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

THE SCENE

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.

KNOW MORE

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.”

DAVID’S VIEW

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 under attack.

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.”

ROOM FOR DISAGREEMENT

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.”

THE VIEW FROM PROGRESSIVES

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.”

THE VIEW FROM DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY FOR ISRAEL

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.

NOTABLE

• 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.”

Arizona. The conservative majority on the state supreme court upheld a near-total abortion ban that predates Arizona’s admission to the union. The decision sent Republicans scrambling, from ex-Gov. Doug Ducey, who appointed the four justices in the majority and expanded the court to add them, to U.S. Senate candidate Kari Lake. She quickly called on the GOP legislature and Gov. Katie Hobbs to pass a new law with exceptions; before the Dobbs decision, Lake had praised the 1864 abortion ban as a “great law,” a position that Democrats threw back at her on Tuesday. Arizona pro-choice activists said last month that they have enough signatures to put an amendment on the November ballot that would create a “fundamental right” to abortion.

Nebraska. Conservatives who want the state to switch to a winner-take-all electoral vote will rally tonight in Omaha, where Turning Point Action’s Charlie Kirk will team up with local Republicans. On the Tuesday episode of his podcast, Kirk said he’d spoken with Gov. Jim Pillen’s staff for 30 minutes that morning, and “they told me they’re 100% focused on getting winner-take-all done.” The time to get it done in the regular legislative session was over, and passing it before November would “require a special session.” According to the Nebraska Examiner, Donald Trump personally lobbied a state senator to back the change, though both the senator and the Trump campaign denied it.

George Latimer for Congress, “Real Progressive Results.” Two months out from his primary with Rep. Bowman, Latimer is running his first TV spot, reserving $235,000 worth of pricey New York airtime. Bowman isn’t mentioned at all, and Latimer cites his Westchester County record of “real progressive results” to suggest that their safe Democratic seat simply doesn’t have an effective congressman who fights “MAGA extremists.”

United Democracy Project, “Read It Here.” In Democratic primaries, pro-Israel groups often run ads on unrelated issues that may move more votes. In Republican primaries, support for Israel is a supermajority issue, and ex-Rep. John Hostettler cast sometimes lonely votes against funding for Israel before he lost his seat in 2006. Here, AIPAC’s super PAC calls Hostettler “one of the most anti-Israel politicians in America,” and the Republican Jewish Coalition is reserving its own ad time to attack him.

Biden for President, “Willow’s Box.” Within minutes of Trump updating his abortion answer — more about that below — the Biden campaign put this spot into its battleground state ad rotation. In 60 seconds, a Texas woman named Amanda Zurawski describes the plan she and her husband had for their baby before she had a life-threatening miscarriage at 18 months and couldn’t legally treat it with an abortion. The message in black and white: “Trump did this.”

There are polls that fit into the average, and match what campaigns are seeing in their own numbers; and then, there are outliers. No other pollster has seen what F&M, a long-lived Pennsylvania pollster, is seeing right now. Since February, the Senate race has gotten closer, and Biden is no more popular, with 52% of Pennylvanians rating his job performance as “poor.” But Trump is underwater, too, with 60% of voters viewing him unfavorably, and the people who dislike both candidates are swinging wildly in F&M’s data. This is the reason Democrats are spending so much time and effort to discredit Robert F. Kennedy Jr. with 2020 Biden voters. (In 2020, F&M’s final poll found Biden at 50% in Pennsylvania, which was where he ended up.)

To forgive as much student debt as legally possible, the Biden administration has made innovative use of existing federal programs — an end-run around the Supreme Court, which sided with Republicans and struck down his first forgiveness program. (“The Supreme Court blocked us, but that didn’t stop us,” Biden said in Wisconsin this week.) Republicans have portrayed that as an abuse of power that would make it hard for Democrats to protest if Trump acted against court orders. And at the moment, Republican voters are theoretically more supportive of unilateral executive action. By a 5-point margin, more of them say that it’s a “good thing” for any president. Asked whether it would be good for Trump to take unilateral action, 57% of Republicans say yes; just 39% of Democrats say it’s a good idea for Biden.

