The $20 Million Gamble: How AIPAC's Shadow Campaign Is Reshaping Illinois Democratic Primaries

As Illinois voters head to the polls on March 17 for one of the most expensive primary elections in the state's history, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has emerged as the single most powerful outside force shaping four open Democratic congressional seats — and in doing so, has turned itself into perhaps the most divisive issue on the ballot.

AIPAC and its network of affiliated groups have poured more than $20 million in disclosed ad spending into the Chicago-area races [1], an unprecedented sum for House primaries that has overwhelmed the campaigns' own fundraising and transformed what should be local contests into a national referendum on the pro-Israel lobby's role in Democratic politics.

The stakes extend far beyond Illinois. With the U.S. now three weeks into Operation Epic Fury — a joint military campaign with Israel against Iran that has sent oil prices past $100 a barrel and killed over 2,300 people across the Middle East — the question of American policy toward Israel has become viscerally immediate for Democratic voters in ways it has never been before.

The Four Battlegrounds

The spending is concentrated in four open seats left vacant by retiring or departing incumbents, all in safely Democratic districts where the primary winner will almost certainly go to Congress.

Illinois's 9th District — the North Shore seat being vacated by Jan Schakowsky — has become the marquee race. Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, a self-described Zionist who nonetheless supports conditioning U.S. military aid to Israel, leads in polls at 24%. Close behind at 20% is Kat Abughazaleh, a 26-year-old Palestinian-American content creator who has called the war in Gaza a genocide and made cutting U.S. arms transfers her top priority [2]. State Senator Laura Fine, the AIPAC-backed candidate, has fallen to third place at 14% despite $5.8 million in outside spending on her behalf from a super PAC called Elect Chicago Women [3].

Illinois's 2nd District — Robin Kelly's South Side and south suburban seat — has drawn $4.4 million from another newly formed PAC called Affordable Chicago Now, backing Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller against State Senator Robert Peters, who has been outspoken against the war in Gaza [4]. AIPAC donors accounted for more than 72% of Miller's $1.3 million in total receipts at the start of the year.

Illinois's 7th District — Danny Davis's West Side Chicago seat — features $2.8 million from United Democracy Project, AIPAC's official super PAC, supporting City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin against progressive activist Kina Collins, whom AIPAC has targeted in three consecutive election cycles [5]. The race also includes Jesse Jackson Jr.'s attempted political comeback.

Illinois's 8th District — the northwest suburban seat — has seen Elect Chicago Women spend nearly $4 million boosting former U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean against progressive challenger Junaid Ahmed [6].

In total, outside groups have spent nearly $62 million across all four races, according to the Chicago Tribune [7].

Source: GDELT Project

Data as of Mar 17, 2026CSV

The Shadow PAC Strategy

What distinguishes AIPAC's 2026 approach from its previous cycles is the extent to which the spending is routed through newly created organizations with anodyne names that obscure their origins.

Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now were both formed in early 2026 with little public information about their backers [8]. Campaign finance filings show both groups share vendors with AIPAC and its official super PAC, United Democracy Project, but their donor lists have yet to be made public — a legal gray area that has drawn sharp criticism from transparency advocates and rival campaigns.

"AIPAC has always relied on voters not knowing the whole story," said Usamah Andrabi of Justice Democrats. "AIPAC has become such a toxic force in the Democratic Party that voters now, when they see a candidate backed by AIPAC, reject them simply for that support" [1].

The strategy appears to be a direct response to polling showing AIPAC's brand has become a liability in Democratic primaries. According to CNN, more than three dozen congressional candidates nationwide have declared their intent to reject AIPAC contributions, and California Governor Gavin Newsom publicly declared he would never accept the group's support [9]. In Illinois, retiring Representative Jan Schakowsky retracted an endorsement of Donna Miller specifically because of AIPAC's involvement — a remarkable public rebuke from a longtime pro-Israel Democrat [3].

The Paradoxes of AIPAC's Spending

AIPAC's Illinois campaign has produced a series of striking contradictions that have left even some pro-Israel observers uneasy.

In the 9th District, AIPAC is spending millions to defeat Daniel Biss — a Jewish candidate with deep family ties to Israel who describes himself as a Zionist — while backing Laura Fine, also Jewish. In the final days of the campaign, AIPAC-linked groups began running ads supporting Bushra Amiwala, a Muslim-American candidate who has also been critical of Israel, apparently as a strategy to split the anti-AIPAC vote and prevent either Biss or Abughazaleh from consolidating progressive support [3].

In the 7th District, AIPAC is spending against Jason Friedman, a Jewish communal leader and JUF board member who supports unconditional military aid to Israel — but who is running against AIPAC's preferred candidate, Conyears-Ervin [3]. This has prompted accusations that AIPAC's priorities are less about Israel policy than about maintaining organizational influence over which Democrats enter Congress.

