How a ceasefire-backing progressive scared pro-Israel groups out of her race

PITTSBURGH – To win a safe Democratic seat here in 2022, Rep. Summer Lee had to overcome nearly $4 million in ad spending by AIPAC’s super PAC. Democratic Majority for Israel spent nearly $500,000 more, helping her less-progressive primary opponent come within 978 votes of beating her.

“You have to brace yourself,” Lee said in an interview, reflecting on that race. “You recognize that one interest group is able to completely change the course of a campaign.” And six months ago, when pro-Israel groups said they’d work to beat Democrats who wanted an immediate ceasefire in Gaza, Lee was near the top of their list, telling The New York Times that Israel’s response “look increasingly like a genocide of innocent Gazans.”

But AIPAC and DMFI haven’t spent anything in Pennsylvania’s 12th Congressional District this year. What looked like risky politics in October, when Democrats condemned the tone of some ceasefire protests, is becoming a mainstream position with primary voters.

“Instead of shaming the uncommitted movement and calling them extremists, we need to recognize that the Democratic Party can’t win without this coalition,” Lee said.

The Lee campaign’s polling has mirrored national public polling, with most self-identified Democrats turning on the war since last year. Last week, when Lee signed a letter urging the Biden administration to stop weapon transfers after an IDF strike that killed aid workers, she was joined by Nancy Pelosi.

“Our money is being used to finance a war that is massacring people by the thousands,” said Kipp Dawson, a Jewish civil rights activist in Pittsburgh who supports Lee. “Summer believes that Israel is being empowered by what our government does. I agree with her completely. That’s one reason why she’s come under attack. She and people in Congress who agree with her are opposed by big money that supports the Israeli war right now.”

Lee has pulled some skeptics to her side with constituent work, rallied with the Biden campaign, and scooped up endorsements. That answered one of the most effective attacks against her in 2022 — that she’d undermine Biden and hurt her party. (“Summer Lee attacked Biden’s character,” warned one of UDP’s primary ads.) After looking closely at the race, pro-Israel groups decided that the primary wasn’t winnable. Democrats such as New York Rep. Jamaal Bowman and Missouri Rep. Cori Bush, weakened by scandals totally unrelated to the Gaza issue, looked vulnerable. Lee did not.

Lee’s challenger, suburban city councilmember Bhavini Patel, hasn’t let the ceasefire issue go. She’s gotten air cover from a different super PAC, funded partly by GOP billionaire Jeff Yass, a connection that Lee’s cited to discredit its ads In a televised debate last week, Patel told Lee that she “cannot stand in this community with the heartache and the challenges our Jewish community is facing,” and ripped her for confirming, then canceling, a speech at a Muslim organization’s dinner, after Jewish Insider revealed antisemitic comments by other guests.

“It’s incredibly important that we are sensitive about the language that we use,” Patel said in an interview near her campaign office — and near the Tree of Life Synagogue, where a gunman murdered 11 Jewish worshippers in 2018. (Last month, the Democratic club in the surrounding ward endorsed her.) After the killing of World Central Kitchen workers last week, “my opponent put out a tweet, saying that they targeted — her word — ‘targeted’ humanitarian aid workers.”

Lee’s choices, according to Patel, “really have significant implications for what’s happening here at home, in terms of stoking antisemitism.

But Patel’s positioning, and her criticism of the way Lee talked about Biden and Gaza, hasn’t shaken up this race. On Saturday morning, a dozen staff and volunteers for the progressive group Pennsylvania United met at their headquarters before canvassing for Lee. Several wore “Free Palestine” buttons on their T-shirts, as a group leader told them how the issue was playing out at the doors.

“It hasn’t come up a whole lot,” the volunteer said. “Now, yesterday, we did hear somebody say: ‘Oh, well, I can’t support her, because I just can’t believe that she doesn’t back Israel in the city where the Tree of Life massacre happened.’ And that’s a very heavy issue to deal with.” His advice: Talk about how Lee had “been on the forefront of bringing back money to create a memorial for those victims.”

