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AIPAC Is Wasting Its Money on Democrats (And That's a Good Thing)
Let’s do the math on congressional votes this week and AIPAC’s return on investment with Democratic lawmakers.
Apr 17, 2026
The American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its allies have long been considered one of the strongest lobbies in Washington, exercising outsized influence, especially on US policies toward Israel and the Middle East. Recently, its purported muscle has come under question, and votes in Congress the last two days show why, or at least that there is a stark partisan divide.
For all the hundreds of millions of dollars AIPAC and its allies have given to Democrats, they got exactly 14 votes from Democrats in the House of Representatives and Senate over the last two days on four key votes regarding the war on Iran and US weapons transfers to Israel, which computes to a paltry bang for the buck.
The votes were on Iran War Powers Resolutions in both Houses of Congress to oppose the Trump Administration’s deeply unpopular, reckless participation in the war on Iran, and on two resolutions to stop US Caterpillar bulldozers, used to demolish Palestinian homes, and 12,000 half-ton bombs, used by Israel against Palestinians, Iranians and Lebanese. All these votes (three in the Senate, one in the House) failed along closely divided, nearly total partisan lines, so one might consider the votes a win for AIPAC, Netanyahu, and President Trump.
But let’s do the math on these votes and AIPAC’s return on investment with Democratic Members of Congress. AIPAC had a possible total of 355 Congressional votes cast it could have gotten—47 Senate Democrats, times the three Senate votes, for a total of 141 possible votes, on War Powers, bulldozers and bombs, and 214 Democrats in the House on the Iran War Powers Resolution vote, for a grand total of 355 possible Democratic votes. It got 14 votes, for a batting average of 0.039, or just under 4% of possible votes if you prefer. Here are the Democratic members who voted AIPAC’s way, to allow Trump to continue the war, and to ship weapons to Israel:
Senate War Powers Resolution—one vote, Sen. John Fetterman (PA)
House War Powers Resolution—one vote, Rep. Jared Golden (ME)
Senate Joint Resolutions of Disapproval—12 votes (seven on bulldozers, four on bombs)—Sens. Chuck Schumer (NY), Kirsten Gillibrand (NY), Chris Coons (DE), Richard Blumenthal (CT), Fetterman again (twice), Katherine Cortez Masto (NV), Jacky Rosen (NV), Gary Peters (MI), Jack Reed (RI), Mark Warner (VA), Sheldon Whitehouse (RI).
That’s it, 14 votes, cast by eleven senators (with Fetterman three times) and one member of the House. Schumer, in particular, once again showed how out of touch he is as Minority Leader, prompting this video from US Rep. Ro Khanna, a leader of pro-peace forces in Congress, calling on Schumer to step down.
For Americans seeking a more peaceful foreign policy, and to avoid domestic and global economic shocks caused by senseless wars, AIPAC and the “pro-Israel lobby” becoming more or less isolated in one party would be a welcome development.
The poster child for AIPAC’s lousy votes per dollar spent, and he is easy to pick on, is US Rep. Wesley Bell (D-MO). AIPAC and co. bought him his seat (according to the websiteTrack AIPAC, for about $17 million) to oust Cori Bush because she dared to author the House Gaza ceasefire resolution. Yet Bell voted right the correct way on the War Powers Resolution. AIPAC must be very disappointed in him. And, it should be noted, Cori Bush may well get her seat back from Bell in the upcoming midterm election.
None of this is to say AIPAC and the pro-Israel lobby should be considered a toothless paper tiger. Its grip on the Republican Party, which voted almost entirely to continue the war and keep sending weapons to Israel, is vice-like. Only two Republicans, US Rep Thomas Massie and Senator Rand Paul, both from Kentucky, voted in favor of the Iran War Powers Resolutions, and no Republican senator, including Paul, voted to stop the bombs and bulldozers to Israel.
