Politics
‘It’s pissing people off’: Centrist Democrats are livid with AIPAC after primary fiasco
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee uncorked $2 million to try to sink a mainstream Democrat in a multi-candidate special House election primary in New Jersey — and it’s infuriating mainstream Democrats and some of the pro-Israel’s lobby’s supporters.
“It’s pissing people off,” said Steve Schale, a longtime Democratic strategist and former Obama campaign adviser, who described it as “maddening.”
The organization spent heavily through its super PAC, Unite Democracy Project, to attack former Rep. Tom Malinowski (D-N.J.), a pro-Israel moderate who would not support unconditional aid to Israel. In doing so, it provided an opening to Analilia Mejia, a progressive organizer backed by Bernie Sanders who has said Israel committed genocide in Gaza.
Malinowski, who has not conceded the race, now trails Mejia by around 500 votes, with some outstanding votes left to be counted for the affluent, suburban seat.
AIPAC’s interventions in the New Jersey special election for Democratic Gov. Mikie Sherrill’s House seat was the first test of the group’s muscle ahead of the 2026 primary season, when they are expected to spend millions on Democratic primaries across the country. AIPAC’s super PAC is expected to weigh in on House primaries, starting in Illinois’ April primaries. Democratic candidates and strategists are also bracing for them to potentially wade into contentious Senate primaries in Michigan and Minnesota.
And their first foray of 2026 backfired spectacularly.
Matt Bennett, the co-founder of the center-left think tank Third Way, called their efforts “one of the greatest own-goals in American political history,” and warned that “It hurt everybody in the moderate movement” as they head into a competitive primary season.
Even steadfast allies are frustrated. Rep. Brad Schneider (D-Ill.), a longtime AIPAC supporter, said its moves in the New Jersey primary, held Thursday, “raised eyebrows this morning.”
“There’s a chance that it’s not going to be a New Dem that’s in that seat,” Schneider said, referring to the New Democrat Coalition, the centrist caucus he leads in the House. “As we do the analysis, a lot of factors play into that, but certainly any group spending against a candidate that would’ve been a New Dem and instead electing a far-left candidate … Come on, guys, this is not what we were hoping for here.”
Former Rep. Steve Israel (D-N.Y.), another AIPAC supporter who led House Democrats’ campaign efforts in 2012 and 2014, said he “wasn’t privy to AIPAC’s strategy and I certainly wouldn’t have advised it,” but “they are not the first group to make a bet that didn’t pan out on election day.”
Malinowski said AIPAC’s attacks on him sent a clear message to “other mainstream Democrats.”
“They are now demanding 100 percent fealty,” Malinowski said. “On some level, they may have preferred to elect an anti-Israel progressive versus a mainstream Democrat, who departs from their hard line in a small way.”
A spokesperson for UDP said in a statement shared with Blue Light News: “The outcome in NJ-11 was an anticipated possibility, and our focus remains on who will serve the next full term in Congress.” The spokesperson added that UDP will “be closely monitoring dozens of primary races, including the June NJ-11 primary,” which will be held ahead of the November 2026 general election, “to help ensure pro-Israel candidates are elected to Congress.”
Progressives, meanwhile, took a victory lap. Justice Democrats communications director Usamah Andrabi said AIPAC’s spending in primaries “is becoming a kiss of death” because “of the work our movement has done to expose them.” Mejia told reporters on Friday that she’s “glad that New Jersey 11 voters got to see the terrible tactics so that we could reject it in the future” and denounced AIPAC’s heavy spending.
Much of UDP’s playbook in the New Jersey primary has been deployed by them before — attacking candidates on issues unrelated to Israel. The group hit Malinowski in TV ads for a 2019 vote he took, along with most House Democrats at the time, that, in part, provided funding to Immigration and Customs Enforcement. ICE funding is a particularly hot-button issue, after President Donald Trump’s immigration crackdown in Minnesota led to two fatal shootings of protesters by federal agents.
There are signs that AIPAC is already getting involved in Illinois. Two super PACs, Elect Chicago Women Now and Affordable Chicago Now, are now supporting three Democrats in House races with six-figure TV ad buys — which some of their primary opponents have publicly accused the groups of shell groups.
The super PACs were formed last month, so they have not yet been required to disclose any information yet with the Federal Elections Commission. UDP’s spokesperson did not respond to a request for comment on these super PACs.
“We’re bracing [for AIPAC’s spending], yes, and it is alarming in a cycle where five seats are open, which almost never happens in Illinois,” said a Democratic strategist working on Illinois races, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “AIPAC is actively trying to buy three or possibly four seats.”
The winner of Thursday’s special primary election in New Jersey will face Joe Hathaway, a Republican councilmember from Randolph, N.J., on April 16, to fill the remainder of Sherrill’s term. Then, Democrats will hold another primary on June 2.
Though some centrist Democrats fretted that Mejia’s potential victory could hurt their chances to hold on to the seat, pollster Patrick Murray said a Republican victory is highly unlikely, both in the special general election in April or in November.
