When Money Stops Talking: The Decline of AIPAC and the Transformation of American Politics
By Matthew Parish
Monday 9 November 2026
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee has spent more than seven decades cultivating influence in Washington. The American midterm elections of November 2026 suggest that one of the most powerful lobbying organisations in the United States may be approaching the end of an extraordinary period of political dominance. Its predicament reveals something fundamental about the changing relationship between American democracy, Israel and the wider Middle East.
In American politics, money has traditionally been regarded as the most reliable means of purchasing influence, although nobody is supposed to describe the process quite so candidly. Political action committees, wealthy donors and lobbying organisations have developed a sophisticated system for ensuring that elected representatives understand which positions are financially advantageous and which might result in an unpleasantly expensive election campaign. For decades, few organisations mastered this system more effectively than the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, universally known as AIPAC. Yet the American midterm elections of 3 November 2026 have revealed the limitations of financial power when the political opinions of the electorate begin moving decisively in another direction.
AIPAC has not collapsed, nor has the American political establishment suddenly abandoned Israel. The organisation retains considerable resources, extensive relationships with members of Congress and an institutional apparatus that has taken generations to construct. Nevertheless, the results of the midterms suggest something that would once have seemed inconceivable: a candidate can now openly challenge the conventional American consensus on Israel, attract the hostility of AIPAC, face tens of millions of dollars in advertising expenditure and still win. Indeed, in certain circumstances, opposition from AIPAC may now constitute something approaching an electoral advantage. This is a profound reversal in the political fortunes of an organisation whose influence was traditionally measured not merely by the politicians it supported but by the politicians who were frightened of opposing it.
To understand how this transformation has occurred, it is necessary to revisit the origins of AIPAC, which lie in the geopolitical upheavals following the Second World War. The establishment of the State of Israel in 1948 created an entirely new set of foreign policy questions for the United States. American sympathy for the Jewish people in the aftermath of the Holocaust was substantial, but sympathy did not automatically translate into an unconditional strategic partnership. The American State Department was concerned about relations with Arab states, access to Middle Eastern oil and the emerging competition with the Soviet Union. Israel, meanwhile, was a small and militarily vulnerable state seeking international recognition, economic assistance and the political protection of the world's most powerful democracy.
The principal architect of what became AIPAC was Isaiah L. Kenen, an American journalist and lawyer who had worked as a spokesman for Israel's representatives in the United States. Kenen understood that American foreign policy was not formulated exclusively by the President or the State Department. Congress possessed considerable authority over foreign assistance, appropriations and the political legitimacy of American commitments overseas. If the executive branch could be reluctant to support Israel, sympathetic members of Congress might be persuaded to exert pressure upon it. This apparently elementary observation became the foundation of one of the most successful lobbying operations in modern American history.
The immediate circumstances surrounding AIPAC's creation were considerably less romantic than subsequent accounts of unshakeable American-Israeli friendship might suggest. In 1953, Israeli military operations against the West Bank village of Qibya, in which more than sixty Palestinians were killed, provoked international condemnation and strained Israel's relations with Washington. American officials were also challenging Israeli policies concerning borders and water resources. In response to these diplomatic difficulties, Kenen and his associates concluded that support for Israel required a permanent and professionally organised American political constituency. The American Zionist Committee for Public Affairs was formally established in 1954, providing the institutional ancestor of modern AIPAC.
In 1959, the organisation adopted the name American Israel Public Affairs Committee, reflecting its ambition to cultivate support beyond those who explicitly identified with political Zionism. Its strategy was not to present itself as an arm of the Israeli government but as an American organisation advocating policies favourable to Israel. AIPAC continues to describe itself as an American-funded organisation governed by American citizens rather than a representative of the Israeli state. This distinction matters because lobbying Congress on behalf of a foreign policy position is entirely legitimate under American law, even when that position concerns the interests of another country. AIPAC's influence should therefore be understood primarily through the ordinary, albeit frequently troubling, mechanisms of American political finance and institutional lobbying, rather than through conspiratorial explanations about hidden control of American democracy.
