Could AIPAC faceplant in Illinois?

IN THIS EDITION

What does $21M get AIPAC in Illinois?

The fraught path for Iran war funding

Senators prepare for ‘drawn-out’ debate over SAVE Act

NRCC chair to show new Hispanic voter data

THE TOP

What does $21M get AIPAC in Illinois?

Happy Tuesday morning. And happy St. Patrick’s Day.

More than $21 million.

That’s what AIPAC and a cadre of affiliated groups have pumped into four open Illinois congressional races with the hopes of installing a slew of pro-Israel Democrats in safe blue seats.

Tonight we’ll see just what that money bought.

AIPAC faces a reckoning in Democratic primaries on Tuesday. The nation’s largest pro-Israel organization is scrambling to regain its footing with a bloc of voters that has grown wary of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Israel’s actions in Gaza.

This is the high-profile group’s first chance to pivot after its botched strategy in the special election in New Jersey’s 11th District. In that case, AIPAC’s super PAC opened up a path to victory for a candidate strongly critical of Israel.

In Illinois, AIPAC formed new outside groups with anodyne names to temper any potential backlash and obscure their intentions from rivals, according to sources familiar with the group’s plans.

Yet AIPAC could very well end up electing just one of its four preferred candidates today. Plus, it’s had to be willing to course correct. When AIPAC and its allies couldn’t propel a preferred candidate to victory in an Illinois race, it changed strategy and settled for blocking the candidates it preferred least, per a source close to the group.

Ground Zero. Illinois’ 9th District is the perfect encapsulation of the limits of AIPAC’s financial muscle.

Elect Chicago Women, a new super PAC tied to AIPAC, started out trying to boost state Sen. Laura Fine and bash Evanston, Ill., Mayor Daniel Biss.

But then polling showed Fine trailing far behind Biss as Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian American far more critical of Israel, surged in support. At that point, another AIPAC affiliate, Chicago Progressive Partnership, began to attack Abughazaleh.

”They’re panicking because they realized that they didn’t learn a lesson from New Jersey 11,” Abughazaleh told us. “It’s backfired on them because AIPAC is now so unpopular that people don’t want to even be involved with it.”

AIPAC is now signaling they’re OK with Biss’ candidacy, even after spending $1.4 million to oppose him, if the alternative is Abughazaleh.

“I think that AIPAC finds someone like me really scary,” Biss said. “Someone who’s Jewish, someone whose mother is Israeli, someone whose grandparents survived the Holocaust and who is willing to stand up and say, ‘Listen, the conduct of the national government in Gaza has been a horror.’”

The other fields. In the 2nd District seat, vacated by Democratic Rep. Robin Kelly, Affordable Chicago Now — a group with ties to AIPAC — is spending $4.4 million to elevate Donna Miller. Miller, a Cook County commissioner, initially won the support of Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.). But Schakowsky, put off by the AIPAC spending, withdrew her endorsement.

The wild card here is Jesse Jackson Jr., a former House Democrat who’s backed by the artificial intelligence industry. Jackson Jr. was catapulted back into national headlines by the recent death of his father, a legendary civil rights icon with the same name.

A longtime House member, Jackson pleaded guilty in 2013 to illegally diverting $750,000 in campaign funds for personal use. Jackson Jr. spent nearly two years in federal prison before being released in 2015.

In the 7th District, United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s super PAC, spent $5 million helping Chicago Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin and $60,000 hitting Jason Friedman, a onetime AIPAC ally.

The retiring incumbent, Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.), is backing state Rep. La Shawn Ford, who could very well win. Ford has weathered an avalanche of negative advertising from crypto.

And in the 8th District, the front-runner is former Rep. Melissa Bean (D-Ill.), who has support from Elect Chicago Women, the AIPAC-aligned group, as well pro-crypto and pro-AI super PACs.

But AIPAC can also turbocharge the campaigns of those it’s opposing. The AIPAC-affiliated Chicago Progressive Partnership spent nearly $664,000 in recent weeks opposing Junaid Ahmed, who calls Israel’s actions in Gaza a “genocide.”

Ahmed has weaponized AIPAC’s support of Bean and earned endorsements from Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) in the closing weeks of the campaign, dramatically raising his profile.

“All of that, to be very honest, adds lots of legitimacy for a candidate like me who hasn’t held office before,” Ahmed told us.

What’s next? AIPAC burst into the super PAC space in the 2022 cycle, funneling millions of dollars into races with resounding success. That pattern continued into 2024. But it’s a new political reality as Israel’s long, brutal retaliatory campaign against the Palestinians in Gaza enters its third year.