“It’s just so anti-Trump now,” he said. “We saw in the 2025 general election that there was more motivation among Democrats than Republicans. And that mood still holds.”
Of the upcoming primary season, where dark money from an array of outside groups is expected to saturate Democratic primaries, Malinowski called it “a significant challenge to the Democratic Party that needs to be addressed.”
“My election was the beta test,” he said.
Madison Fernandez and Matt Friedman contributed reporting.
AUSTIN — Democrats’ vision of a blue Texas is finally here.
James Talarico has been elected a U.S. senator and Gina Hinojosa as governor, the first Democrats to win either office in more than a generation. The four other statewide candidates are leading as ballots continue to be counted. Democrats further down the ballot are leading some red districts, changing the complexion of the state legislature, congressional delegation and courts.
“It’s something that I haven’t seen in decades, that none of us have seen in decades,” said former Texas House Speaker Joe Straus, a moderate Republican.
It’s an outcome that even the most bullish Democrats didn’t dare enunciate in the late days of the election. But as results have poured in Tuesday night, the party is outpacing its expectations across the country’s second most populous state amidst a national romp.
Both Hinojosa’s and Talarico’s victory margins came by running up vote counts in Texas’ deep-blue urban centers and while also leading in the largest Republican-led county in the country, Tarrant County. They reversed Republican gains across the Latino-heavy Rio Grande Valley region, an ancestrally Democratic area that had swung hard to the right in recent years. Democratic Rep. Vicente Gonzalez romped to a near-20 point victory in a seat Republicans drew to favor them during last year’s redrawing of the state’s House map, ousting a top Republican recruit who campaigned alongside Speaker Mike Johnson to begin election day.
It amounts to a set of remarkable results in a state that hasn’t elected a Democrat to the U.S. Senate since 1988 and to the governor’s mansion since 1990. In recent cycles, Democrats have tried and failed to flip the state in presidential and U.S. Senate contests but have been largely uncompetitive for state offices. But Tuesday’s blue wave slammed into Texas particularly hard, as it combined frustrations over the economy, immigration enforcement, data centers and corruption with a collapse of Trump’s 2024 coalition.
“We reminded voters that Republicans have been in charge in Texas for 30 years. That every problem we have, was caused by Republicans,” Michelle Lowe Solis, chair of the Bexar County Democratic Party. “They aren’t going to fix the problems, they caused them.”
As votes continue to be counted, Democrats appear poised to blunt the impact of Republicans’ attempted gerrymander, likely sweeping the Rio Grande Valley congressional seats while holding onto another San Antonio-area district drawn to favor Republicans. In state Supreme Court races, they lead in all four seats up for grabs, potentially turning a 9-0 conservative majority into a 5-4 split. Among the first 36 state house races called by the Associated Press, 34 have gone to Democrats and just two to Republicans.“Voters aren’t dumb,” said Rep. Linda Sanchez (D-Calif.), who chairs the Congressional Hispanic Caucus’ BOLD PAC. “Even though the Republicans have tried to cheat with the series of gerrymanders, that has, I think, only made voters in those areas more willing to participate.”
Talarico’s and Hinojosa’s victories will be felt nationally. Texas Democrats, who have long asked for national money and resources in a state where elections are costly, now have a test case of how to win. And it will bolster their arguments that their state, with 40 electoral votes, should be treated as a presidential battleground.
Ali Bianco and Jonathan Martin contributed reporting.
Just a few hours into election night, Republicans acknowledged what appeared to be a historic midterm defeat — a long-feared “blue wave” that had started washing across the nation.
The extent of the washout became clear soon after polls closed: Republicans lost a South Carolina Senate seat for the first time in nearly 30 years. Democrats nipped on the heels of House incumbents in deep red Florida districts. And the man in charge of the party’s House reelection effort was at grave risk of losing his own seat.
By 10 p.m., Democrats had already flipped three GOP House seats — itself enough to win a majority if Republicans can’t make gains elsewhere — and many in the party feared dozens more could follow as voters registered their dissatisfaction with President Donald Trump.
Voters in Texas, a ruby-red state for a generation, appeared at risk of handing multiple statewide races to Republicans and possible control of the legislature. Joe Straus, a former state House speaker, cast it as a historic rebuke of an unpopular president.
“President Trump hasn’t exactly done any Republicans favors across the country,” he said on a Blue Light News election night broadcast. “They haven’t done themselves favors, frankly, by following so closely along.”
Many of the political professionals charged with getting GOP candidates elected in this environment said the results could be potentially historic in nature.
“We are looking at tsunami territory,” said one national Republican operative who, like others, was granted anonymity to candidly describe the returns.
“This is the worst electoral defeat in my lifetime and likely in history,” said another GOP operative working on battleground races. “Trump said his name and record was on the ballot and people responded — resoundingly.”
