Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP Images
Dave Min, Democratic candidate for California’s 47th Congressional District, speaks with guests during a campaign event at a home in Irvine, California, October 6, 2023.
The premise behind AIPAC and its pro-Israel allies getting involved in Democratic primaries over the past two election cycles was that a new generation of progressive politicians had become too vocal about the Israeli government’s subjugation of the Palestinians. Therefore, according to these groups, money needed to come off the sidelines to prevent more critics from joining this faction in Washington, and eventually to replace the dissidents with loyal Israel supporters.
So then why is AIPAC’s first investment in the 2024 primary cycle targeting a former Chuck Schumer aide who supports continued funding of Israel without conditions, and who explicitly stated in a questionnaire that he did not “anticipate being on the front lines of any foreign policy issues”?
The surprise pro-Israel intervention in California’s 47th Congressional District has broader implications for anyone working in Democratic primary politics. Not only does AIPAC have the desire and financial resources to punish even the tiniest dissent from uncritical support for Israel, it is also determined to influence selections in swing seats, in ways that benefit Republicans in the general election and appear to be funded by Republican donors. That’s a problem for groups whose endorsements happen to align with AIPAC’s, and in particular the pro-women, pro-choice group EMILYs List.
Dave Min, the target of AIPAC’s first attack, is a state senator seeking to replace Rep. Katie Porter (D), who is running for U.S. Senate, in this district that encompasses Irvine, Huntington Beach, and other parts of Orange County. In the state legislature, he has been a reliable Democratic vote on a host of issues, and he earned Porter’s endorsement in the race, as well as the state party’s endorsement, which gets him on slate mailers.
This will be a toss-up seat in November. Republican former assemblymember Scott Baugh came within 3.4 points of defeating Porter in 2022, despite being massively outspent. With the tight contest for the House nationally, CA-47 will go a long way to determining which party controls Congress.
Min’s opponent on the Democratic side is attorney and activist Joanna Weiss, who has gone negative early and often in an increasingly nasty race. In particular, Weiss has focused on Min’s arrest on DUI charges last May in Sacramento, while he was driving a state-owned vehicle. Body cam video from the arrest shows Min asking, “There’s no way to not release this?” Min has expressed contrition about the incident, which occurred after a series of lobbyist receptions in the state capital. Min struck back at Weiss, who is self-funding part of her campaign, with an ad about how her husband represented the Catholic Diocese of Orange County in multiple priest sex abuse scandals, making the connection that this is where her money is coming from.
Weiss, who founded an activist group called Women for American Values and Ethics (WAVE), has been one of EMILYs List’s top priorities so far this year. The group has put $1 million into the race for mostly positive ads.
That was the contentious but relatively normal dynamic of the race until the pro-Israel groups got involved. The United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s independent expenditure committee, has booked more than $600,000 in ads against Min, which say nothing about his Israel policy but again focus on the DUI. Those ads ran last week and will run this week as well; if extended until the March 5th primary, which many in the district expect, it would be a $1 million-plus buy.
UDP is also sending anti-Min direct mail in the race. Meanwhile, Democratic Majority for Israel PAC, another major group that is often aligned with AIPAC’s PAC, endorsed Weiss late last week, and Jewish Insider reported that DMFI would invest in the race. Weiss received an endorsement from a smaller group called Pro-Israel America previously.
WHAT IS THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN Min and Weiss on Israel? You have to really squint to find it. Both support Israel and have condemned Hamas’s attacks on October 7. Both support additional funding for Israeli military aid. Both have been endorsed by recognizable pro-Israel lawmakers; Min has picked up support from the bulk of the California Legislative Jewish Caucus, whose members have reinforced that support in the wake of the AIPAC attacks. Neither candidate has called for a cease-fire.
If anything, Weiss has been much more insistent about her pro-Israel stance, and eager to take a prominent role on Israel’s behalf. Min’s campaign, which held numerous talks with AIPAC, has pointed out that Min opposes settlement expansion in the West Bank and has criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for security failures leading up to October 7. AIPAC also appears to have taken issue with Min’s prior endorsement by J Street, the Washington-based group that supports a two-state solution in the Middle East. Min got the J Street endorsement in 2018, when he ran against Porter for Congress; J Street has not endorsed this cycle.
DMFI reportedly took issue with a position paper Min sent to them, which had “vague” wording about a ten-year commitment for U.S. aid to Israel. But in other questionnaires, Min said directly that he supported the commitment fully, and would oppose putting conditions on the aid.
