Today is the end of an ugly Democratic primary in Illinois marked by massive spending in U.S. Senate and House races by political action committees tied to three groups not known as stalwart supporters of the Democratic Party: the cryptocurrency industry, the artificial intelligence industry, and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
They are not the first special interest groups seeking to influence an election. And I’m not one to get the vapors every time one tries, as donor networks of most candidates are too diverse to allow a politician to be easily bought. (Franklin Delano Roosevelt got 25 percent of his 1932 campaign dollars from Wall Street, without being converted into a corporate tool.)
But this time, lines are being crossed. Instead of honestly supporting their favored candidates based on how they align with their interests, disguised front groups are disingenuously promoting perceived spoiler candidates while dishonestly tearing down their main nemeses.
The retirement of Senator Dick Durbin sparked a crowded primary, with Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi and Lieutenant Governor Juliana Stratton leading most polls, while Representative Robin Kelly consistently runs third. In the House, Krishnamoorthi has voted for most crypto-friendly legislation and, in turn, has earned an “A” grade from the industry-backed Stand With Crypto PAC. Kelly voted for one industry-favored bill and rejected others, leaving her with a “D.” Stratton is backed by Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, who signed tough state-level crypto regulations into law. She has teed off on “MAGA-backed crypto bros.” She gets an “F.”
Stratton and Kelly are Black women, and a divided Black vote could let Krishnamoorthi win with a plurality, as there is no runoff provision for Illinois’ congressional primaries. So the crypto industry is boosting Kelly with ads from its Fairshake PAC and affiliate groups, which do not make clear that the crypto industry finances them. Punchbowl News reports, “Protect Progress, part of the pro-crypto Fairshake network, has dropped $435,000 on ads that boost Kelly or Krishnamoorthi and attack Stratton. Those ads, at least some of which are running on Black radio stations, use audio of [Barack] Obama praising Kelly and note she is ‘real progressive’ endorsed by the [Congressional Black Caucus].”
Not all of the $10 million Fairshake has spent on taking down Stratton has gone toward propping up Kelly. Some ads attack Stratton directly, but not honestly.
Stratton has sought the left flank on immigration, saying she would “abolish ICE,” and in December criticized Krishnamoorthi for contributions received over several years from an executive at a company that contracts with ICE. (Under fire, Krishnamoorthi donated that money to immigrant rights groups.) Seeking to deny Stratton any edge on immigration, Fairshake is airing a TV ad that says, “Juliana Stratton isn’t being honest about who she is. Fact: Stratton’s massive super PAC is funded by the very contractor running Chicago’s largest ICE detention center.”
The “Super PAC” in question is the Democratic Lieutenant Governors Association, which not only backs Stratton but, shockingly, other Democratic Lieutenant Governors. As Politico reported last month, DLGA received donations from one ICE contractor, CoreCivic, in the previous election cycle—before Trump’s second term. DLGA then told Politico it would be “donating any 2024-2025 contributions from CoreCivic to the National Immigration Law Center, and will no longer accept contributions from them going forward.” Stratton has nothing to do with this, despite Fairshake’s insinuation that she is receiving support from an ICE contractor.
Another gaslighting ad from Fairshake targets Robert Peters, who is running for the 2nd Congressional District left open by Kelly’s Senate campaign. Peters is a state Senator endorsed by Senator Bernie Sanders, who voted for Pritzker’s tough crypto regulation. His chief rival is former Representative Jesse Jackson Jr., who served over a year in prison for illegally using campaign funds and is now openly courting the crypto industry. Fairshake is spending $1 million to defeat Peters, with $500,000 on an ad accusing him of “smearing progressives” without explanation. Further, the ad claims without specifics, but with brain-breaking hypocrisy, that “a dark money super PAC” is “flooding money into the race for Peters.”
Over in Illinois’ 9th Congressional District, where incumbent Representative Jan Schakowsky is retiring, leading to another crowded primary, it’s AIPAC’s disingenuous advertising that has rattled the race. The top candidates are Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss, social media influencer Kat Abughazaleh, and State Senator Laura Fine. Biss supports conditioning aid to Israel. Fine supports unconditional aid. Abughazaleh supports cutting off aid completely.
A group called the Chicago Progressive Partnership is running ads attacking the left-wing Abughazaleh as a conservative, citing two articles she wrote in 2016. (Left unsaid: she wrote them in high school before she embraced the left in college.) Chicago Progressive Partnership is also airing ads boosting a long-shot leftist candidate, Bushra Amiwala, as “the real deal fighting for real economic justice.”