At an ill-fated victory party for Senate candidate Michael Whatley in North Carolina, staff were already packing up the room less than two hours after polls closed. Returns showed Democrat Roy Cooper on track to win by as many as 20 points in a race that was supposed to have been tooth-and-nail.
Standing in the room, one North Carolina Republican openly pondered what many others in the party had long avoided saying openly — that it was finally time to think about life after Trump.
“Trump has done some excellent things, and I appreciate that. But it can’t be the party of Trump forever,” said Jonathan Fletcher, a former GOP county chair. “If the Republican Party is going to be serious about winning, we have to be serious about winning people in the middle.”
Nearly every state, district and county shows movement toward Democrats, from counties that Trump won three times to blue strongholds where Democrats are improving their margins. County-level data shows Democrats doing on average more than 5 points better than Kamala Harris did in the 2024 presidential race.
That suggests that districts Trump won by double digits just two years ago are in reach for Democrats.
The losses threatened to pile up even after Republican candidates, committees and super PACs spent massive sums in an effort to retain control of Congress — including more than $380 million from President Donald Trump’s political operation.
“I can’t believe how these House races aren’t close given the amount spent,” a senior Senate GOP operative said. Another senior Senate GOP official called it a “bloodbath.”
Many of the Republicans said the war in Iran, which sent voters’ gas prices soaring, and continued frustration with the economy drove frustration with a party that won on those same issues in 2024.
On top of that some quickly vented about substandard candidates — such as Darline Graham in the South Carolina Senate race and Ken Paxton in the Texas Senate contest.
“Not only were folks upset about the war, inflation and gas prices, but add to that the fact they think he was making them eat a shit sandwich in Darline, and they just had enough,” said Mick Mulvaney, a former Trump White House chief of staff and South Carolina congressman.
Trump said on Truth Social his own absence from the ballot for the drastic Republican underperformance — even after barnstorming the country begging Republicans to “vote like I’m on the ballot.”
“I wasn’t on the Ballot and if I was, we would have won IN A LANDSLIDE!” Trump posted shortly after 10:30 p.m.
Other Republicans were ready to blame Trump’s own decisions.
“Republicans got their asses kicked tonight because of the Iran war — plain and simple. Everything else is just noise and spin,” said a person close to the White House.
Meanwhile, power in Washington was already shifting. The likely next chair of the House Oversight Committee, who has been gearing up for massive probes into the Trump administration, issued a two-word statement Tuesday addressed to administration officials and the “Trump Crime Family.”
“Lawyer up,” Rep. Robert Garcia of California said.
Will Steakin, Erin Doherty, Lauren Fedor, Ashley Ahn and Lisa Kashinsky contributed to this report.
Joe Biden was unceremoniously ushered out of the White House two years ago.
On Tuesday, he got a small measure of revenge.
Prominent Biden administration alumni are winning in a handful of notable races, with Keisha Lance Bottoms — the one-time Atlanta mayor turned Biden’s senior adviser and director of the Office of Public Engagement — leading the pack by flipping Georgia’s governorship.
The victories, his former staffers say, are an important part of rehabilitating his legacy within a Democratic Party that all but banished him in 2024.
“It’s proof that President Biden assembled a talented team of public servants — who the public is calling on now to help turn this country around,” said Ron Klain, Biden’s former chief of staff. “These fantastic men and women will make life more affordable, health care more available, protect our rights, fight corruption, and make our country stronger.”
Biden was not a regular on the trail this year, and most Democrats kept their distance from the former president. But he did weigh in on a handful of primaries, helping put loyal lieutenants in front of voters who still held him in high regard.
While Bottoms was the highest profile victory, there’s a number of Biden alumni also poised to head to Washington. Gabe Amo, who won a 2023 special election in a blue Rhode Island seat, secured his first full term in Congress. And Dan Koh, who won Massachusetts’ 6th District to succeed Rep. Seth Moulton, was Biden’s deputy Cabinet secretary and deputy director of the White House Office of Intergovernmental Affairs.
He leaned into his Biden endorsement throughout the campaign and this week reposted a video of a phone call he and his family had with Joe and Jill Biden on primary night in September.
“Mr. President and Madame first lady, thank you so much for all of your support,” he told them. “It wouldn’t have been possible without both of you. … You changed my life by giving me a job of a lifetime. And you got my back the minute I decided to run.”
Biden’s Cabinet also had a strong night in other governor races. Xavier Becerra, Biden’s secretary of Health and Human Services, had a solid polling lead over Republican Steve Hilton in the race to be California’s next governor going into Tuesday. And, Deb Haaland, Biden’s Interior secretary, was projected to win the New Mexico governor race.
“In his farewell speech, President Biden warned that ‘an oligarchy is taking shape in America of extreme wealth, power, and influence that literally threatens our entire democracy,’” said Andrew Bates, the former president’s longtime spokesperson. “He urged his team and supporters to keep standing up for the values that we all care about, including decency, hard work, and a sense of national community. On the ballot and off, a whole lot of his alumni are fighting to carry on that legacy.”
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