The 119th Congress, Brought to You by Record Spending From the Israel Lobby

Among other things, AIPAC's $45.2 million helped drive out two of the House’s early proponents of a ceasefire in Gaza.

By Kylie Cheung | January 8, 2025 | 2:29pm

Photo: Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images Politics

The 119th Congress, Brought to You by Record Spending From the Israel Lobby

Earlier this week, Congress said goodbye to two key progressive voices: former Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York. Both members lost their highly competitive primary races last summer, after the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and its affiliated super PACs poured about $20 million into the campaigns of their opponents, Wesley Bell and George Latimer, respectively. Bush and Bowman were specifically targeted by AIPAC because they were two of the first voices to call for a ceasefire in Gaza.

But it wasn’t just Bell and Latimer. AIPAC poured record-shattering amounts of money into campaigns for the 119th Congress. According to a new report in Sludge, AIPAC contributed at least $45.2 million members of Congress who won in 2024. During the 2022 cycle, AIPAC gave a total of $13 million in campaign contributions to members of the 118th Congress, per Open Secrets.

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“No single organization has ever contributed as much money to congressional candidates’ campaigns as AIPAC did during the 2023-24 election cycle,” Sludge’s report states. Of the 535 members, 349 House members and senators—or 65% of Congress—received funding from AIPAC. AIPAC’s spending was bipartisan: House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries received at least $933,000, while Speaker Mike Johnson (R) received at least $654,000. Three members—Bell, Latimer, and Sen. Jacky Rosen, all Democrats—received over $1 million this cycle.

The Democratic Party’s continued willingness to accept money from AIPAC—even as it supports the displacement, genocide, and resulting health crises in Gaza—severely undermines Democrats’ stance as the party that supports reproductive justice. In June 2024, Politico reported that half of donors who had given to Democratic candidates via AIPAC at that point in the election cycle had also given to anti-abortion Republicans since 2020. AIPAC endorsed over 200 anti-abortion congressional Republicans this past cycle alone, including the architects of extreme fetal personhood legislation, and all four co-chairs of the Pro-Life Caucus.

Still, ostensibly “pro-choice” Democratic candidates accepted AIPAC’s money. Bell ousted Bush, one of few members of Congress throughout history to have shared a personal abortion story and a leader on the issue who helped champion a bill to repeal the Comstock Act—a 19th century law that the incoming Trump administration may wield to ban the mailing of abortion pills. In July, Bush told Jezebel she saw deep connections between her fight for reproductive justice in the U.S. and her advocacy for Gaza, which has seen a surge in miscarriages and maternal mortality during the genocide.

Bell also took money from people who also donated to Republican Sens. Josh Hawley and Eric Schmitt of Missouri. Thanks to at least $8.5 million from AIPAC, Bell and Bush’s primary was the fifth most expensive in history—and now, Bell is a member of the 119th Congress and Bush is not.

Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for the progressive political action committee Justice Democrats, told Jezebel that “AIPAC’s record spending targeting working class candidates embodies what every American voter is fed up with—political parties that are beholden to the interests of billionaires and corporate Super PACs instead of the needs of everyday people.” Andrabi continued, “But their spending also shows just how scared the billionaire class is… You don’t spend $15 million in a single House primary election if your policies or politicians are popular.”

At the onset of Israel’s war on Gaza in 2023, in the face of strong public support for a ceasefire and growing criticism of Israel’s occupation and brutality against Palestinians, AIPAC pledged to spend $100 million on the 2024 election cycle—it surpassed that massive figure within months, mostly dispersed across different affiliate PACs.

October marked a year of genocide in Gaza. As of this week, Gaza’s health ministry counts about 47,000 people killed by Israeli forces since October 2023, though some researchers estimate the real death count is well over twice this figure. In November, a UNICEF officer who routinely visits war zones told Jezebel that Israel’s war on Gaza is “the most horrific war on children” he’s witnessed yet.

Yet now, we have a new Congress that appears deeply beholden to a PAC that openly advocates for Israel’s genocidal actions—and is willing to spend an unthinkable amount of money against those who don’t fall in line.