Washington Report on Middle East Affairs, November/December 2024, pp. 28-36
Election Watch
By Jack McGrath
Although the daylight between the presidential candidates on Middle East policy is minimal, U.S. support for Israel is gradually becoming a subject of debate in U.S. politics. The Overton window has begun to shift within the Democratic Party, even as its candidates receive tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions from pro-Israel Political Action Committees (PACs) and affiliated donors.
This election cycle saw unprecedented spending by the Israel lobby, which donated more to House and Senate candidates than in the last two elections combined: $44,656,374 in 2023-2024, compared to $17,175,455 in 2021-2022 and $12,661,440 in 2019-2020. Since April, the lobby has spent over $7.5 million to bolster its favored candidates in Congress.
In a perplexing twist, many candidates in both parties reported pro-Israel contributions in September that amount to less than those disclosed in April’s Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings (when the Washington Report last published donation records). Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) reported $671,578 for the 2023-2024 cycle in April but only $440,009 in September, Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY) dropped from $1,229,070 to $932,627 and Rep. Lucy McBath (D-GA) fell from $271,663 to $13,500. There is no obvious explanation for these reductions. While candidates can return contributions without depositing them, it is unclear why Cruz would refund donations during a competitive race against Democratic candidate Colin Allred (who has received $164,654 from pro-Israel donors in this cycle). The Washington Report will seek answers from the campaigns about these discrepancies.
On the other hand, many candidates in both parties have seen drastic boosts in financial contributions since April. Between April and September, pro-Israel donations to the campaign of Sen. Tammy Baldwin (D-WI) increased from $7,800 to $109,034, candidate Jack Brian (R-GA) from $1,002 to $163,814, Rep. Ro Khanna (D-CA) from $11,850 to $117,100, candidate Sarah Elfreth (D-MD) from $173,970 to $610,729, candidate George Latimer (D-NY) from $1,633,912 to $2,524,866 and candidate Wesley Bell (D-MO) from $827,094 to $2,609,157.
“Dark money” from nonprofits, which are not obligated to report their donors and have no spending limits, will also influence this election by spending exorbitantly on ads for or against candidates. Viewers don’t know the source of these ads, which rarely mention Israel. For example, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent a reported $15 million to bolster George Latimer in his primary against incumbent Rep. Jamaal Bowman, but only $1.6 million was listed as campaign contributions. By definition, the individual sources of dark money spending are undisclosed, and their total sums are nearly impossible to quantify accurately. …
Jack McGrath is assistant bookstore director and senior staff writer for the Washington Report on Middle East Affairs.
https://www.wrmea.org/congress-u.s.-aid-to-israel/unprecedented-pro-israel-pac-funding-floods-2024-elections.html
