Democrats have won majority control of US Congress. CBS News and NBC News are projecting that the party took both the House and the Senate in Tuesday’s midterms, a sharp reversal for Trump at the midpoint of his term. Among the night’s results, James Talarico’s win over Ken Paxton in Texas was described by The Intercept as a historic Democratic flip in a deep-red state. The vote capped the most expensive election cycle on record, with more than $16 billion raised. On election day itself, Trump announced he was ending roughly $4 billion in annual payments to Israel, a foreign policy shock that lands in the middle of the story this report examines.
Haley Stevens, the Michigan Democrat who lost her party’s August Senate primary to the far more popular Abdul El-Sayed, surprisingly chose to wipe out her career with the Democratic Party on November 1st. She endorsed Trump’s man, Mike Rogers, whom she had previously called a “rubber stamp” for Trump’s dangerous agenda, only two days before the midterm elections. Why? Many say it is simple bitterness and a personal grudge against the opponent who beat her.
However, the AIPAC money surrounding her campaign points to something larger: a change in a staple of the Israeli lobby’s strategy in the US political system. That strategy was always to hold a balance across both major parties to ensure consistent, unrestricted support for Israel. A few months prior to the sudden end of a 4-billion-dollar stint of aid to the entity, Benjamin Netanyahu was telling his settlers to prepare for the end of American aid, while AIPAC-aligned Democrats like Stevens flip to the right on a whim, opening the floodgates on that carefully created balance.
The Old Playbook Under Strain
For decades, the lobby’s greatest asset was bipartisanship. If both parties relied on pro-Israel donors and treated support for the entity as a baseline, no election result could threaten the relationship. Control of Congress could change hands and the policy would not.
The Intercept’s reporting shows that model under pressure. AIPAC’s name has become toxic with voters across the political spectrum, angered by the genocide in Gaza and by military aid flowing abroad while costs rise at home. AIPAC has announced it will no longer officially endorse candidates or give to them directly. Lara Friedman of the Foundation for Middle East Peace says this shows its brand has become politically radioactive.
Going Underground, Not Retreating
The retreat is real, but it is not an exit. The Intercept’s tracking found that AIPAC or its super PAC, the United Democracy Project (UDP), spent in 333 of the 473 seats up for election this year, and that their candidates still won far more often than they lost. Direct spending actually rose. AIPAC spent $53.3 million and UDP $66.7 million, compared with $53.7 million and $41.4 million last cycle.
What changed is visibility. UDP gave $13.1 million to other committees whose names suggested no connection to Israel policy, more than triple the $3.5 million it gave this way last cycle. At least three were “pop-up PACs” formed just before primaries, which let them delay disclosing donors until after voting ended. Groups with names like Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now! attacked candidates who rejected AIPAC money, then shut down and returned their funds to UDP. Established committees tied to Democratic leadership, such as Bold America, were also funded this way. In several races, no one knew AIPAC had spent until after the election was over.
Friedman describes the result as a middle road: a return in part to the shadows, with no direct endorsements or donations, while still flexing power in elections through tactics tested over the past four years.
The Michigan Test Case
Michigan was where the strategy was most exposed. UDP spent more than $30 million attacking El-Sayed or backing Stevens in the primary, the lobby’s biggest investment of the cycle, and it failed. Stevens was an enthusiastic AIPAC cash recipient who once said, “Israel comes to me in my dreams.” The Intercept notes that after El-Sayed won, UDP kept spending against him in the general election against Mike Rogers, just over $500,000 so far. The lobby was therefore fighting the Democratic nominee in a race where the alternative was Trump’s candidate.
Then came Stevens’ endorsement. According to CBS, she demanded that El-Sayed condemn an outside group’s ad linking military aid for Israel to high grocery prices, which she called antisemitic. El-Sayed said he disagreed with the ad but had not made it, and he reportedly asked her to stay away from his remaining events. She then appeared with Rogers at a Detroit church and endorsed him. Senate Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, a longtime supporter of Israel, called it a “despicable betrayal,” and several of her staffers resigned.
Whether anyone directed Stevens is unproven, and the personal-grudge explanation may be enough. But the argument does not require coordination. A longtime Democrat, funded by the lobby, crossed to the Republican over a dispute at its core about the Israeli entity. Combined with UDP’s general-election spending against El-Sayed, the pattern is that the lobby’s Democratic bet had lost, and its money and allies were moving toward the right.
Where the Money Leans
The Intercept’s data supports that tilt on the Republican side. The top Republican recipient of AIPAC’s direct money, setting UDP aside, was Susan Collins, who had no primary opponent. AIPAC-aligned spending also went to Tom Cotton and John Cornyn, and to Ed Gallrein, the Trump-backed challenger who unseated Thomas Massie, a libertarian critic of all foreign aid including to Israel. Massie was a rare Republican incumbent that AIPAC and UDP opposed. Meanwhile, on the Democratic side, pro-Palestine candidates often won primaries, such as Darializa Avila Chevalier over Adriano Espaillat in New York, and Melat Kiros over Diana DeGette in Colorado.
Netanyahu and the End of Aid
The aid announcement shows the risk of this tilt. According to Newsweek, Trump said Netanyahu himself raised the idea of ending the payments, and that annual aid gave critics like El-Sayed an easy target. Netanyahu had said in January and May that he wanted to wean Israel off American military aid, but a year-end cutoff came sooner than observers expected.
The 2016 memorandum of understanding provides about $3.8 billion annually, and analyst Michael Koplow estimates its loss leaves a shortfall of roughly 15 percent of Israel’s military budget. That is significant but manageable, which lets Netanyahu present the move as strength and freedom from American conditions. Opposition leader Gadi Eisenkot accused him of letting Israeli settlers learn about a major strategic shift through the media.
The public mood gives the move cover. A Chicago Council survey found 35 percent of Americans want military aid stopped, nearly double the 2014 share, and Israel’s favorability hit a record low of 44 percent.
Overall, bipartisanship was the Israel lobby’s insurance policy. The Intercept’s data shows AIPAC adapting rather than collapsing: quieter, less accountable and still heavily funded, but also less trusted and less able to win where voters know it is involved. Its failure in Michigan, Stevens’ defection and the end of aid together suggest the old balance has lapsed. Republicans have just lost Congress, and the party now ascendant is the one where criticism of the entity is strongest. Whether that means lesser American support or only a better-hidden kind is the question this election has put on the table.
Source: Al-Manar English Website