Progressive Launches Primary Challenge to Democrat Who Once Got $2M From AIPAC

A progressive candidate has launched a primary challenge to a House Democrat from North Carolina, seeking a redo of the candidates’ 2022 contest that saw significant interference by the pro-Israel lobby and corporate interests.

Nida Allam announced her campaign on Thursday, with backing from Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont) and a slate of progressive groups on launch. She’s running on a platform supporting issues like Medicare for All and affordable housing, and has pledged to reject funding from corporate PACs, billionaires, and other major influences like AIPAC — spending that her opponent, Rep. Valerie Foushee, embraced during their last head-to-head.

In 2022, AIPAC’s PAC spent $2.1 million supporting Foushee, with Democratic Majority for Israel chipping in an additional $300,000 to back the Democrat. They sought to defeat Allam, who has been outspoken in support of Palestinian rights, and who was the first Muslim woman elected to public office in the state.

This funding, as well as a $1 million injection from the PAC funded by crypto fraudster Sam Bankman-Fried for Foushee, made the race the most expensive Democratic congressional primary in state history. Foushee ultimately won by nine points over Allam in 2022, with 46 percent of the vote.

Allam called out Foushee for having accepted this support in her campaign launch video.

“This year, our district suffered the highest number of federal funding cuts in the country, but our voice in Congress was silent,” Allam said, referring to drastic cuts to education, research, and other sectors by Elon Musk’s so-called Department of Government Efficiency.

“When right-wing and corporate PACs fund our politicians, they buy silence. I’m not here to stay quiet while Washington fails us,” she said.

Foushee’s campaign says it gave back the money from the Bankman-Fried-associated PAC. And, earlier this year, Foushee’s campaign said that she would not be accepting AIPAC funding in the 2026 campaign — potentially now viewing AIPAC funding to be a liability as support for Israel wanes among the public. Foushee also cosponsored the Block the Bombs Act, which would bar specific “offensive” arms sales to Israel that have been used extensively in Israel’s genocide in Gaza.

However, as Allam’s campaign video points out, Foushee also travelled to Israel last year, amid its ongoing genocide in Gaza, to meet with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, as local outlets reported. In a statement in April 2024, she defended the decision, saying that “Israel has the indisputable right to defend herself.”

The race could be a litmus test on how sentiments regarding Israel have shifted amid the genocide, as well as a test of the left’s ability to capitalize on changes in recent years.

The last time AIPAC was in the spotlight for House races, it was 2024, earlier in the genocide, with the group seeking to unseat former Representatives Jamaal Bowman (D-New York) and Cori Bush (D-Missouri). Those two races marked record spending by AIPAC, with its PAC, United Democracy Project, pouring $14.5 million into defeating Bowman, contributing to a total of $18 million in outside spending by pro-Israel and cryptocurrency PACs.

United Democracy Project also spent $8.5 million to unseat Bush due to her outspoken support for Palestinian rights. Bush is also running for Congress again, seeking to reclaim her seat from Rep. Wesley Bell (D), who unseated her with United Democracy Project’s help in 2024.