An NBC News poll released Monday showed that 67% of registered Democrats sympathized more with Palestinians, compared to 17% who sympathized more with Israelis. This is a stunning reversal of Israel’s standing with Democrats even a decade ago.

A source close to AIPAC said its focus is now “preventing the six potential Squad members” from winning in the Illinois primaries. That includes Abughazaleh, Ahmed and four other progressive Democrats in the open Illinois seats.

Most of those candidates don’t have a chance of winning. Abughazaleh’s surge could very well have been caused by the negative spending against Biss from the AIPAC-aligned group. If Abughazaleh wins tonight, expect a new round of soul searching for pro-Israel Democrats.

Regardless, AIPAC says it will continue to be heavily involved in Democratic primaries.

“There’s a lot of pro-Israel Democrats, many of them progressive, that want to participate in the Democratic primary process, through votes, through donations, through making sure their voice is not silenced,” said Patrick Dorton, a spokesperson for United Democracy Project, the AIPAC super PAC.

– Ally Mutnick and Max Cohen

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RECONCILIATION 2.0

The fraught path for Iran war funding

The war in Iran has intensified Republicans’ long-simmering debate over whether to pass another party-line spending package using the budget reconciliation process.

Truth be told, reconciliation might be the Trump administration’s only hope to get more funding for the military campaign against Iran and backfill munitions stockpiles that the U.S. military is running through quickly amid a new hot war in the Middle East. But there are potentially insurmountable hurdles given GOP divisions.

Speaker Mike Johnson, who supported reconciliation 2.0 long before the Iran conflict began, told us on Monday that Iran-related funding could be part of that package. Yet many Republicans — including Senate Majority Leader John Thune — have been cool to the idea.

“Reconciliation is complicated and has to be paid for. And I think that would be difficult,” Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.) told us. “But that may be the only way we can get there. So I guess I’d be open-minded about it.”

For now, Senate GOP leaders are noncommittal.

“We’ll see what they send us,” Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso said of House Republicans’ reconciliation efforts.

Democratic opposition to funding the Iran war effort — one they see as illegal and unnecessary — makes it virtually impossible to get 60 votes for a supplemental funding bill in the Senate.

The Trump administration has yet to formally ask Congress for more money, but lawmakers expect a request to come very soon. At the same time, plenty of Republicans have said they hope the Iran conflict wraps up in short order, showing an uneasiness with the operational goals and the political fallout.

One challenge for reconciliation 2.0 is the massive pressure within the House Republican Conference to offset the cost of any party-line package — even Iran funding.

Some GOP lawmakers are pitching anti-fraud measures or language codifying President Donald Trump’s tariffs as options to offset new spending. Pay-fors like these could easily make the project unpalatable for moderate Republicans facing tough reelection fights.

Another potential pitfall is that GOP lawmakers of all stripes are likely to push to use the reconciliation effort as a catch-all for unrelated issues.

“I’m open to it,” Sen. Josh Hawley (R-Mo.) said of another reconciliation push.

The Democratic view. Democrats are focusing most of their attention on the economic fallout from the war, including rising gas prices. And they’ve lined up in opposition to new funding for the Iran war by comparing it to domestic priorities they say have been shafted.

“Instead of wasting billions on a foreign war, he should be working with Congress to lower energy costs here at home,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.

Hearing delayed. The House Intelligence Committee delayed its worldwide threats hearing until Thursday at 8:30 a.m. “due to weather impacts on travel.” The session will feature Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard, FBI Director Kash Patel and CIA Director John Ratcliffe.

— Andrew Desiderio, Laura Weiss and Anthony Adragna

THE SENATE

Senators prepare for ‘drawn-out’ debate over SAVE Act

The Senate is expected to begin debating the SAVE America Act later today, putting President Donald Trump’s top legislative priority in the limelight amid GOP in-fighting and a near-certain failed vote.

Senators and aides expect to be working long hours this week and likely into the weekend. GOP leaders are looking to flip the script on their party’s internal divisions by taking the fight to Democrats on a bill requiring ID and proof of citizenship to vote in federal elections.

Senate Majority Leader John Thune is expected to set up a scenario that allows Republicans to largely control the process — including amendment votes — but gives Democrats multiple opportunities to deploy procedural hijinks.

Sen. Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a member of the GOP leadership, told us she expects it to be “long” and “drawn-out.” But senators don’t seem to know much more than that, a reflection of how uncommon this process actually is.