The organisation's influence increased substantially following the Six-Day War of 1967 and the Yom Kippur War of 1973. Israel came increasingly to be regarded as a strategic American partner in a Middle East where Soviet influence was growing. American military assistance expanded, intelligence cooperation deepened and Israeli military capabilities became integrated into the wider geopolitical confrontation between Washington and Moscow. AIPAC was well positioned to argue that supporting Israel was not merely a moral obligation arising from the Holocaust but an essential component of American national security. The distinction proved enormously important because it transformed the relationship from an emotional commitment into something resembling a permanent strategic doctrine.
By the 1980s, AIPAC had become a formidable Washington institution. Its representatives cultivated members of Congress from both parties, organised supporters throughout the United States and encouraged substantial political contributions from individuals sympathetic to its objectives. The organisation's success depended upon its reputation for bipartisanship. Republican and Democratic politicians could disagree about taxation, social welfare, abortion and virtually every other issue in American political life while nevertheless appearing on the same platform to reaffirm their support for Israel. The relationship was so deeply embedded that disagreement over Israeli policy increasingly carried a political risk disproportionate to the immediate importance of the issue being debated.
The electoral defeat of Republican Senator Charles Percy in Illinois in 1984 became an especially powerful symbol of AIPAC's political reach. Percy had attracted criticism from pro-Israel activists for aspects of his Middle Eastern foreign policy positions, and substantial contributions flowed towards his opponent. Although AIPAC itself did not operate the direct campaign-financing machinery that it subsequently established, the episode reinforced the impression that the organised pro-Israel political network could help terminate the career of a senior American politician. Whether this interpretation exaggerated the organisation's actual responsibility for Percy's defeat mattered less than the psychological consequences. Washington is a city in which politicians are exceptionally attentive to the misfortunes of their colleagues.
Nevertheless, AIPAC was never omnipotent. President George H. W. Bush confronted pro-Israel lobbying pressure in 1991 over American loan guarantees for Israel, insisting that the question be considered in the context of Israeli settlement policies and the wider peace process. The confrontation demonstrated that an American President could resist organised lobbying when sufficiently determined. Another significant defeat followed in 2015, when AIPAC opposed the nuclear agreement negotiated between the Obama administration, Iran and other international powers. Despite an intensive lobbying campaign, the agreement survived congressional opposition. These episodes revealed the difference between having extensive political influence and possessing an absolute veto over American foreign policy.
The deeper difficulty for AIPAC emerged from the increasing politicisation of the American relationship with Israel itself. Benjamin Netanyahu developed particularly close relationships with Republican politicians and conservative American constituencies, while differences between successive Israeli governments and the Democratic Party became increasingly conspicuous. The creation of J Street in 2008, a liberal American organisation supporting Israel's security while advocating diplomacy and Palestinian self-determination, demonstrated that AIPAC could no longer plausibly present its preferred policies as the only legitimate expression of American Jewish opinion. The American Jewish community was itself becoming more visibly divided over Israeli settlements, Palestinian rights and the conduct of Israeli governments. AIPAC's traditional claim to represent an overwhelming bipartisan consensus was becoming progressively harder to sustain.
Curiously, AIPAC responded to these developments by increasing its direct electoral intervention. In December 2021, it established a conventional political action committee and the United Democracy Project, a super PAC capable of raising and spending unlimited funds independently of candidates. The distinction is important. A conventional PAC operates under contribution limits and can support candidates directly, whereas a super PAC may spend enormous sums supporting or opposing candidates but cannot legally coordinate its independent expenditures with their campaigns. The new arrangements transformed an organisation principally associated with lobbying into a substantially more aggressive participant in electoral competition.
