In a report by AdImpact already $23 million have been spent, and as much as $25 million will be the total spending, by the time the election ends on June 25 for the Democratic Primary in New York’s 16th Congressional District. The vast majority of this money comes from outside mega-donors and Super Pacs to defeat incumbent Congressman Jamaal Bowman. Very little of this cash comes from local constituents, and the top funder is AIPAC’s Super Pac, United Democracy Project, which has already spent $14.5 million to defeat Jamaal Bowman (however, usually not mentioned is that besides its Super Pac money, AIPAC was also able to bundle an additional $2.4 million directly into the campaign of George Latimer). The second big spender is a crypto-currency lobby, “FairShake,” which has spent $2 million, and Democratic Majority for Israel has spent $1 million. In terms of the actual campaign accounts, Bowman has raised $4.3 million to Latimer’s $5.7 million—demonstrating a significantly different story without the super-PAC funding.
The airwaves are saturated with ads at a spending rate of $17,000 per hour of mostly attack ads claiming that Bowman is a “pariah” for not giving total support to President Biden. It is estimated that one of the TV ads titled “Bowman has his own agenda,” has been seen 180 million times. AIPAC is primarily concerned with Bowman’s Israeli policy, yet the ads never mention Israel, except, apparently, a few highly targeted ads on the internet and in mailings.
And while undoubtedly, the Congress and other elected officials are the target, with any hint of an expression of morality on their part to be buried in a wall of money, the biggest target is the increasingly disgruntled but woefully uninformed and intellectually passive American electorate. Many special interest groups are closely watching the AIPAC efforts to see what happens. Does it go the way it is scripted, or has the script been flipped? There are, it appears, some organizations that are working to discredit the AIPAC efforts to intimidate Congress. Senator Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and others are now out in support of Bowman in 72 hours before the election Tuesday, June 25.
