralized the party is, with individual campaigns and groups building their own donor lists and fundraising operations. Virtually all of the the top Democratic fundraisers online this year are Senate candidates in competitive races.

But Republicans’ online fundraising, like so much of the party, is still centered around Trump and the official party committees. Unlike on the Democratic side, few individual Republicans have managed to break out.

Republicans’ fundraising troubles have left them more reliant on Trump: The president’s super PAC, MAGA Inc., is among the biggest midterm spenders. The group and its affiliates have now spent $296 million — after facing pressure for much of the cycle from some in the GOP who wished it would have gotten involved sooner.

“Candidates are not investing the time and resources in programs that grow the donor lists and attract their supporters into the ecosystem. Instead, they just barrage previous donors with ongoing requests for donation,” said Eric Wilson, a longtime Republican digital strategist and executive director of the Center for Campaign Innovation. “Credit to the Trump team — they brought new people into the ecosystem, and those people continue to give to them.”

Trump has continued to fundraise since returning to the White House, including through his Never Surrender leadership PAC, which was formed out of his 2024 campaign committee, and two joint fundraising committees from his previous presidential runs.

Of the nearly 1.5 million donors who have given on WinRed this cycle, 324,000 of them — a bit over 22% — have given only to Trump’s groups through the platform but not any other candidate or committee, Blue Light News’s analysis found. Another 39% of WinRed donors have given to both Trump and another Republican.

Overall, that means about 3 in 5 WinRed donors this cycle have given to Trump, when he is neither on the ballot nor able to run for president again. That’s left non-Trump GOP donors in the clear minority just as the party begins to look for a new standard bearer ahead of 2028.

WinRed isn’t the only online GOP fundraising platform, but it is by far the largest and features all of the major party committees along with prominent House and Senate candidates across the map. Its FEC reports include only federal candidates and committees, not those in state-level races or nonprofits that use the platform.

Republicans once saw their online fundraising disadvantages as a matter of technology. ActBlue, which has been around since the 2000s, gave Democrats a major fundraising advantage in the late 2010s, at a time when Republicans had no similar centralized platform. WinRed, which launched in 2019, aimed to counter that. Now strategists say the GOP’s infrastructure has come a long way, but the party’s tactics still lag behind.

Democratic candidates eyeing higher office often maintain large fundraising operations, which they can use to raise money on behalf of candidates in battleground races while also building their own lists. Among the top 20 ActBlue fundraisers this cycle are former Transportation Secretary Pete Buttigieg’s leadership PAC and Sen. Mark Kelly’s (D-Ariz.) campaign committee. Kelly leveraged GOP attacks on his military service earlier this cycle to boost both his own fundraising and help Democrats across the map.

Wilson, the GOP strategist, credited out-of-cycle Democrats for building strong lists that they could use to shore up other candidates. The Republican side, he said, lacks similar coordination.

“Any time a Democrat announces they’re running for reelection, that week every Democrat in the Senate is sending a message to their list raising money for that person,” he said.

About the analysis: Donation totals and number of donors are based on ActBlue and WinRed receipts from all reports this cycle, covering Jan. 1, 2025, through Oct. 14, 2026. Donations that were later refunded are still included. Blue Light News’s analysis identifies unique donors based on matching full names and zip codes.