According to Federal Election Commission records, AIPAC and its Super PAC, the United Democracy Project, spent nearly $127 million in the 2023-2024 election cycle, a good chunk of it in Democratic primaries to oust progressives critical of Israel’s genocide in Gaza (former Rep. Jamaal Bowman’s primary in New York was another high profile race, in addition to Cori Bush’s, with AIPAC spending $9 million to defeat Bowman).
Looking ahead to 2028, all of the Democratic Senators who are allegedly thinking of running for president (Cory Booker, Ruben Gallego, Mark Kelly, Chris Murphy and Chris Van Hollen) voted for the Iran War Powers Resolution and the resolutions to prohibit the weapons transfers to Israel. Booker, Gallego, and Kelly had voted against prior Joint Resolutions of Disapproval on weapons transfers to Israel brought forward by Sanders, so it certainly could be asserted they want to get right with the Democratic voter base. And they should. Exit polls showed a key reason Kamala Harris lost in battleground states in 2024 was her refusal to break from former President Biden’s embrace of Israel, either as Vice President or as the Democratic standard bearer.
Unquestioned support for Israel used to be axiomatic in Washington, but it no longer is. AIPAC and its allies may soon find themselves limited to the work of swaying Republicans, as polls indicate even core conservative demographics shifting away from their unwavering support for Israel by double digits. And nobody should expect AIPAC to taper their financial interference over Democrats either. A recent brag video asserts AIPAC is the top donor to African American, Latino and Asian American Members of Congress, mostly Democrats.
For Americans seeking a more peaceful foreign policy, and to avoid domestic and global economic shocks caused by senseless wars, AIPAC and the “pro-Israel lobby” becoming more or less isolated in one party would be a welcome development. The upcoming mid-term elections should tell us a lot about who has more power, AIPAC or the American voters.
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Three Winners at the Latest DNC Meeting: Israel, Ethnic Cleansing, and Genocide
Why did pro-Israel groups voice so much pleasure and praise—not only for the sidelining of pro-human-rights resolutions but also for the process that sidelined them? Because, of course, the sidelining worked.
Apr 16, 2026
In the aftermath of last week’s big meeting of the Democratic National Committee in New Orleans, supporters of the US-Israel alliance have been quite content. “We’re pleased that the DNC Resolutions Committee rejected a set of divisive, anti-Israel resolutions,” the president of Democratic Majority for Israel said. The CEO of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, a former national security advisor to Kamala Harris, expressed gratitude to the DNC’s leadership.
Why did pro-Israel groups voice so much pleasure and praise—not only for the sidelining of pro-human-rights resolutions but also for the process that sidelined them? The answer has to do with the DNC’s mechanism that thwarted changes in positions on Israel. A panel named the Middle East Working Group gummed up all efforts to align the DNC with the views of most Democratic voters, even while supposedly hard at work.
Last Friday, the transparent thinness of the pretense caused Politico to headline an article this way: “Inside the DNC’s Middle East (Not) Working Group.” But the not-working group had been functioning quite well—as a charade for delay and obfuscation.
The day before the derisive headline appeared, the DNC Resolutions Committee dispensed with a resolution about events in Gaza and the West Bank. Its provisions included a declaration that the DNC “supports pausing or conditioning US weapons transfers to any military units credibly implicated in violations of international humanitarian law or obstruction of humanitarian assistance.”
Given the crystal-clear polling, the failure of the Democratic Party leadership to oppose military aid to Israel threatens to seriously damage the turnout needed to defeat Republicans at election time.
That resolution critical of Israel went nowhere, which is to say it went to the so-called working group, also known as a “task force.”
Assisting the diversion as chair of the Resolutions Committee was political strategist Ron Harris, described in his home state of Minnesota as a “longtime Democratic Party insider.” He made false claims during the meeting: “I know that the task force has met once a month since it was created…. I have the confidence that work is happening…. These are people working really really hard over a very thorny issue…. They are doing their work…. They’re hearing from experts and all sorts of things.”
The falsehood that the task force had met “once a month,” when actually it had scarcely met, was enough reason for me to contact Harris and ask where he’d gotten that (mis)information. He replied that it was “according to the DNC staffer coordinating the process.”
