In the United States, electoral primaries—where political parties decide who will run in general elections for political office—are rarely referendums on the country’s foreign policy. Yet the 2026 Democratic Party primary cycle was different, as a growing number of congressional districts became battlegrounds for issues including the U.S.-Israel relationship, the genocide in Gaza, and foreign lobbying—setting new stakes for the midterm elections in November.
One striking result is that campaign financing may no longer yield the results it once did. A vast network of organizations and funding mechanisms linked to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) spent tens of millions of dollars on the primaries through the United Democracy Project (UDP), its super PAC, a political action committee able to raise and spend unlimited funds in elections as long as they are not given directly to candidates.
The unprecedented flow of money into the races was not enough to prevent several UDP-backed candidates from losing to rivals who were more critical of Israeli policies or had called for political and humanitarian conditions on U.S. support for Israel.
It would be an exaggeration to write the obituary of AIPAC’s dominance in American political life. The organization still commands immense financial resources, an extensive roster of donors, and major political clout. Yet the lobby’s financial power no longer translates into near-automatic electoral victory. Indeed, in some Democratic districts, AIPAC’s endorsement is turning from an asset into an electoral liability. Fear of defeat has even led some candidates to publicly ask the group to stop supporting them.
UDP raised more than $100 million between January 2025 and July 31, 2026, according to the Federal Elections Commission, on top of its existing cash reserves in the tens of millions. This underlines that the issue is not a lack of resources, but rather a shift in the political environment in which this money operates.
For the Israel lobby, the alarm bells rang in February during a special election for New Jersey’s 11th District. An AIPAC-linked network spent millions of dollars campaigning against former representative Tom Malinowski, who had supported imposing conditions on certain U.S. aid to Israel. Yet the campaign backfired when the race was won by Analilia Mejia, a candidate even more progressive and critical of Israeli policies.
AIPAC-linked networks spent over $21 million in several Illinois primaries alone, but failed to carry pro-Israel candidates to victory—a scenario repeated in New York and Colorado.
These results cannot be attributed to a single factor, and each race involves specific issues. Yet a common thread has emerged: candidates’ relationships with the pro-Israel lobby have become a weapon that opponents can use against them.
A case in point was a race in Michigan, where Representative Haley Stevens—a Democratic establishment candidate backed by the pro-Israel lobby—faced progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed, a prominent critic of Israel’s war on Gaza, who supports reducing or restricting U.S. military aid to Israel.
Despite a massive disparity in spending, El-Sayed won by turning the issue of financing itself into a campaign theme and leveraging his opponent’s ties with AIPAC to broaden the debate from policy on Israel to the influence of lobbying and money in American political life.
This marks a critical shift for the pro-Israel lobby in the U.S. The question is no longer simply how much AIPAC can lavish on its candidates, but whether that excessive spending is beginning to arouse suspicion among American voters.
The Israel lobby continues to secure sporadic victories. What has changed is that money alone is no longer sufficient; some candidates are now running campaigns specifically in opposition to the lobby’s influence.
Gaza Shifts Voter Sentiment
At the heart of this phenomenon is Gaza. Israel’s prolonged and ongoing genocide, resulting in tens of thousands of deaths, widespread destruction, war crimes and crimes against humanity, has accelerated a fundamental shift within the Democratic base, particularly among young people and progressives. A new generation of voters views the Palestinian cause through the lenses of human rights, occupation, military aid, and the influence of campaign financing. Unlike in the past, this makes it much more difficult to decouple the issue of Gaza from U.S. elections.
Beyond AIPAC’s fortunes in a given electoral district, these dynamics raise the question of whether they will lead to a general shift in U.S. policy toward the Middle East.
Political pressure within the Democratic Party seems likely to drive a broader debate over the conditions attached to military aid for Israel, the need to hold its extremist government accountable, and even the future of the “two-state solution.” While this may not result in an immediate policy shift, it will make a return to unconditional Democratic Party support for Israel increasingly difficult and politically costly to maintain. This is especially true given Israel’s devastating military campaigns in Syria and Lebanon and the U.S.-Israel war in Iran.
Indeed, it is becoming increasingly difficult for U.S. voters to ignore the links between domestic politics and Middle East foreign policy. The pro-Israel lobby is not only active in shaping decision-making on Palestine, but has long advocated for a hardline U.S. policy on Iran. Given the deep unpopularity of the war against the Islamic Republic, the widespread belief that Israel and its supporters in the United States were at the heart of the decision to initiate the campaign brings particular attention to its activities at the electoral level.
The Strait of Hormuz crisis has demonstrated that any escalation between Washington and Tehran can rapidly impact the global economy—with direct costs for U.S. households. The rise of political forces in the U.S. that are more skeptical of “forever wars”—and more sensitive to the costs of unconditional support for Israel—could therefore eventually create space for diplomatic solutions.
This is of critical importance to the Gulf states, which have no desire to see an open-ended conflict pitting Israel and the U.S. against Iran—nor to shoulder the resulting costs and threats to navigation, energy supplies, investment, and economic stability.
While the pro-Israel lobby’s declining influence over certain primaries does not automatically undermine its influence in Congress, it could gradually shift the political cost-benefit analysis over stances toward Israel, Iran and regional conflicts. Still, there remains a significant gap between shifts at the ballot box and changes in foreign policy. After all, the Republican Party—which, for the time being, controls the White House and both houses of Congress—remains steadfast in its unconditional support for Israel, even as it is also experiencing a notable shift in support for Israel among its base.
It could take years for any electoral shift within the Democratic Party to translate into a meaningfully different foreign policy. Yet electoral defeats of AIPAC-backed candidates cannot be dismissed as a momentary phenomenon. They reflect a nascent shift in the relationship between money, politics, and public opinion in the U.S. when it comes to these issues. While the pro-Israel lobby remains powerful and able to spend tens of millions of dollars to back its preferred candidates, it is facing a significant trust problem with an American voter increasingly willing to ask who is paying and why.
If this trend persists through the November midterms and into the 2028 presidential elections, Israel may find that Washington gradually becomes less inclined to extend unconditional support, more responsive to public opinion, and more concerned with the costs of endless wars in the Middle East.
