Why AIPAC's $30 Million Michigan Bet Could Be Its Worst Defeat

AIPAC, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, is pouring more money into a single US election than it ever has before — and it could lose. The group has spent more than $30 million to defeat Abdul El-Sayed, a staunch critic of Israel's military campaign in Gaza, in next week's Democratic Senate primary in Michigan, and to ensure the nomination instead goes to Rep. Haley Stevens.

The race is the clearest test yet of whether AIPAC's strategy of overwhelming campaign spending still works. Until recently, it usually did. In 2022, when redistricting forced former Rep. Andy Levin and Stevens into the same House primary, AIPAC spent more than $4 million to help Stevens beat Levin, a two-term incumbent from one of Michigan's most prominent Jewish political families.

This time the dynamic looks different. El-Sayed has made opposition to AIPAC's spending the centerpiece of his campaign, arguing that the millions flowing into the race on Stevens's behalf discredit her candidacy. Recent polling shows him with a double-digit lead despite the spending disparity.

If El-Sayed wins, it would be the largest and most visible defeat of AIPAC's election machine — and a signal that its money, much of it from Republican-leaning donors, has become a liability among Democratic primary voters angered by the devastation of the Gaza war.

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Levin's 2022 Loss Helps Explain Whether AIPAC's Power Is Ebbing

What the 2022 Levin–Stevens primary shows

The last time AIPAC went all-in against a sitting Jewish Democrat in Michigan, its formula worked. Levin, a two-term incumbent and the son of former Ways and Means chair Sander Levin, was attacked in a fundraising appeal by a former national AIPAC president as 'arguably the most corrosive member of Congress' to the US–Israel relationship. AIPAC then spent more than $4 million backing Stevens, and Levin lost.

Levin's account suggests the group's power has always rested as much on deterrence as on dollars. He describes colleagues who privately praised his Two-State Solution Act — legislation AIPAC opposed partly over a preamble naming East Jerusalem as occupied territory — but refused to co-sponsor it, and a cosponsor who withdrew after AIPAC objected. The fear of becoming the next target, not just the spending itself, kept members in line.

Why $30 million may not be enough this time

El-Sayed has inverted the usual dynamic. Instead of hoping outside spending stays quiet, he has made AIPAC's money the story of the campaign, arguing that the millions flooding in on Stevens's behalf make her unelectable in a Democratic primary.

The strategy is calibrated to a base whose view of Israel has shifted sharply since the Gaza war. Levin attributes the change directly to the war's toll and to broader public anger at dark money and special-interest spending in politics. If the polls are right — several surveys show El-Sayed with a double-digit lead — the money itself has become a liability.

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What a loss would do to AIPAC's playbook

A defeat in Michigan would be AIPAC's most expensive failure and an argument that its model of influence, built over decades, is losing its grip on the Democratic Party's left. Levin frames the race as evidence that the party now rewards authenticity, boldness and truth-telling — the qualities he says Michigan primary voters rewarded in earlier cycles with Jesse Jackson and Bernie Sanders.

The race is also a test of whether the group's spending deters or mobilizes. If El-Sayed wins despite the outlay, other candidates critical of Israel may conclude that campaigning against AIPAC is a winning message rather than a career-ending one — which would erode the deterrent effect that has protected the group's influence for years.

What Tuesday's Primary Will Settle — and What Comes After

The outcome of Tuesday's primary will be measurable within hours, but its wider effects will take weeks to read. Three things are worth watching:

  • Whether the polls hold. El-Sayed's double-digit lead is the headline, but AIPAC's more than $30 million investment buys a substantial ground game and advertising machine that could close the gap in the final days.
  • What AIPAC does next. A loss would be its costliest ever and would force a public reckoning over whether heavy spending in Democratic primaries now backfires; a win would show its machine still works.
  • The spillover to other races. The result will be a reference point for candidates weighing whether to campaign against AIPAC spending, as El-Sayed did, or to stay silent on Israel policy, as many incumbents have done for years.

The sequence in Michigan — Levin's 2022 defeat by AIPAC-backed spending, followed four years later by a candidate running squarely against the group — suggests AIPAC's influence is no longer a settled fact of Democratic politics. Tuesday will show how far that shift has gone.