The basic problem with the working group is not only that it hasn’t done much of anything in the nearly eight months since DNC Chair Ken Martin announced it with great fanfare. The underlying hoax is that it was set up not to reflect the views of registered Democrats nationwide.
Polling is clear. Three-quarters of Democrats agree that “Israel is committing genocide,” and a large majority are more sympathetic to Palestinians than to Israelis by a 4-to-1 margin. But only a minority of the Middle East Working Group’s eight members has a record of supporting Palestinian rights, while several are firm supporters of Israel. The oil-and-water mix seems destined for stalemate or mere platitudes. But stalemate and platitudes appear to be just fine from here to the horizon for DNC leadership.
Such stalling mechanisms and scant real representation are as old as the political hills. In this case, an unfortunate boost has come from James Zogby, who for decades bravely worked inside the Democratic Party and elsewhere to advocate for the human rights of Palestinians, in sharp contrast to US foreign policy.
As the most prominent person in the Middle East Working Group, Zogby has hailed it as an important step forward. Aligning himself with Martin’s approach from the outset, he said that the new chair’s move to set it up was “politically thoughtful.”
Zogby can remember when, in the 1980s, party leaders did not want to hear the “p-word”—Palestinians. He has portrayed the current sparse intra-party discussion related to Israel as major progress. “Don’t count me among those who left New Orleans complaining of defeat,” Zogby wrote in an April 14 piece for The Nation.
After that article appeared, I spoke with Zogby, and he summarized his approach this way: “I have a tendency to feel like sometimes there are little victories, and I latch onto them. Moving to catch up to where Democrats are.”
Compare that approach to this assessment days ago from Mike Merryman-Lotze, the American Friends Service Committee’s director of Just Peace Global Policy: “The failure of the DNC to take even minimal action in the face of ethnic cleansing and genocide is shameful.”
When my RootsAction colleague India Walton loudly interrupted the DNC’s business as usual during its general session a week ago, she was challenging a political culture of conformity that has ongoing deadly consequences. The context involves a simple and crucial choice—between excessive patience or urgency that’s grounded in life-and-death human realities. Those realities exist very far away from the transactional atmosphere of entrenched political institutions.
All this matters for at least two profound reasons: One is that, on the merits, silent or euphemistic complicity with Israel’s methodical policies of ethnic cleansing and genocide is abhorrent.
And given the crystal-clear polling, the failure of the Democratic Party leadership to oppose military aid to Israel threatens to seriously damage the turnout needed to defeat Republicans at election time (as polls have shown was the case with Kamala Harris’s 2024 campaign for president). “Eight-in-10 Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents currently have an unfavorable view of Israel, up from 69 percent last year and 53 percent in 2022,” the Pew Research Center reported last week.
In these exceedingly dystopian times, when realism is more important than ever, it’s a grave mistake to let rose-colored glasses distort vision and substitute undue patience for vital urgency.
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New Poll Shows Michigan Senate Primary in Dead Heat as Voters Sour on Pro-Israel Lobby
Abdul El-Sayed has been attacked by a centrist think tank for campaigning with anti-Israel commentator Hasan Piker. He faces Haley Stevens and Mallory McMorrow, who both have ties to the pro-Israel lobby.
Apr 15, 2026
Weeks into a controversy egged on by the centrist think tank Third Way regarding Democratic US Senate candidate Dr. Abdul El-Sayed's decision to campaign with an outspoken anti-Israel commentator, a new poll out Wednesday revealed that despite the best efforts of the explicitly anti-left group and El-Sayed's opponents, the three candidates are in a dead heat with four months to go until Michigan's primary.
The Data for Progress poll, conducted on behalf of Zeteo News and Drop Site News, found that US Rep. Haley Stevens (D-Mich.) was in the lead with 23%, but state Sen. Mallory McMorrow (D-8) and El-Sayed were not far behind, with 22% each. A third of voters were undecided, potentially leaving many open to learning more about the three candidates ahead of the August 4 primary.
