A California House race is AIPAC’s first big target. Nobody is quite sure why.

The Scene

IRVINE, Ca. — Progressive Democrats are bracing for tens of millions of dollars in campaign ads from pro-Israel groups to rain down on them in this year’s primaries. They’re a little surprised about where it started — a stretch of Orange County where neither Democratic candidate is calling for a Gaza ceasefire.

In California’s 47th congressional district, which Rep. Katie Porter is leaving to run for the U.S. Senate, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s campaign PAC has gone all-in to beat state Sen. Dave Min in Tuesday’s primary. As of Thursday, according to the United Democracy PAC’s FEC filings, it’s spent $4.6 million to pummel Min, the vast majority of its ads and mailers focusing on his May 2023 arrest for driving under the influence.

“If you didn’t know, I got a DUI last year,” the California state senator told Democrats who came to meet him at a senior center here, acknowledging how often the worst moment of his career was being replayed on TV. He’d worked for the SEC, for Chuck Schumer, as a law professor, and as a state legislator, and one mistake had nearly wrecked his life. At a visit with union carpenters, he was more direct: “I fucked up.”

The UDP intervention in the race has benefited Democrat Joanna Weiss, an attorney and first-time candidate who’d founded an Orange County women’s campaign group, and is also getting help from Emily’s List. In an interview, she didn’t draw distinctions between herself and Min on Israel.

Instead, she emphasized her outsider appeal, her ability to talk to female voters about reproductive rights, and the fact that she did not have an embarrassing moment that likely Republican nominee Scott Baugh can exploit.

“It’s a very significant factor,” Weiss said of the DUI. “There are lots of Democrats who believe that that’s too egregious a lapse of judgment to vote for someone.”

The spending surge from both outside groups has created an unexpectedly pricey and bitter race, in a seat that Democrats must hold if they hope to flip back the House of Representatives. (Joe Biden carried it by 11 points.) In California, all candidates compete in a primary, and the top two finishers compete again in November.

“Five weeks ago, I would have told you we’re cruising into the top two,” Min said in an interview. “Maybe we’ll still comfortably win. The polling looks good. You’ve got a candidate that is, on paper, far superior to the other candidate. On the other hand, when you’ve got a candidate who’s being outspent five to one, usually the money wins.”

Most of the Democrats seen as targets for AIPAC, or the often-aligned Democratic Majority for Israel, had taken loud and early stances against Israel’s war plan. Min, like the Biden administration, had criticized Israel for expanding settlements in the West Bank.

“Maybe AIPAC wants a rubber stamp. I’m not going to be a rubber stamp,” Min said in Irvine. Asked what he’d tell AIPAC after the election, if he wins it: “Why the hell did you come in against me? We’re trying to understand why.”

David’s view

For the next six months, until Missouri Rep. Cori Bush and Minnesota Rep. Ihan Omar face their primary challengers, the anti-war movement and pro-Israel PACs will be fighting hand-to-hand.

That starts on Tuesday, from Orange County to the Houston suburbs — where Rep. Lizzie Fletcher is heavily favored in a race against Pervez Agwan, a progressive who ran on his support for a ceasefire. Their race grew bitter, too, after some voters received texts highlighting Fletcher’s AIPAC endorsement, and the congresswoman accused the challenger of sending them.

“AIPAC not only attempts but succeeds in disrupting American democracy every single day,” Agwan said, as he denied responsibility for the texts.

The differences between Min and Weiss on Israel were far smaller, and neither candidate had emphasized them in candidate forums. (UDP did not respond to a question about its spending.) Min speculated that he’d lost AIPAC by accepting an endorsement from J Street; according to Jewish Insider’s Matthew Kessel, Min’s position paper on Israel departed from what AIPAC and allies wanted to hear from candidates by being “too vague” on a narrow question about aid conditions.

Min had criticized Israel’s current government in two ways, while not condemning how it was conducting the war with Hamas. He’d opposed new settlements in the West Bank, a policy the Biden administration returned to on Friday and that past presidents have adopted; he’d blamed Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for security failures before the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, a widespread view within Israel.

Those were not top-of-mind issues in Orange County, and Weiss told Semafor that she had “not had the chance to properly analyze” the Biden administration’s settlement stance. But it was a distinction in a race where Min and Weiss had drawn few of them, agreeing on issues like climate change, gun safety, and abortion rights. Min said he might be a more effective advocate for the latter, in a district where AAPI residents made up a big swing vote.

“This fight for reproductive freedom has to be an intersectional fight,” Min said. “You don’t want your faces to just always be wealthy white women.”

Similarly, Weiss said she’d be the more credible advocate. “Having a male candidate try to talk about women’s reproductive rights will not generate the type of voter involvement that we need in order to win,” she said.

The differences on Israel were less stark. “The role of the United States, in our foreign policy, is to promote peace and democracy and make sure we’re standing with our democratic allies,” Weiss said. “I really can’t speak to what UDP or AIPAC’s mindset is, with regard to him. But I know that it’s important to have leaders who people can trust, and who have strong characters.”

That was what the race with Min had become — a contest of characters, not a debate over Israel. Min, who said he’d intended to stay positive, had hit Weiss over her husband’s work defending the Catholic Diocese of Orange County in sex abuse cases. Ads for Weiss had accused Min of violating a “no corporate PAC” money pledge (from a prior race, not this one), of supporting The Federalist Society (he advised UC Irvine’s chapter, as a law professor), and, again and again, of being a criminal. At the house party in Irvine, some Min supporters said they were sick of what they were seeing, and baffled by where the attacks had come from.

“People will ask you, what’s the source of this money? Why are we seeing all these ads?” said Rick Bruck, a 75-year-old retired cardiologist who had been knocking doors for Min. “We have to tell them: It’s AIPAC.”

The View From Progressives

After gaining ground in the last three primary cycles, progressives are facing significant challenges this year — especially from AIPAC. Even as ceasefire campaigners organized a campaign to win more than 100,000 votes for “uncommitted” in Michigan, and urge the president to change his Israel policy, they were on the defensive, almost everywhere.

While Min’s inclusion on the list is a head scratcher, other primary targets have long been lightning rods in this space. On Tuesday, after days of attacks on Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee for scheduling an event with speakers who’d made anti-semitic comments after the Oct. 7 attacks, Lee canceled the appearance. She did it, she said, “to prevent the Muslim community from being the target of any more politically motivated Islamophobia and to ensure my Jewish and LGBTQ+ constituents know their concerns are heard.”

“AIPAC, much like the NRA’s unwavering support for gun rights, staunchly defends Israel’s far-right policies, often at the expense of American democratic values,” said Waleed Shahid, a strategist who helped build the Listen to Michigan campaign. “It targets Democrats critical of Israel, from Donna Edwards to Rashida Tlaib, with millions in spending on negative ads. But as the Democratic Party undergoes a generational shift, AIPAC’s influence may wane, mirroring the NRA’s diminished role in the Democratic Party, making its jingoism increasingly out of step with party values.”

Notable

• In the American Prospect, David Dayen calls the Min-Weiss-Baugh race the “warning shot” for what’s coming in Democratic primaries, and wonders how many Democrats would criticize Israel’s war “if they didn’t know that large amounts of money would be put toward their defeat if they spoke up.”

• For the Associated Press, Farnoush Amiri profiles the squad and the ways they’re handling the expected AIPAC wave, “a struggle that raises significant questions about who can be a Democrat in Congress.”