Initially, the strategy appeared successful. During the 2022 and 2024 election cycles, AIPAC-associated spending played important roles in several Democratic congressional primaries. In 2024, Jamaal Bowman of New York and Cori Bush of Missouri, both prominent critics of Israeli government policy, lost primary contests in which AIPAC's super PAC invested heavily against them. These victories appeared to confirm that sufficiently concentrated financial expenditure could punish politicians who departed from the established pro-Israel consensus. Yet they also exposed the organisation to a new form of political resistance. Candidates increasingly began advertising their refusal to accept AIPAC money as evidence of independence from wealthy donors and foreign policy pressure groups.
The November 2026 midterms have demonstrated how dramatically the political environment has changed. According to an analysis published by Responsible Statecraft, AIPAC's United Democracy Project and associated political committees spent approximately $84.1 million on races that had been decided when the analysis was undertaken. Approximately $55.3 million of that expenditure was directed towards contests in which the organisation's preferred candidate ultimately lost. In other words, almost two-thirds of the money examined in that analysis was associated with unsuccessful electoral outcomes. This compares unfavourably with the considerably stronger results achieved by its super PAC in the 2022 and 2024 cycles, although such figures measure the outcomes of spending rather than proving precisely how much effect the expenditure had upon individual voters.
The most striking example was Michigan, where Abdul El-Sayed, a Democrat and outspoken critic of American military support for Israel, secured election to the United States Senate. AIPAC-associated expenditure intended to prevent his victories in the Democratic primary and subsequent general election amounted to more than $30 million through the United Democracy Project alone. El-Sayed nevertheless prevailed, becoming the first Muslim elected to the Senate. His campaign combined criticism of American policy towards Israel with domestic concerns about healthcare, economic inequality and the influence of wealthy interests upon American democracy. The result was particularly significant because Michigan is a politically competitive state rather than an overwhelmingly progressive constituency in which opposition to Israeli government policy might be expected to attract little controversy.
Other defeats reinforced the pattern. In Illinois, Daniel Biss overcame a heavily financed effort favouring a rival candidate for the Democratic nomination in the ninth congressional district. AIPAC-associated expenditure also failed to achieve its preferred results in other important contests, including an Illinois seventh district primary and a California special election. The organisation did achieve successes, including Adrian Boafo's Democratic primary victory in Maryland and Wesley Bell's defeat of Cori Bush in Missouri. The appropriate conclusion is not that its money had become worthless but that it could no longer depend upon achieving its intended results by spending exceptionally large sums. The deterrent effect upon candidates contemplating disagreement with AIPAC was therefore substantially diminished.
AIPAC understandably disputes the suggestion that its political influence has collapsed. Following the elections, the organisation declared that more than 234 candidates supported by its members had already won, while congratulating Democratic congressional leaders Chuck Schumer and Hakeem Jeffries. It would be foolish to dismiss this argument entirely. Many politicians supported by pro-Israel donors continue to occupy powerful positions in Congress, and numerous candidates sympathetic to Israel were elected without serious difficulty. But there is a substantial difference between supporting politicians who would probably have won anyway and demonstrating the ability to defeat determined opponents in competitive races. It is the second of these propositions upon which AIPAC's intimidating political reputation has traditionally depended.
Indeed, the organisation had already announced an extraordinary tactical retreat before Americans went to the polls. On 21 October 2026, AIPAC disclosed that its conventional PAC would cease issuing formal candidate endorsements, making direct contributions and publicly identifying individual donations as earmarked through its organisation. Its super PAC would continue operating, and supporters would remain free to finance sympathetic candidates directly. AIPAC characterised the decision as an evolution towards more effective political engagement. Critics suggested that the organisation was attempting to reduce the increasingly negative associations attached to its name. Both interpretations may contain some truth, but the timing was unmistakable: a lobbying organisation once regarded as a valuable source of electoral endorsement had concluded that the visibility of its support could sometimes be politically counterproductive.
