AIPAC-Linked Super PACs, Pro-Israel Donors Flood Primary to Succeed Angie Craig With More Than $3 Million
Progressive Matt Little is getting hit by a flurry of PACs intervening in a three-way Democratic primary.
Four super PACs with ties to AIPAC and Democratic Majority for Israel have surged into a Minnesota House race in the final months of the campaign, hoping to fend off the latest progressive insurgent.
In the three-way race, one candidate, Matt Klein, is unapologetically supportive of Israel, while two others, Matt Little and Kaela Berg, have been critics to varying degrees. Little, however, has the support of the group A New Policy, which was founded to support pro-Palestinian candidates and lobby Congress against Israeli interests. Another PAC, called American Priorities, which was organized to be a counterweight to AIPAC, has jumped into the race to support Little with a spend of some $60,000.
314 Action, a super PAC ostensibly organized to support scientists and medical professionals, this week reported spending nearly $2.5 million supporting Klein, a staggering amount in a previously sleepy race, given that the PAC has raised just $15 million for the full cycle. (A spokesperson for 314 insists none of the funds have come from AIPAC or its allied organizations.)
In a strategy that has been deployed in other races, the pro-Israel money is boosting Klein, the pro-Israel candidate, while other PACs with ties to AIPAC are boosting the alternative progressive candidate who is trailing in the polls.
The race was reshaped on May 9, when Little won the endorsement of the Minnesota Democratic Farmers and Labor Party. Little released an internal survey conducted between May 18 and 20, which found him well ahead, taking 41% of the vote, with Berg and Klein far behind in a statistical tie for second, with Berg at 13% and Klein at 11%. A little more than a week later, Klein fielded his own poll, which found Little at 26%, only 7 points over Klein’s 19%. Berg was in third with 16%. The largest group of the 403 likely voters surveyed in the poll, 39%, said they “don’t know” who they’d vote for. While Klein’s internal poll demonstrates that Little was firmly the frontrunner in the race two months before election day, it was conducted before the surge in outside spending began.
The congressional seat is being vacated by Democrat Angie Craig, who is running for Senate. The primary is on Tuesday.
Given the numbers, the path to victory for Klein was clear: He needed Little to be brought down by boosting Berg—splitting the vote between the two progressives—and needed big money to get himself past both of them.
On May 1, AIPAC’s super PAC had transferred $350,000 to EDW Action Fund, followed by $100,000 on May 10 and another $400,000 on May 20. EDW did not respond to requests for clarification on why the money was moved and where it was ultimately spent.
EDW Action spent roughly $395,000 supporting Berg between June 26 and August 3. Of the $395,000 burned, $99,999 came directly from EDW and $295,000 came from its sister organization called Pro-Choice Majority Action, a hybrid PAC recently formed on May 1 as a legal affiliate of EDW Action. EDW transferred $626,000 and $100,000 to Pro-Choice Majority Action on May 21 and May 22 respectively, on the two days after receiving the final batch of AIPAC’s $850,000 dump, and sent another $150,000 a week later on May 29, helping to enable Pro-Choice Majority’s ensuing spending.
Moving money between multiple PACs before spending it doesn’t necessarily make it much harder to trace, but it does make it more confusing for voters and local reporters covering the race. AIPAC, for its part, accuses reporters of antisemitism for following AIPAC money through the FEC files toward its final destination. Candidates like Little risk being called conspiracy theorists when they point to the clear source of the money. Indeed, after Drop Site reached out to Berg’s campaign for comment, Berg posted a video on X accusing Little of lying about her and insisting that she doesn’t take AIPAC money: “I never have, and I never will.”
https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/minnesota-primary-aipac-dmfi-super-pacs-matt-little