"The fact that they're spending against pro-Israel Jewish candidates tells you everything you need to know," one Democratic operative told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency. "This is about power, not policy" [3].

A Seismic Shift in Democratic Opinion

The Illinois races are unfolding against a backdrop of collapsing Democratic support for Israel — a shift that began during the Gaza conflict and has accelerated dramatically since the launch of Operation Epic Fury against Iran on February 28.

An NBC News poll published on March 16 found that positive views of Israel among Democratic voters have plummeted from 34% in 2024 to just 13% in 2026, while negative views have spiked from 35% to 57% [10]. Only 17% of Democratic voters now say they sympathize more with Israelis than with Palestinians — a near-complete inversion from historical patterns. Among voters under 35, nearly two-thirds view Israel negatively, and six in ten sympathize more with Palestinians.

The Iran war has turbocharged this trend. While most Democratic candidates in the Illinois races have voiced opposition to the U.S. strikes on Iran without congressional authorization, the issue has become especially potent at a time when Americans are feeling the economic impact at the gas pump. In a notable development, several AIPAC-backed candidates in Illinois have themselves broken with AIPAC's position on the Iran conflict, opposing the war even as they accept the group's financial support [11].

"Tuesday's elections pose an early test to voters' attitudes towards the war on Iran, whose impact is starting to bite Americans at the petrol pump," reported Al Jazeera [1]. For progressive candidates like Abughazaleh and Peters, the connection between AIPAC's spending and U.S. foreign policy in the Middle East is the central argument of their campaigns.

The Counter-Offensive

AIPAC's dominance has not gone unchallenged. A new progressive group called American Priorities launched in early 2026 with a pledge to spend at least $10 million to counter pro-Israel groups in Democratic primaries across the country [12]. J Street, the liberal pro-Israel lobby, has backed Biss in the 9th District and several other candidates who support conditioning aid to Israel.

At the grassroots level, the backlash to AIPAC's spending has itself become a mobilizing force. Abughazaleh's campaign, powered largely by small-dollar donations and social media organizing among young voters, has seen a surge of support in the final weeks. A Public Policy Polling survey from March 10 showed her closing to within four points of Biss among likely voters — within the margin of error — while Fine, the AIPAC-backed candidate, continued to fall [2]. Among voters aged 18 to 45, Abughazaleh led the field at 34%.

The campaigns opposing AIPAC have made the group's spending a central talking point. "We don't need electeds who are gonna hide while bombs are being dropped," State Senator Robert Peters said on social media, referring to Donna Miller's refusal to take a clear position on conditioning aid to Israel [4].

What Illinois Means Nationally

The Illinois primaries are being closely watched as a bellwether for a question that will define Democratic politics through 2026 and beyond: can AIPAC's financial firepower overcome a grassroots movement that has fundamentally shifted how Democratic voters view the U.S.-Israel relationship?

AIPAC amassed $96 million for the current election cycle through United Democracy Project alone [10], and has signaled it will spend aggressively in primaries across the country. An AIPAC director warned that the "success of progressive candidates" in Illinois could embolden similar candidacies nationwide [3].

But the group faces a paradox of its own making. The more it spends, the more it becomes the issue — and in a Democratic electorate where its brand is increasingly toxic, that dynamic may be self-defeating. As Washington Monthly noted, the flood of outside money from AIPAC, along with crypto and AI-linked PACs, is "corrupting Democratic primaries" by allowing outside groups to effectively choose nominees in safe seats where the primary is the only competitive election [13].

The results on March 17 will not resolve these tensions. But they will signal whether the most powerful lobby in American politics can still buy its way to victory in a party that is rapidly moving away from it — or whether the $20 million gamble in Illinois marks the beginning of AIPAC's decline as a force in Democratic primaries.

The Broader Context: War and Democracy

For readers following Crowdbyte's coverage of the U.S.-Israeli military campaign against Iran — now in its 18th day, with over 2,300 dead and oil prices above $100 a barrel — the Illinois primaries offer a domestic lens on the conflict's political reverberations. The war has made abstract foreign policy debates painfully concrete: voters choosing between candidates in these races are also rendering a verdict on the U.S.-Israel relationship at a moment when that alliance is prosecuting a war that a majority of Democrats oppose.

The convergence of record outside spending, collapsing pro-Israel sentiment among Democrats, and an active military conflict in the Middle East makes these Illinois primaries unlike any in recent memory. Whatever the outcomes, the fact that AIPAC itself has become the central issue — rather than any of the domestic concerns the group's ads focus on — represents a sea change in American politics that will reverberate far beyond the Chicago suburbs.