Republican businessman and veteran Tim Sheehy bought his first TV ads last summer, when he was trying (ultimately successfully) to discourage Rep. Matt Rosendale from running. Democrats went on the air weeks later, hoping to goad Rosendale into the race and to define Sheehy early. But Rosendale opted out, and Montana’s voters have shifted toward the GOP since 2018, when Tester won his current term. The increasingly better-known Sheehy is already polling better versus Tester than his previous opponents, and only trails with female voters by 3 points, despite the early Democratic focus on abortion rights. The poll was conducted before a Washington Post investigation into whether Sheehy was misleading people about an injury he’d claimed to have gotten in Afghanistan.

Pete Buttigieg, U.S. Secretary of Transportation; Ali Zaidi, White House National Climate Advisor; Gretchen Watkins, Shell USA President, Mexico’s Finance Minister Rogelio Ramírez de la O; José Muñoz, President & COO, Hyundai Motor Company and Rep. Steny Hoyer (D) Maryland; Chair, Regional Leadership Council will participate in the Future of Mobility Session at the 2024 World Economy Summit. The discussion will revolve around how the world is accelerating towards a faster, greener, and more convenient transportation future while addressing supply chain complications, geopolitical tensions, and regulatory hurdles.

April 17 | 2:30 p.m.-5:30 p.m. ET | Washington, D.C.

White House. Early Monday morning, Trump released a four-and-a-half minute video statement on his new, unenlightening abortion stance: No new federal law, leaving it up to each state to determine its limits “by vote or legislation or perhaps both.”

Trump ended his months-long flirtation with a 15-week or 16-week federal ban, musing to a friendly radio interviewer last month that “even the hard-liners” were agreeing on it. Those hard-liners blistered him on Monday — “not sufficient,” according to Catholic Vote, and “deeply disappoint[ing],” according to Susan B. Anthony Pro-Life America, which had spent the primary season asking candidates to commit to a 15-week ban. Both groups maintained that Trump was the only option for anti-abortion voters in November. On Truth Social, as Mike Pence accused Trump of delivering a “slap in the face” to the movement, Trump defended himself and said the movement had embraced losing politics.

“We had a Great Victory, it’s back in the States where it belongs, and where everyone wanted it,” he wrote. “Republicans are now free to run for Office based on the Horrible Border, Inflation, Bad Economy, and the Death & Destruction of our Country!”

The Biden campaign focused on how little Trump had actually said, with the president accusing his opponent of “scrambling” on a tough issue. Trump, the campaign noted, hadn’t taken a position on the Florida amendment that would limit abortion after 24 weeks of pregnancy, and hadn’t said whether he agrees with conservative operatives who want a second Trump administration to bar medication abortion.

House. California will hold its first three-way House election since 2010, after Santa Clara County Supervisor Joe Simitian and state Assemblyman Evan Low tied for second place in the race to replace Rep. Anna Eshoo. Both men are Democrats, like front-place finisher and former San Jose Mayor Sam Liccardo; no Republican made the general election in the 16th Congressional District, which Biden carried by 53 points. Both Low and Simitian ended the count with 30,249 votes, neither asked for a recount, and state law doesn’t allow for a tie-breaker.

In Wisconsin, Trump endorsed Dino Stop gas station owner Tony Wied to replace retiring 8th Congressional District Rep. Mike Gallagher, and urged former state Sen. Roger Roth to quit the race — some vengeance for Roth being slow to endorse him this year. (“I will win this race and help win Wisconsin for Donald Trump this November,” Roth said in a statement.) In New Hampshire, retiring Rep. Annie Kuster endorsed Colin Van Ostern, her former campaign manager and a failed 2016 gubernatorial candidate, to succeed her in the September Democratic primary.

• 14 days until primaries in Pennsylvania
• 97 days until the Republican National Convention
• 132 days until the Democratic National Convention
• 216 days until the 2024 presidential election