The most important explanation lies beyond campaign finance. American public opinion towards Israel has undergone a substantial transformation following the Hamas attacks of 7 October 2023, the subsequent devastation of Gaza and the prolonged conflicts involving Israel and Iran. The enormous Palestinian civilian death toll, the destruction of civilian infrastructure and allegations of serious violations of international humanitarian law have generated growing American unease about unconditional military assistance. Israel maintains that its military operations are necessary to protect its population against armed organisations and hostile regional powers, while the circumstances of particular military actions remain fiercely contested. Yet the political consequences within the United States are unmistakable. Many Americans who once regarded Israel as a vulnerable democratic ally now increasingly question whether American foreign policy has become too closely associated with military operations over which Washington exercises insufficient control.
The statistical evidence is particularly revealing. A Gallup survey published in February 2026 found that 41 per cent of Americans expressed greater sympathy for Palestinians, compared with 36 per cent who sympathised more with Israelis. Although the difference was within the survey's margin of error, the result represented a remarkable departure from the substantial preference for Israel recorded over the preceding two decades. Among Democrats, 65 per cent expressed greater sympathy for Palestinians and only 17 per cent for Israelis. Republicans remained overwhelmingly more sympathetic to Israel, but the profound differences between the parties suggested that AIPAC's most valuable historical asset, its ability to cultivate a unified national consensus, was disappearing.
It is equally important to distinguish American Jewish opinion from the policies advocated by AIPAC. A September 2026 survey by the Jewish Electorate Institute found that a large majority of American Jews continued to identify as pro-Israel, but that most also expressed criticism of at least some Israeli government policies. Attitudes towards AIPAC itself were divided. Many American Jews regard the security of Israel as a deeply important commitment while opposing Netanyahu, settlement expansion or particular military operations. Others support a more forceful Israeli security policy, while some reject Zionism altogether. To treat American Jews as a single political constituency represented by AIPAC would therefore be both empirically inaccurate and intellectually indefensible. Criticism of a lobbying organisation's policies or electoral expenditures is legitimate democratic argument; collective accusations against Jewish Americans are something entirely different.
The American war against Iran has added another dimension to this political transformation. The conflict, which began in February 2026, has imposed substantial costs upon American taxpayers and contributed to rising energy prices, placing the Trump administration under severe domestic pressure. Republicans consequently suffered electoral losses for reasons extending well beyond Israel, including inflation, healthcare, economic insecurity and dissatisfaction with the administration's wider conduct. Nevertheless, Vice President JD Vance acknowledged after the midterms that the war had been a significant factor in the Republican defeat. For a growing number of Americans, the question is no longer merely whether Israel deserves American support but whether Washington's regional commitments have drawn the United States into conflicts contrary to its own immediate interests.
This change has created difficulties on both sides of the American political spectrum. Progressive Democrats increasingly demand restrictions upon military assistance to Israel and greater recognition of Palestinian national aspirations. Meanwhile, elements of the Republican movement, particularly those committed to the principle of avoiding foreign military entanglements, are beginning to question whether the traditional American relationship with Israel is compatible with their interpretation of national interest. These constituencies disagree profoundly about most other political questions, but they have begun approaching the same fundamental issue from opposite directions. Their shared concern is whether American governments should be prepared to subordinate domestic priorities or independent strategic judgements to commitments in the Middle East.
Donald Trump's election-day suggestion that the United States might discontinue its approximately $3.8 billion in annual military assistance to Israel after 2026 illustrated the political sensitivity of the subject. The existing bilateral assistance agreement runs through the 2028 financial year, and Trump's remarks offered little clarity about how the arrangement would be terminated or replaced. He also suggested that weapons sales and other forms of cooperation would continue. Nevertheless, a Republican President publicly discussing the cessation of routine military assistance to Israel during an election campaign would have been an extraordinary political development only a few years earlier. What matters is not whether the proposed change is ultimately implemented but that the President evidently considered the announcement politically advantageous.
