How a new super PAC formed to counter AIPAC is fueling democratic socialists’ wins

By Patrick Svitek, CNN

(CNN) — Two years ago, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent millions of dollars through its super PAC to defeat two vocal critics of Israel, Reps. Cori Bush of Missouri and Jamaal Bowman of New York.

“AIPAC, I’m coming to tear your kingdom down,” Bush vowed in her concession speech.

Now AIPAC’s opponents believe that they are on the offensive – and a new group called American Priorities has a lot to do with it.

The super PAC, which started just six months ago, has quickly emerged as an influential force in House Democratic primaries, spending at least $5.6 million to boost Democrats who are fiercely critical of Israel, its war in Gaza and AIPAC’s influence in Democratic primaries. American Priorities helped two democratic socialists – Darializa Avila Chevalier and Claire Valdez – pull off wins in the recent New York primaries and also chipped in to help a third, Melat Kiros, defeat Colorado Rep. Diana DeGette on Tuesday.

The group’s spending is still dwarfed by that of AIPAC’s super PAC, the United Democracy Project, which has spent at least $34 million this election cycle. The two sides have not gone head-to-head in many primaries yet, picking their fights more pragmatically. But to progressives who had gotten used to being vastly outspent, American Priorities has become something of an unexpected savior.

The 2024 election year was a “bruising cycle for us, but it was a real building cycle,” said Usamah Andrabi, a spokesperson for Justice Democrats, a progressive group that is often aligned with American Priorities in primaries. “We are seeing this cycle the fruits of this labor.”

A spokesperson for American Priorities said the group was created out of a belief that there was “nothing close to a countervailing force” to AIPAC in primaries.

“The idea was to build a spending force that would back people who speak plainly about what most Democratic voters – and indeed most Americans – already believe, so that telling the truth stops being the thing that gets you outspent three to one,” the spokesperson, Greg Krieg, said in a statement.

American Priorities poses an ideological test for progressives who have long denounced not just AIPAC’s spending, but also all big money in politics. So far, that has been the basis of AIPAC’s response to American Priorities.

“The same scrutiny that’s applied to the AIPAC super PAC should be applied to anti-Israel dark money as well,” Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for United Democracy Project, told CNN in response to requests for comment for this story.

Asked whether American Priorities was having an impact on AIPAC’s strategy in primaries, Dorton said the super PAC makes “our own independent decisions based on evaluating each race.”

Bush, who is making a comeback bid for her old seat in an August primary, told CNN recently that she does not know much about American Priorities but that AIPAC’s opponents now know they “need to go full force” to combat its influence.

“I truly believe that we need to get the big money out of politics,” Bush said. “But right now, having a counterweight to AIPAC and … the big cryptocurrency folks and big real estate, big pharma, the war profiteers, ICE contractors … will be useful to us because often one of the issues we have is we are grassroots.”

The group’s impact

American Priorities has raised $5.5 million as of June 3, according to its filings with the Federal Election Commission. That’s a modest sum compared to the eight-figure funding of AIPAC’s super PAC, which spent nearly $6 million alone in one recent House primary in Maryland in which its preferred candidate won.

But American Priorities’ willingness to spend upwards of $1 million in individual races – and to spend at critical junctures in campaigns – represents a new capacity for the anti-AIPAC left. Operatives say its aggressiveness was especially crucial in Avila Chevalier’s primary, where she faced a fierce late ad blitz – partly funded by AIPAC – focused on her past controversial tweets.

American Priorities ran multiple TV and digital ads in the primary’s final days, emphasizing Avila Chevalier’s support from New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani and contrasting with the incumbent, Rep. Adriano Espaillat, as tougher against US Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

Justice Democrats said in a statement that Avila Chevalier would not have won “without the support of American Priorities.”

American Priorities has spent in eight primaries, including for democratic socialist Chris Rabb for an open House seat in Philadelphia and Durham County Commissioner Nida Allam in her primary challenge to North Carolina Rep. Valerie Foushee. Rabb won while Allam’s race has been American Priorities’ only loss so far, coming after the group spent $1 million backing her.

The group made a late play in Tuesday’s Colorado primaries, spending $150,000 on TV ads boosting Kiros in the final week.

Justice Democrats and American Priorities are part of a constellation of groups that are working more closely after 2024 to combat AIPAC, also including Sen. Bernie Sanders’ political team and the Institute for Middle East Understanding Policy Project. Amira Hassan, political director for a new PAC affiliated with the policy project, said “one of the big lessons in this cycle is it takes all of us being on the same page and being highly, highly in coordination.”

American Priorities, however, has stood out for its money.

The super PAC’s top donors, at $1 million apiece, have been Omer Hassan and Mohammad Waqas Javed. Little is publicly known about them, and the information they have provided the FEC is minimal: Waqas identifies as a resident of New York City and the CEO of Showcase Commerce Inc. – a company with little public footprint – while Hassan identifies as a retiree from Redwood City, California.