With Israel and Palestine already a central theme in the primary due the uproar over El-Sayed's decision to campaign with Twitch streamer and commentator Hasan Piker, voters were asked about their views on Piker as well as Stevens' and McMorrow's ties to the pro-Israel lobby, and signaled that the latter two candidates may have more to explain than El-Sayed.
"Michigan primary voters appear significantly more concerned about the influence of [the American Israel Public Affairs Committee], America’s top pro-Israel lobby," wrote Andrew Perez at Zeteo. "Sixty-four percent said they are less likely to support a Senate candidate who receives donations from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, while 10% said they are more likely."
Stevens received $340,000 in direct campaign contributions from AIPAC's political action committee last year before she launched her Senate campaign, and she taped a promotional video for the powerful group last month.
McMorrow has positioned herself as a middle ground between Stevens and El-Sayed, a vehement supporter of Palestinian rights, and has spoken out against Israel's US-backed assault on Gaza. The war, which has killed more than 72,000 Palestinians, has been called a genocide by leading human rights groups and Holocaust scholars, but McMorrow has not used that word to describe the attacks and has complained that those who urge politicians to do so are subjecting them to a "purity test."
McMorrow reportedly drafted a position paper for AIPAC and attended an invite-only event hosted by the group last year, featuring a columnist who publicly questioned whether Israel was imposing a starvation policy in Gaza.
Michigan primary voters' views on AIPAC mirror those of the larger electorate, according to one poll from last October by Upswing Strategies, which found that nearly half of voters in competitive districts said they "could never support" a candidate funded by AIPAC or the pro-Israel lobby.
The Data for Progress poll also found that 62% of voters agreed with the statement, "If a candidate is not willing to stand up to AIPAC, I am less likely to trust them to stand up for Michiganders on other issues."
The poll was taken between April 2-8, with 515 people surveyed around the time that El-Sayed was appearing with Piker at rallies at the University of Michigan and Michigan State University.
Stevens and McMorrow both took aim at El-Sayed for associating with Piker, who once said the US "deserved" the September 11 attacks—a remark he later apologized for—and has said the Hamas-led October 7, 2023 attack was a "direct consequence" of US and Israeli actions. Stevens condemned El-Sayed for "choosing to campaign with someone who has a history of antisemitic rhetoric," while McMorrow compared Piker to far-right, white nationalist streamer Nick Fuentes. Piker and El-Sayed have spoken out against antisemitism and emphasized the difference between opposition to the Israeli government and bias against Jewish people.
Despite the focus on Piker in recent weeks, the poll found that the vast majority of Michigan primary voters didn't know enough about him to have an opinion about his involvement in El-Sayed's rallies. Thirteen percent of respondents had a favorable view of him while 7% viewed him negatively.
Data for Progress gave respondents some context about Piker, highlighting his past remarks and noting he's been accused of antisemitism as well as mentioning El-Sayed's view that "criticism of Israel should not be confused with antisemitism." With the background information, 40% of respondents said they approved of El-Sayed campaigning with Piker, 30% said they disapproved, and 30% said they weren't sure.
Previous polls have found larger gaps between the three candidates; a poll by Upswing Research found in early March that 27% of voters backed Stevens, 25% supported McMorrow, and 23% supported El-Sayed.
While Third Way has cast the primary election as a referendum on a popular livestreamer in recent weeks, Data for Progress executive director Ryan O'Donnell said the poll offered clarity on the other issues that matter to Michigan voters, including expanding Medicare to the entire US population and abolishing US Immigration and Customs Enforcement—both proposals El-Sayed strongly supports.
The Data for Progress poll was released as progressive organization Our Revolution announced its endorsement of El-Sayed.
"He is running on a bold vision beyond universal healthcare, from taking on corporate greed to ending big money in politics to advancing a more just and humane future for all," said Our Revolution. "This is a people-powered campaign—and a chance to build a government that truly works for working families."
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