By Sharon Zhang
This article was originally published by Truthout
AIPAC funneled money into opposing a candidate who has barely mentioned Israel on the campaign trail.
AIPAC has lost yet another race into which it poured millions of dollars on Thursday after California state Sen. Aisha Wahab won her special election to serve out the rest of Eric Swalwell’s term in the U.S. House of Representatives.
The Associated Press called the race on Thursday evening for Wahab, who received 53 percent of the vote compared to Democratic opponent Melissa Hernandez’s 47 percent. Wahab is the first Afghan American ever elected to the U.S. Congress, and was the first Muslim woman elected to the California legislature.
Wahab is slated to serve out the rest of Swalwell’s term, which ends in January, after he resigned over sexual assault allegations made against him. She will represent a swath of the Bay Area, and will face off against Hernandez again in the general election in November for a full term.
AIPAC’s super PAC, United Democracy Project (UDP), poured $2.5 million into opposing Wahab and backing Hernandez, the New York Times reports, much of it in the final weeks of the race.
The spending has been somewhat puzzling, baffling even pro-Israel leaders in the state who question why the lobbying powerhouse would spend so much on a race that, unlike many others this election cycle, has not been defined by the candidates’ stances on the U.S.’s policies toward Israel. One Bay Area pro-Israel leader even characterized Wahab as “not an anti-Zionist … like Rashida Tlaib or Ilhan Omar,” per Haaretz.
Wahab has expressed some support for Palestinian rights, but it has been limited to a few hints along the campaign trail: In a candidate’s forum in April, Wahab answered “yes” to a question about whether or not Israel was committing genocide.
When asked by streamer Hasan Piker if she believes the U.S. should end all aid to Israel, Wahab said “yes, but, like I said, humanitarian aid is important to me, too.” In that interview, she also touted that legislation that she introduced in 2025 regarding Gaza discusses “holding the perpetrators accountable from both sides.”
The race was already a longshot for AIPAC and Hernandez. Wahab had already won two prior primaries over Hernandez in June by double digits, before AIPAC’s late spending blitz. That spending seems to have helped AIPAC to close the gap a bit, but Wahab still won by a decisive six points.
Wahab herself had questioned the spending in an interview with Politico last week.
“They seem to have more money than God,” she said. “On every single credential, I am the most qualified. So what’s the elephant in the room? At the end of the day, all I can say is that it’s based on prejudice and racism.”
Indeed, Wahab also doesn’t fit the profile of progressive candidates typically opposed by AIPAC, which has long supported conservative candidates in both parties. Wahab’s campaign platform says nothing about progressive priorities like Medicare for All, abolishing ICE, or a moratorium on the construction of AI companies’ data centers. She claimed support for these issues in her interview with Piker, but has otherwise been muted about them on the campaign trail.
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