For Israel, the potential consequences are considerable. American military assistance is important, but the diplomatic protection provided by Washington has often been even more valuable. The United States has repeatedly used its influence within international institutions to shield Israel from measures it regarded as disproportionate or prejudicial, while Congress has maintained extensive arrangements for military cooperation and technological development. A substantial decline in political support could eventually translate into greater scrutiny of arms transfers, conditions attached to assistance and a less automatic willingness to defend Israeli government policies. The incoming Democratic Congress will possess opportunities for investigations, hearings and legislative initiatives, although President Trump retains the constitutional authority to veto legislation and substantial institutional constraints upon abrupt changes in foreign policy will remain.
The consequences extend beyond the bilateral relationship between Washington and Jerusalem. The United States has traditionally sought to reconcile its support for Israel with its relationships with Arab states, its commitment to international law and its wider strategic interests. That balancing exercise becomes increasingly difficult when domestic American opinion no longer regards support for Israeli government policies as a largely uncontroversial matter. AIPAC's declining electoral effectiveness may consequently be an early symptom of a wider reassessment of American involvement in the Middle East. Such a reassessment need not entail hostility towards Israel or indifference towards its security. It may instead produce a relationship in which American support is more explicitly conditional upon shared strategic interests and compliance with international obligations.
There is also a lesson here for Ukraine. American foreign assistance, whether directed towards Ukraine, Israel or any other country, ultimately depends upon the consent of American democratic institutions and their electorate. No foreign government can assume that its historical relationship with Washington will indefinitely protect it from changes in American public opinion. Ukraine's case for continued American support rests upon the defence of its sovereignty against Russian aggression and upon the wider European security consequences of allowing territorial conquest to succeed. That case must be argued continually on its merits, rather than resting upon the assumption that historical commitments or lobbying organisations can permanently insulate American foreign policy from democratic scrutiny. Nor should the suffering of Ukrainian civilians be used to minimise the suffering of civilians elsewhere.
The deeper question, however, concerns the relationship between money and political legitimacy. AIPAC became powerful because it developed its lobbying activities in an environment where American politicians and much of the electorate already regarded Israel favourably. Its financial resources amplified an existing consensus. When that consensus began to fracture, the same resources became less effective and sometimes actively counterproductive. Political advertising can influence perceptions, but it cannot indefinitely manufacture public agreement where voters have developed deeply held objections to the policies being defended. Indeed, particularly aggressive expenditure may persuade voters that an organisation is attempting to silence democratic disagreement rather than participate in it.
AIPAC will almost certainly survive the 2026 elections. It possesses sufficient money, institutional expertise and political relationships to remain an important participant in American foreign policy debates for years to come. It may adapt its electoral strategy, cultivate new allies or seek to rebuild a more genuinely bipartisan constituency for American-Israeli cooperation. Its traditional influence may also recover if Israeli policy changes, regional conflicts subside or American public opinion shifts again. Political history rarely proceeds in a straight line, and any prediction that a wealthy and deeply embedded Washington institution has permanently lost its influence would be premature.
Nevertheless, something important has changed. For much of its history, AIPAC's greatest achievement was persuading American politicians that opposition to its preferred policies carried an unacceptable electoral risk. The November 2026 midterms have demonstrated that the calculation is no longer so straightforward. A new generation of politicians has discovered that the organisation can be challenged, that its enormous financial resources do not guarantee victory and that voters may reward rather than punish independence from its political preferences. The extraordinary dominance of AIPAC was built upon the interaction of money, institutional influence and public consent. The first two remain substantially intact, but the third is becoming less reliable.
There is an enduring irony in this development. AIPAC spent seven decades becoming indispensable to the established machinery of American politics, only to discover that the machinery itself is changing. In Washington, money still talks, and it will undoubtedly continue talking for the foreseeable future. But after the American midterm elections of November 2026, an increasing number of voters appear to have decided that they are under no obligation to listen.
