AIPAC Is Spending Millions to Elect Friends. It's Also Making Enemies.

Less than five years after its entry into U.S. political campaigns, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is now one of the best-funded players in the midterm elections. It has also become one of the most polarizing.

AIPAC has raised $233 million to support its friends and attack its perceived foes, even as public sentiment has shifted sharply against its singular cause: American support for Israel.

The group's decision to become a major player in campaigns has alienated some former allies and left others ducking AIPAC's support. Some candidates have worn opposition from AIPAC as a badge of honor. Some not only refuse money from AIPAC, but also refuse to accept money from its donors. The organization has increasingly become a campaign issue unto itself. This summer, Mayor Zohran Mamdani of New York described AIPAC as part of a group of "monsters" that he said were too powerful in American politics.

As AIPAC contends with its biggest crisis in years and second-guessing from even some allies, its leaders are unbowed, according to interviews with more than three dozen donors, former board members and political strategists who work with the group. They describe their mission as a long game: electing a Congress that will help combat what they see as existential threats to Israel from Iran and other hostile countries. And despite increased public criticism of both AIPAC and Israel, the group has continued to draw tens of millions in contributions that it can use to pick sides in House and Senate campaigns.

AIPAC is currently conducting a strategic review of its political operations and considering how to adapt to a transformed political landscape, something it says it does regularly. But its leaders have made clear that their super PAC -- and with it, heavy spending on political campaigns -- will remain a central element of their strategy.

"There's no denying there have been events that have hugely accelerated the change of opinions about Israel," said Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for AIPAC's super PAC, in an interview. "We learn from our successes and our failures all the time."

While AIPAC has notched some electoral successes this year, it has also been handed high-profile defeats. In its costliest gambit of the cycle, it spent about $33 million on ads in an unsuccessful effort to defeat Dr. Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel, in the Michigan Democratic Senate primary.

Even some staunch allies are now questioning the group's approach, arguing that it has left AIPAC's leaders stumbling through a crisis they have not acknowledged. They worry that the decision to spend money on elections has undermined AIPAC itself, deepened partisan divides and eroded longstanding coalitions.

"It was probably a mistake for them to establish the super PAC in 2022 because it meant they would inevitably take sides in partisan races and internal primary fights," said Daniel Shapiro, a former ambassador to Israel who continues to support a productive U.S.-Israel partnership. "That's at odds with their traditional effort to keep the U.S.-Israel relationship bipartisan and a way to make as many enemies as friends."

Mr. Dorton said the idea that AIPAC's spending had backfired was "a narrative pushed by the anti-Israel left" and stressed that the group was winning more races than it lost.

"Our fund-raising," he noted, "is through the roof."

'The Most Extraordinary Business Model'

To understand AIPAC's decision to start spending hundreds of millions of dollars on elections, it helps to understand how drastically the political sands have shifted under it.

For decades, U.S. support for Israel was one of the few things Republicans and Democrats in Washington agreed on. Israel had been a critical ally, and American politicians believed ensuring Israel's security would also keep the United States safe.

That consensus began to fray during the Obama administration. First came the 2015 nuclear deal with Iran, which Israel -- and AIPAC -- opposed. Then came a growing unease among Democrats over the hard-line government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. In 2018, the election of the "Squad" -- a new bloc of progressive legislators who were vocal critics of Israel -- alarmed AIPAC's leaders.

Donors and allies called for changes inside AIPAC. If they were going to persuade Congress to continue to back Israel, they believed they would need new methods. Chief among them: a new super PAC, the United Democracy Project, that could spend unlimited amounts in elections.

"There was a real sense of urgency," Mr. Dorton said, to oppose members of Congress who "were actively hostile to Israel and recruiting candidates."

He added, "There was a real sense that what AIPAC had been doing in the past was not sufficient."

Elliot Brandt, AIPAC's chief executive, said in 2023 interview that the "old business model" of the organization -- cultivating longstanding relationships with lawmakers from both parties, often taking them on trips to Israel -- was no longer effective in Washington.