The story about Democrats and Israel has largely, and understandably, been about whether the war could tear the party apart. The president can’t give a speech without being interrupted by pro-ceasefire protesters; every primary vote for “uncommitted” is covered by the media for its potential to swing the November election to Donald Trump.

But the Democratic base’s fatigue with Israel’s counteroffensive is real, and it’s a factor in Pittsburgh. Of the 13 progressive House Democrats who called for a ceasefire on Oct. 16, three were from Chicago, and none of them broke a sweat to win their primaries last month. Lee, the next Democrat facing this test, has benefitted from incumbency, from changing moods about the war, and from progressive fears that their small bloc in Congress is being targeted.

Progressive donors mobilized quickly around Lee. By the end of 2023, she’d raised $1.4 million; she raised $1.9 million, total, for the 2022 race where she had to fend off millions of dollars from the extended AIPAC universe. (Patel had raised nearly $311,000 by the end of last year.) And the Democratic Party’s shift on Israel has clearly helped her. Lee said that she agreed with Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer’s speech last month, urging Israel to hold new elections, and urging Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to go.

“It really speaks to how obvious the international violations are right now,” she said. “We’re seeing this movement from Democratic politicians who have traditionally been very friendly, and given a lot of grace to Netanyahu’s government.”

Patel had a different response to Schumer: “I think Israel’s an independent democracy, and we should let democracy play out.” What she was hearing from voters, she said, was less about the war’s specifics, and more about whether Lee was “equivocating on her support for Biden.” At her debate with Lee, and in our interview, she wondered why Lee had not condemned the “uncommitted” protest campaign, and whether she could be counted on to help Biden win the election.

Lee told Semafor her support for Biden in November was not in question.

“I recognize that in the general election, my choices will be Biden and Trump, and there is no world in which I’m supporting Trump,” said Lee. “I don’t want that man in control. I think that he is a cult leader.”

Last month, dozens of rabbis in Lee’s district, including Rabbi Jeffrey Myers of the Tree of Life Congregation, signed an open letter that accused Lee of using “divisive rhetoric” that some of them perceived as “antisemitic.”

“We call on you to denounce antisemitism fully and frequently, including returning contributions and declining support from those who have voiced hateful views,” they wrote. “We, like you, want a just and fair end to the hostilities. We believe that the best result will come from open commitments to new behavior, to an end to division, and to a commitment to care for and protect all people. Stand with us, reject the voices of hate, and together we can build the world for which we all pray.”

Pro-Israel groups didn’t mobilize against Lee, but the Working Families Party and other endorsers (the Muslim political group Emgage, Justice Democrats) went on air early to help her. “She is a strong candidate who’s been really successful here,” said Nick Gavio, the mid-Atlantic spokesman for the WFP, who lives in Pittsburgh. “She’s doing events with cabinet secretaries all the time, bringing money home, and people see that.”

Adam Gold, a senior strategist for the WFP National PAC, said Lee’s allies put together their defense plan in February. “We were preparing for a pretty serious attack, like last time, and didn’t want to wait until the last minute,” he said. “We want her to be in Congress, winning for working class people, for a long time. And after this primary, we need to go big for other champions who are facing more pressure.”

Mark Mellman, the founder of DMFI, released polling last week that showed Bowman, the New York Congressman, badly trailing pro-Israel George Latimer in the primary. Some Democrats who’d criticized Israel and called for a ceasefire were vulnerable, he said. Lee didn’t seem to be, and his group opted not to play in her race this cycle, after nearly beating her last time.

“Her Israel position is a significant demerit for pro-Israel voters, but that is not the most salient issue for every voter,” said Mellman.

• In Politico, Nick Reisman and Jason Beeferman cover how “changing views of the war” among New York Democrats have solved some problems for Bowman: “Bowman is trying to turn the support Latimer has received from pro-Israel organizations into a negative by accusing him of being aligned more with Republicans than key Democrats.”
• In the Washington Free Beacon, Collin Anderson writes about how a Lee staffer in Washington built the “Dear White Staffers” account on Instagram, using it to campaign for cutting off aid to Israel, and calling its operation in Gaza a “genocide.”