How AIPAC channels millions through shell PACs ahead of US midterms | US Midterm Elections 2026 News | Al Jazeera
“Every cycle, AIPAC shows just how broken our democracy is and how corrupt our political finance system is,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson at Justice Democrats, a progressive group.
“Every cycle, they are at the forefront of exploiting those gaps for their right-wing donors and at the expense of voters.”
While the Chicago Progressive Partnership — the group whose name appeared on the Amiwala advertisement — was widely believed to be linked to AIPAC, it did not have to reveal the source of its funding until after the elections, which took place in March.
Now that the vote is over, Federal Election Commission receipts show that the sole funder of Chicago Progressive Partnership was Elect Chicago Women (ECW), another PAC. It contributed $1m to the partnership.
In turn, ECW had raised more than $4m from United Democracy Project (UDP), the election arm of AIPAC, and another $1m from investor Blair Frank, one of UDP’s largest donors.
AIPAC also contributed $1.3m to a third PAC, Affordable Chicago Now, in what critics call an effort to conceal its spending in Illinois.
Palestinian rights advocates say this use of “shell PACs” is evidence of how the pro-Israel group has become “toxic” among the US electorate. They argue AIPAC has taken a Russian doll approach — hiding its spending by funnelling funds from one PAC to another — to hide its involvement in primary races.
“They are so unpopular amongst the Democratic Party that they have to hide themselves,” Andrabi told Al Jazeera. “We have to keep exposing them and looking under every rock to see whether or not this shell PAC or that shell PAC is funded by AIPAC.”
Just this week, The New York Times and Siena College released a survey showing that 37 percent of US voters now sympathise with Palestinians, while 35 percent sympathise with Israelis.
That number was even higher among Democratic respondents, 57 percent of whom felt greater sympathy for the Palestinians.
The Pew Research Center suggested an even stronger left-wing backlash. Its survey earlier this year found 80 percent of Democratic respondents said they have unfavourable views of Israel.
Despite its well-documented clout, AIPAC’s organisational structure remains murky, as well as its spending.
On Wednesday, DAWN, the rights group, released a report that relied on LinkedIn disclosures to track the group’s current and former staff members and their professional connections.
It found that many people who worked for AIPAC also held jobs with the US and Israeli governments.
“DAWN’s analysis shows that 66 former AIPAC staffers currently work in the US government, from Congress to the White House to various branches of the military; nearly two dozen current AIPAC staffers previously worked in US government bodies,” the report said.
“The personal and professional relationships that result from this type of revolving door form the backbone of political influence in Washington, which is indicated in the hundreds of professional connections between AIPAC staffers and US federal and state employees.”