But Chicago Progressive Partnership appears to be an AIPAC front. As reported by The New York Times, “Chicago Progressive Partnership has used vendors also employed by Affordable Chicago Now, according to campaign finance filings, which have ties to groups that work closely with AIPAC.” Meanwhile, another group tied to AIPAC, Elect Chicago Women, is spending money on ads supporting Fine.
Amiwala posted a response on Instagram, charging AIPAC for attempting to “smear my name” and demanding the ad be taken down. Both Amiwala and Abughazaleh argue AIPAC is trying to help both Fine and Biss, while Biss insists AIPAC is only backing Fine. Biss has a point: Elect Chicago Women has run ads accusing Biss of being “willing to say anything to get elected.”
For her part, Fine says she has asked that any groups backing her reveal their donors and lamented to the Times that she’s “kind of hitting a wall” and not getting them to oblige. She added, “I think this is a big problem in our political system. It does a disservice to the electorate.”
Fine is correct. With donor transparency, we would know if Elect Chicago Women and Chicago Progressive Partnership shared the same donors, which would suggest a coordinated operation. (For what it’s worth, we have no reason to believe the crypto PACs and AIPAC are coordinating with each other. In particular, Stratton, while loathed by crypto executives, is supported by 27 AIPAC donors. However, she does not share AIPAC’s position on the Iran war and said she would not vote for supplemental war funding. Krishnamoorthi and Kelly took the same position.)
But considering how difficult it is to separate fact from fiction in today’s media environment, nominal transparency might not be enough to prevent dishonest special interest operations from scrambling future primaries.
Looking ahead to New York’s June 23 primary, a political action committee backed by the artificial intelligence industry, Think Big, is mucking around in the 12th Congressional District, where Representative Jerry Nadler is retiring. As New York Times columnist Michelle Goldberg noted last month, Assemblyman Alex Bores “has made regulating A.I. a centerpiece of his campaign” and that’s put a target on his back. Similar to what Fairshake is trying to do to Stratton, Think Big has an ad claiming that “ICE is powered by Bores’s tech,” because Bores used to work for a technology company that contracts with ICE. However, Goldberg reported that Bores “says he resigned from Palantir over its work with ICE,” a point left out of Think Big’s attacks. (Think Big is also funding some Illinois candidates but according to WBEZ, “a group aligned with AI interests has yet to go negative” in the Land of Lincoln.)
These underhanded tactics may backfire, as we saw happen in last month’s special election in New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, the seat vacated by Mikie Sherrill when she was elected governor. An AIPAC-affiliated group attacked former Representative Tom Malinowski, a longtime supporter of Israel who, considering recent events, had openly pondered conditioning aid to Israel. As with the Illinois attack ads, AIPAC did not emphasize Malinowski’s views on the Middle East but falsely cast him as corrupt and aligned with Trump on immigration. No doubt because a frontal attack would have been as controversial as Israel’s war in Gaza. Malinowski barely lost, but an AIPAC-preferred candidate wasn’t the beneficiary. Instead, a far more liberal candidate than the district usually sends to Congress and a strident opponent of Israeli policy, Analilia Mejia, won the 13-candidate primary with a mere 29 percent of the vote.
Whatever happens in Illinois and elsewhere this primary season, the risks to democracy are clear. In multi-candidate primaries that can be won by small pluralities, special interest groups can misrepresent themselves, spend lavishly, and watch their preferred candidates, who are not representative of their party’s voters, eke out narrow wins. That could not only damage a party’s short-term prospects but also threaten its integrity in the long term.
The good-government dream of public campaign financing could help address this problem, but it isn’t considered constitutional by the current Supreme Court and lacks anything like the broad bipartisan support needed for a constitutional amendment. Democratic presidential nominations allow convention delegates to have the final say, offering a failsafe if someone wins primaries through questionable means. But congressional primaries are subject to state election laws.
However, where possible, Democrats could support runoff or instant-runoff elections to ensure their nominees clear 50 percent of the electorate. Currently, only seven states have runoff elections with majority thresholds for primaries. A higher bar of victory makes outside mischief harder to pull off.
But that’s a longer-term solution. For now, Democratic leaders need to use their bully pulpits to smoke out such tactics.
These are small-d democratic contests. Any organized group should be able to exercise its freedom of speech. But PACs should be upfront about their agendas so voters can render informed judgments. If they won’t, then party leaders should not remain quiet while their primaries become corrupted.
