AIPAC’s $30 million Michigan Senate gamble faces a potential defeat

AIPAC is committing more than $30 million to the Michigan Democratic Senate primary, aiming to defeat Abdul El-Sayed, a vocal critic of Israel, and to secure the nomination for Rep. Haley Stevens. The lobby’s strategy reflects decades of heavy spending to place pro-Israel lawmakers in Congress, but recent polling shows El-Sayed leading by double digits, indicating a possible reversal of AIPAC’s dominance. Former congressman Andy Levin, who was unseated after AIPAC funded Stevens’s campaign, explains that the Gaza conflict and growing resentment toward special-interest money have shifted the Democratic electorate.

Levin, a longtime human-rights activist and member of a prominent Michigan political family, recounts his own clashes with AIPAC over a Two-State Solution bill. He warns that the organization’s reliance on Republican-sourced dark money may be alienating progressive voters. If El-Sayed wins, it could signal a new era in which AIPAC’s financial clout is less effective within the Democratic Party.