This is fairly minuscule evidence upon which to launch a barrage of attack ads. Virtually everyone involved in the race was taken by surprise, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the House’s campaign arm.
This prospect of internal sabotage has ripple effects on other groups that work in Democratic primaries.
But millions of dollars in ads will be difficult for Min to rebut; he had $835,000 on hand at the end of last year, a little less than Weiss even without the outside spending. There are certainly reasons to believe, as Weiss partisans claim, that someone without a recent DUI is more electable for the seat. But Weiss is a first-time candidate, compared to someone like Min, who has won a state Senate race in a district that has about an 85 percent overlap with the congressional district, and who is an Asian American in a district with a large AAPI population.
It’s possible that Weiss’s foursquare support for Israel tipped the scales. That would mean that AIPAC and its allies have enough money—$100 million, by one count—to invest in races with even minor differences between candidates.
But all of this infighting is really a boost to Baugh, who has expressed unilateral support for Israel. And that’s where the matter of AIPAC’s funding comes into play.
As first reported by Prospect alum Alex Sammon in Slate, according to Federal Election Commission disclosures, much of United Democracy Project’s $44.2 million in funding has come from Republican donors. Jan Koum, WhatsApp co-founder and Nikki Haley super PAC supporter, gave $5 million to UDP; Jonathan Jacobson, who has contributed to the Republican Senate campaign arm, gave UDP $2.5 million; David Zalik, a donor to Republican candidates in Georgia in the past, gave UDP $2 million. Other Republican supporters of UDP include Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus ($1 million), hedge fund manager Paul Singer ($1 million), New England Patriots owner Bob Kraft ($500,000), Michael Leffell ($500,000), and Edward Levy Jr. ($350,000). That’s about 29 percent of all UDP funding in this cycle coming from Republican donors.
So you have a curious investment in a Democratic primary between two candidates who aren’t all that different on Israel, in a swing seat where the Republican will be helped by a damaged general-election opponent. It’s not unreasonable to suggest that this is the whole point: Republican donors are meddling in Democratic primaries to hurt Democratic candidates so Republicans have an easier path to hold the House in November.
That’s certainly the view of Dave Min’s campaign. “This isn’t about Israel policy,” said Dan Driscoll, Min’s campaign manager. “This is about a right-wing agenda and MAGA donors targeting the strongest Democrat in the race, while they prop up an unproven, out-of-district candidate who is facing intense scrutiny over her personal finances.”
Asked by the Prospect about these matters, a spokesperson for UDP replied: “UDP is an organization dedicated to electing Democrats, Republicans and Independents who share our belief that America’s partnership with our democratic ally Israel benefits both countries. While UDP makes its decisions based only on the issues important to us, supporters of Dave Min will have a hard time arguing that he would be the stronger candidate given his arrest for drunk driving and request that the police not release it.”
Joanna Weiss’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.
This prospect of internal sabotage has ripple effects on other groups that work in Democratic primaries. One of them is EMILYs List. In addition to aligning with AIPAC and its allies in the Min/Weiss race, EMILYs List is also boosting Janelle Bynum in a House primary in Oregon against Jamie McLeod-Skinner, who lost by two points to Rep. Lori Chavez DeRemer (R-OR) in 2022 and outpolled the Democratic governor in the district. DMFI PAC just endorsed Bynum as well.
EMILYs List and AIPAC-affiliated groups aren’t always on the same side. Two years ago, EMILYs List endorsed Jessica Cisneros against Rep. Henry Cuellar, and Delia Ramirez in an open-seat race in Illinois that she won; pro-Israel groups opposed Cisneros and Ramirez in those races.
But so far in 2024, there’s a fair bit of alignment, and EMILYs List has to reckon with indirectly assisting what could be a Republican sabotage campaign. In a statement, deputy director for campaign communications Danni Wang told the Prospect, “EMILYs List is committed to supporting Democratic, pro-choice women. As Republican anti-choice extremists threaten to pass a national abortion ban, we are focused on electing a pro-choice majority and growing diverse representation in Congress.”
Democrats had to deal with AIPAC’s overwhelming force in elections in 2022, and you have to conclude that it worked to mute Democratic opposition to Israel’s war in Gaza. It is likely that Democratic members of Congress would be much more vocal about the war if they didn’t know that large amounts of money would be put toward their defeat if they spoke up. Now, that money cannon is growing even larger, threatening to upset the entire Democratic campaign apparatus. We’ll see if Dave Min can survive the first warning shot of this new battle in Orange County.
