Big Money Is Back

[Celerity]

The 2026 primaries will likely see even bigger levels of corporate and issue-based PAC spending. But there may be diminishing returns on these investments.

https://prospect.org/2026/02/04/2026-primaries-spending-aipac-analilia-mejia-tom-malinowski/


Sen. Bernie Sanders and Analilia Mejia, candidate for New Jersey’s 11th Congressional District, at a campaign event in Wayne, New Jersey, January 19, 2026. Credit: Kyle Mazza/UNF News/NurPhoto via AP

A preview to this year’s congressional primary season kicks off, unusually, on Thursday. Former Rep. Mikie Sherrill won a landslide to become New Jersey’s governor last year, and a crowded primary to replace her in the state’s 11th Congressional District is being held tomorrow. It’s a light-blue district, but the winner of the 11-candidate Democratic primary is expected to easily prevail in the general election in early April. That’s brought a familiar face out of the shadows to help determine the outcome: AIPAC.

Though some reports indicated that the pro-Israel PAC was pulling back on electoral spending, it has thrown down nearly $2.3 million in television ads through its subsidiary United Democracy Project (UDP), and $1.83 million more in direct mail and phone banks, to block former Rep. Tom Malinowski from winning the seat. As is typical for single-issue groups, the ads are 100 percent pretextual. One uses a 2019 omnibus funding bill to dubiously claim that Malinowski supports increasing funding on ICE; the other somewhat cleaner hit involves Malinowski’s failure to disclose stock trades during the pandemic. (Malinowski has consistently called this lack of disclosure a mistake.)

The target here is rather unusual. In the past, Malinowski has received money from AIPAC’s PAC directly, and during prior campaigns " target="_blank">he took over $399,000 from pro-Israel interests. He has responded to the latest attacks by pointing out that AIPAC’s current funders include right-wing donors, which is true. But paradoxically, the biggest beneficiary of the attack-ad campaign could be a candidate who’s far more opposed to AIPAC’s interests.

The four front-runners in the primary are Malinowski, former Lt. Gov. Tahesha Way, Essex County Commissioner Brendan Gill, and Analilia Mejia, co-executive director of the Center for Popular Democracy and a former campaign political director for Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT). Mejia has a host of national endorsements, from Sens. Sanders and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) to Reps. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) and Ro Khanna (D-CA).

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