Both were also top donors to a super PAC that supported Mamdani’s 2025 mayoral campaign, giving about $250,000 each.

Neither donor responded to requests for comment. But a person close to American Priorities, speaking on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to publicly discuss its donors, said many of its contributors weren’t very politically active until Mamdani’s campaign, which was the “moment that inspired them and brought them into the fold.” Emboldened by Mamdani’s win, they began strategizing about how to influence the party nationally on the issue of Palestinian human rights.

They also want to show the Democratic Party should not take Muslims for granted, the person said.

“Part of it’s Palestine, part of it’s countering AIPAC, but it’s also about giving a long-overlooked community, which is critical to any Democratic majority, a real voice in our politics,” the person said.

American Priorities has spent the most so far in the Democratic primary for New Jersey’s 12th District, where it backed Adam Hamawy, a plastic surgeon who volunteered at a Gaza hospital during the war. Hamawy started the primary as a political unknown, but after $1.6 million in spending from American Priorities, he finished ahead of a dozen other candidates and is now likely headed to Congress because the district heavily favors Democrats in November.

American Priorities ran ads that highlighted Hamawy’s medical background, including in Gaza, and his support from Sanders, who said in one spot that Hamawy has “the guts to stand up to the political establishment.”

“American Priorities was extremely helpful in this election,” said Vincent Vertuccio, a senior strategist for Hamawy’s campaign. “It was a really pleasant surprise and something that we’re really glad to see.”

Hamawy served as a defense witness in the trial of Omar Abdel-Rahman, a blind cleric who was convicted of seditious conspiracy in a case related to the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. Hamawy’s campaign has said he condemns Abdel-Rahman’s actions and rhetoric, saying Hamawy knew the cleric before his arrest as part of a closeknit Muslim community in New Jersey.

The runner-up in Hamawy’s primary, East Brunswick Mayor Brad Cohen, is a self-described AIPAC member who was open in his support for Israel but said the party should focus on issues more important to voters on a daily basis. He said he was “disappointed” AIPAC did not spend in the primary, calling it a “race where their influence would’ve mattered.”

“I could not nearly have competed on that level” with American Priorities, Cohen said. “(Hamawy) was everywhere.”

Dorton, the spokesman for the United Democracy Project, declined to comment.

Growing scrutiny

Cohen and other candidates who have gone up against candidates backed by American Priorities argue its spending flies in the face of long-running progressive promises to rid politics of big money.

After the group started spending in the primary for Valdez in New York’s 7th Congressional District, two other candidates – Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso and City Councilwoman Julie Won – issued a joint statement accusing Valdez of breaking a pledge to reject super PAC support. “The hypocrisy is staggering,” they said.

Vertuccio said that campaign finance reform is still progressives’ “north star,” but they “have an obligation to use every tool at our disposal to win” in the meantime.

Critics of American Priorities have also increasingly focused on one of the group’s donors, Texas businessman Hussein “Sam” Mahrouq, because in addition to giving the group $625,000, Mahrouq also donated $125,000 in 2024 to his state’s top two Republican leaders, Gov. Greg Abbott and Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick. Won and Reynoso said Valdez was “benefiting from a super PAC funded by a MAGA Republican megadonor.” Espaillat alluded to Mahrouq multiple times in debates against Avila Chevalier.

Avila Chevalier, speaking in one of those debates, said she did not know about American Priorities’ spending until she read about it in The New York Times. But she said it did not surprise her.

“It makes sense that there are Democratic donors out there, who, just like Democratic voters, want to fight back against AIPAC and its influence over our democracy,” she said.

Mahrouq is an auto industry entrepreneur who has said he was born in a Palestinian refugee camp in Jordan. In response to a list of questions over email, he called himself an “independent businessman” whose political giving is guided by beliefs including “a US foreign policy in the Middle East that respects the dignity of all people in the region.”

“I understand people may try to read contributions through a partisan lens, but that’s never been my approach – I support people, not parties, and over the years I’ve backed leaders from different backgrounds whose values I believed would strengthen the great state of Texas and our country,” he said.

Krieg, the American Priorities spokesperson, downplayed the idea that the super PAC was beholden to any single donor. He said the group “raises from a pool of people – there’s no billionaire dictating decisions here – so there’s real variety in who’s involved.”

American Priorities declined to say which primaries it is targeting next. But many in the anti-AIPAC movement are looking ahead to Bush’s primary in Missouri against Rep. Wesley Bell, who defeated her in 2024, and the primary for Senate in Michigan. Both are on August 4.

In Michigan, AIPAC’s super PAC has already spent over $7 million boosting Rep. Haley Stevens against Abdul El-Sayed, the former Detroit public health director. El-Sayed is a vocal critic of Israel who has touted himself as “dangerous” to AIPAC.

Krieg said the circumstances in Michigan make it “exactly the kind of place a group like ours ends up mattering.”

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