"We had the most extraordinary business model for an America that increasingly didn't exist with rampant turnover," he said, referring to Congress. He lamented a new "hyper-partisanship and the rise of real detractors."

The Hamas-led terrorist attacks on Israel in 2023 and the public opposition to Israel's military response in Gaza only strengthened AIPAC's resolve.

But the idea of taking sides in elections was immediately a source of friction, as some of AIPAC's longtime allies warned against getting sucked into bitter and divisive party politics.

When AIPAC released the names of 120 members of Congress it intended to back in the 2022 elections, the list -- which included more than two dozen Republicans who had voted against certifying the 2020 presidential election -- enraged Democrats and even some Republicans.

Some donors said they had confronted AIPAC leaders in private meetings to register their opposition. Some vowed to stop supporting the group entirely.

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"I would describe myself as a Zionist and a staunch liberal," said Leonard Gregory, a longtime donor from San Diego who has stopped writing checks to AIPAC. "Suddenly they didn't reflect my views on the world."

Powerful Connections

AIPAC's electoral strategy, which has largely focused on defeating progressive Democrats in primary elections, is shaped almost entirely by two men who have spent most of their professional lives working for AIPAC: Mr. Brandt, 57, the chief executive who meets frequently with top Israeli officials, and Rob Bassin, 64, a well-connected tactician who runs the super PAC. Mr. Bassin has worked for years as a Washington insider, while Mr. Brandt spent more than a decade in California as a regional director for AIPAC.

Both men maintain deep relationships on Capitol Hill, and while they have angered some top Democrats, they remain particularly close to several moderate lawmakers, including Senators Adam Schiff and Jacky Rosen and Representatives Josh Gottheimer, Jared Moskowitz and Haley Stevens. They are close to some Republicans too, including Senator Susan Collins and Rep. Mike Lawler.

Mr. Brandt and Mr. Bassin, who declined to be interviewed by The New York Times, consider themselves moderate Democrats. They display a brash confidence to allies, unrepentant about any perceived strategic mistakes, according to numerous people who have worked closely with them. In private conversations, they make the same arguments AIPAC has maintained in public, where every win is a vindication of their strategy and even losses can be portrayed as wins.

AIPAC employs dozens of staff members focused on fund-raising, and Mr. Brandt routinely courts top donors. Those who give $250,000 a year to AIPAC efforts can be invited to summer events for AIPAC's "Trustees Circle" in Aspen and The Hamptons.

Among AIPAC's most important backers are several who have given more than $1 million to the super PAC, including Robert Kraft, the owner of the New England Patriots; Paul Singer, the billionaire hedge fund manager; and Haim Saban, a Hollywood mogul who was a major backer of Hillary Clinton.

The AIPAC board, made up of nearly 50 donors, meets weekly and is seen as extraordinarily disciplined, never voicing public criticism about the group's strategy and only rarely doing so in private.

Like many of their strongest supporters and donors, Mr. Brandt and Mr. Bassin believe that the vilification AIPAC has faced in some quarters is a symptom of the anti-Zionism and antisemitism they believe is growing in the United States. They have told supporters that they simply need to double down.

And there are signs that many of those supporters agree: AIPAC just had two of its best fund-raising years on record. This cycle, the super PAC has raised about $110 million, nearly a third of which came directly from AIPAC, which is a separate nonprofit lobbying organization. AIPAC itself raised about $113 million from donors from late 2024 to late 2025 and holds more assets on hand as of September 2025 than it ever has before, according to a new tax return obtained by The Times.

'Like a Murder-Suicide'

Even many who support AIPAC's goals had a hard time making sense of its first target in the 2026 midterms: Tom Malinowski, a Democrat from New Jersey who has been widely seen as an ally of Israel.

AIPAC's super PAC spent about $2.3 million in an effort against Mr. Malinowski, a former congressional member who had said he "would not deny anything Israel needs to defend itself" but has also been sharply critical of the Netanyahu government and left open the possibility of placing limits on aid to the country.

