Unprecedented Pro-Israel PAC Funding Floods 2024 Elections
Jack McGrath
Posted On October 30,
2024
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. The
individual sources of dark money spending are undisclosed, and their total sums
are nearly impossible to quantify accurately.
The following pages list the donations made to congressional
candidates by the pro-Israel lobby and its stealth PACs during the 2023-2024
election cycle and throughout their careers. Candidates are required to report
donations to the FEC, which released these figures on Sept. 22, 2024. The FEC
updates its reports once a month and finalizes its numbers after the election.
The website OpenSecrets compiles those FEC reports. Visit <www.opensecrets.org> for the latest figures.
Jack McGrath is an assistant bookstore director and
senior staff writer for the Washington
Report on Middle East Affairs.
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