“I was talking to the parliamentarian, I’ve been talking to leadership — like, how does this all go? I don’t think anybody really knows,” Capito said. “We’ll just fight it out and see what happens.”

Senate Majority Whip John Barrasso told reporters that Republicans “will fight [Democrats] all week” in their push for SAVE.

Bring out the Celsius. For messaging bills like this one, the majority leader usually sets up an immediate procedural vote that falls short of 60. That vote will still occur. But Thune is forcing a multi-day debate on the front end, with marathon sessions expected.

The process will allow the bill’s most fervent supporters to hold the floor for as long as they’re able. Many of them, including Sen. Mike Lee (R-Utah), are still pushing for the so-called “talking filibuster,” with the goal of preventing Thune from ultimately ending the debate by filing cloture.

Thune has said there isn’t enough GOP support to sustain a talking filibuster, which requires complete GOP unity against Democratic amendments in order to be successful.

That’s not deterring the bill’s biggest supporters, however.

“Once we’re on this bill, we must stay on it until it’s passed into law,” Lee wrote Monday on X.

On the floor. Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) is pushing a package of amendment votes that reflect what Trump wants to see added to the legislation, including provisions on transgender issues as well as a significant crackdown on mail-in ballots.

But the latter deeply divides Republicans, many of whom disagree with Trump’s long-running crusade against mail-in ballots. Last week, Thune said states use the mail-in ballot process “pretty well” for voters who request them, adding that “ballot harvesting” is the real issue.

We also expect Democrats to force a vote on a war powers resolution for Iran, which will interrupt the SAVE Act debate because such motions are privileged in the chamber. And senators will need to stay close to the floor in case of unexpected procedural motions and quorum calls that Democrats can force.

— Andrew Desiderio, Anthony Adragna and Laura Weiss

THE MAJORITY

NRCC chair to show new Hispanic voter data

News: NRCC Chair Richard Hudson will present the results of a new internal poll of Hispanic voters this morning, one of the largest research projects House Republicans has ever undertaken.

The NRCC conducted regional polls and focus groups among Hispanic voters in 15 battleground seats across the country. The project cost “well into the six figures,” according to a party official, and was aimed at figuring out what messages resonated with Hispanic voters in 2024 and what could bring the group to the ballot box in 2026.

This is a major challenge for the GOP this year.

After months of ICE raids and restrictive immigration policies, President Donald Trump is firmly under water with Hispanic voters, a far cry from 2024. Hill Republicans have publicly backed Trump amid expansive nationwide ICE raids and a wave of deportations.

So you have to use that backdrop in any analysis of the GOP’s 2026 prospects.

But toplines that were notable to us:

Republicans believe the best messages for Hispanic voters include economic opportunity, public safety and “standing up for working families.”

The GOP believes they have an “education gap” on the One Big Beautiful Bill Act and its tax cuts. This is problematic for Republicans since they have banked their entire majority on the tax bill bringing voters of all stripes to the ballot box for their party.

And Hudson will urge Republicans to communicate “consistently” with constituents in English and Spanish.

Money moves. Texas GOP Rep. Lance Gooden is transferring $100,000 to the NRCC. Gooden will announce the transfer at the closed House Republican political meeting this morning.

— Jake Sherman

AND THERE’S MORE

Maine Senate. Maine Democratic Gov. Janet Mills’ campaign is out with a new ad attacking Graham Platner for Reddit posts he made containing inflammatory rhetoric about sexual assault.

Platner apologized for the Reddit posts in October. In interviews, Platner said the posts were made when he was struggling to return to civilian life following his military service in the Middle East. But Platner has also accused his political opponents of applying “an absurd litmus test” to his social media posts.

Ad news. Michigan Families for Fair Care is airing a $500,000 ad buy that features a constituent slamming vulnerable Rep. Tom Barrett (R-Mich.) on tariffs.

Lutnick in California. Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick is in San Jose for a private reception with Nvidia CEO Jensen Huang on the sidelines of the company’s GTC conference Tuesday night. Lutnick will share the stage with Huang and make remarks on artificial intelligence at the closed-door gathering hosted by Nvidia partner companies.

Fed nom latest. Kevin Warsh, President Donald Trump’s pick for Federal Reserve chair, will be back on Capitol Hill today and Wednesday for meetings with senators on his nomination.

— Max Cohen, Diego Areas Munhoz and Laura Weiss

MOMENTS

CLIPS