In an interview, Mr. Malinowski said he was shocked to have suddenly become a target of AIPAC's ire, especially because the eventual winner, Analilia Mejia, had said she believed that Israel had committed genocide in Gaza.

Mr. Malinowski, a human rights expert and former diplomat, said AIPAC officials told him directly that their supporters worried he would be viewed as more legitimate in shaping future policy than someone so stridently critical of Israel's government.

"I was a bigger threat because my position was more moderate and more rooted in pro-Israel arguments," he said.

"What they did in my race was like a murder-suicide," Mr. Malinowski added. Many of his former colleagues, he said, believed that AIPAC used his race to send a broader message: threatening other members of Congress who might consider pulling back on their full-throated support for Israel.

But rather than intimidating veteran lawmakers to "get in line," he said, "it gave them another reason to say, Go to hell."

To Mr. Shapiro, the former ambassador, the decision to go after Mr. Malinowski was a clear mistake. "It was unjustified because he's been a strong supporter of the U.S.-Israel relationship and Israel's security, who could also be critical when appropriate," he said. "But it also undercut their own cause by helping elect someone far less supportive of their position."

But after Mr. Malinowski's loss, AIPAC supporters say, Mr. Bassin defended the decision in private conversations, insisting that they had defeated a candidate who would have held significant sway.

'What Happened?'

In retrospect, Ms. Mejia's win in February was an early signal of just how much Democratic primary voters had shifted on Israel. But Mr. Brandt and Mr. Bassin remained optimistic about the rest of the primary season, according to several allies they had spoken to.

AIPAC's most expensive and high-profile involvement came in Michigan, where it spent about $33 million trying to defeat Dr. El-Sayed, the Democratic Senate candidate who has said Israel should not exist as an explicitly Jewish state.

In the months leading up to the primary, Mr. Bassin privately acknowledged that spending so much money against Dr. El-Sayed came with some risk, forcing AIPAC into an uncomfortable spotlight, according to people he spoke with.

But Mr. Bassin said that the positives of their spending outweighed those negatives, that he trusted his polling and believed that Dr. El-Sayed's main opponent, Representative Haley Stevens, a longtime AIPAC favorite, would win.

After Dr. El-Sayed won, though by just a single percentage point, some donors were left flummoxed.

Mike Leven, a former hospitality executive who gave $120,000 to the AIPAC super PAC this cycle, said he had asked an AIPAC official what he called a simple question: What happened -- how could Ms. Stevens lose after AIPAC spent so much?

The official reassured him that leaders relied on political professionals who remained confident that they had made all the right choices.

"The answer I got was that they did move the needle from where it was in the beginning to only losing by one point," Mr. Leven said. "They felt that that was successful."

Still, he said, "it did sound like an awful lot of money."

Alex Slusky, who has donated $100,000 to AIPAC's super PAC this cycle, supported its spending and rejected the notion that the strategy had backfired. "Pro-Israel groups have a moral imperative to oppose candidates such as El-Sayed," he said. "Anyone who denies Israel's right to be a Jewish state doesn't belong in Congress."

AIPAC remained unbowed. Some leaders told allies that they were upset Dr. El-Sayed had won, and suggested that they could have beaten him had they spent even more on the race. And they immediately signaled that they would spend money supporting Dr. El-Sayed's Republican opponent, Mike Rogers, in November. It would be only the second time in AIPAC's history that it spent in a general election pitting a Democrat against a Republican. So far the super PAC has not publicly spent in the race and there are no clear plans to do so, but several AIPAC donors have already hosted fund-raising events for Mr. Rogers.

"This narrow loss stings, but her defeat doesn't change our principled opposition to the dangerous policies El-Sayed wants to bring to the U.S. Senate," Bernie Kaminetsky, AIPAC's president, wrote to supporters.

"Our conviction will not be measured in a single race or a single cycle," he added. "This is a generational fight, and we remain undeterred in our mission."

Minho Kim contributed reporting and Julie Tate contributed research.