The Illinois primaries follow two other elections where AIPAC was heavily involved: a New Jersey special election where it bet against a self-proclaimed Zionist who offered mild criticism of Israel, and who lost to a harsh critic of Israel, and a primary in North Carolina in which the specter of the group loomed large even as it did not put any money on the line. There, the candidate who previously took AIPAC donations only barely eked out a win.<\/p>\n
But the Illinois spending \u2014 all in reliably safe Democratic districts \u2014 far outpaces the outlay in New Jersey. AIPAC\u2019s intense interest in Illinois may be deliberate tone-setting: According to an Agudath Israel of Illinois newsletter obtained by the Washington Post, an AIPAC director gave a presentation warning that the success of progressive candidates<\/a> in the state\u2019s early primary could embolden progressive candidates in other states.<\/p>\n Many candidates in the races have negatively invoked AIPAC<\/a> during their campaigns, and a longtime Jewish representative rescinded one endorsement because her candidate was benefitting from AIPAC support. Two Jewish potential 2028 presidential contenders from Illinois \u2014 Gov. JB Pritzker<\/a> and former Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel<\/a> \u2014 also recently spoke out against AIPAC.<\/p>\n As the transformative power of pro-Israel spending runs up against a left that treats pro-Israel views as toxic, here\u2019s what Jewish voters should be watching for on Tuesday in Illinois:<\/p>\n Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American candidate in Illinois\u2019 9th district House primary, criticizes the state\u2019s anti-BDS laws in a YouTube video weeks before the vote, February 18, 2026. (Screenshot via YouTube)<\/p>\n District 9, where it is Jew vs. Jew vs. a Palestinian-American<\/p>\n One of the most dramatic and jam-packed Democratic primaries in the country, and one of the most closely watched for Jews, is unfolding in Chicago\u2019s northern suburbs.<\/p>\n A whopping 15 Democratic candidates are vying for the chance to replace retiring Jewish Rep. Jan Schakowsky, who has held the seat since 1999 \u2014 and whose predecessor for decades was also Jewish. The race includes four Jews and two pro-Palestinian activists.\u00a0<\/p>\n Of that field, Evanston mayor Daniel Biss, a Jewish progressive, has a marginal lead in polling<\/a>, along with Schakowsky\u2019s endorsement and the backing of liberal pro-Israel group J Street.\u00a0<\/p>\n Biss is a self-proclaimed Zionist and critic of the Israeli government. He has visited the country many times, his mother was born there and his maternal grandparents were Holocaust survivors.<\/p>\n But Kat Abughazaleh, a Palestinian-American and former journalist who has the backing of the pro-Palestinian PAL PAC, has strong fundraising<\/a> and has narrowed the polling gap.\u00a0<\/p>\n Abughazaleh accuses Israel of genocide, and has made YouTube videos decrying Illinois laws that target the boycott Israel movement<\/a>.\u00a0<\/p>\n She also spoke out against some forms of antisemitism. \u201cPretty much every major conspiracy theory is rooted in antisemitism,\u201d the candidate told the JAAM podcast<\/a> in January. \u201cIt drives me crazy when people who had no idea where Gaza was before Oct. 7 have a lot of thoughts about how antisemitism isn\u2019t a real problem.\u201d<\/p>\n A different Jewish politician, state Sen. Laura Fine, is AIPAC\u2019s preferred candidate: A PAC with ties to AIPAC, Elect Chicago Women, has reported spending $2.7 million on pro-Fine and anti-Biss ads. Biss\u2019s campaign has accused Fine\u2019s campaign of illegally coordinating with Elect Chicago Women<\/a>. It\u2019s a rare race where AIPAC has aligned one Jewish candidate against another.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s dark money. Our campaign does not coordinate,\u201d Fine said when asked about the ad spending on a recent televised debate. \u201cI have asked publicly for them to reveal who their donors are because we don\u2019t know.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n When asked if she supported unconditional aid to Israel, an AIPAC priority, she responded, \u201cThere\u2019s conditions on all foreign aid.\u201d Later she criticized Biss for, she said, asking for AIPAC\u2019s support \u2014 as Biss, in turn, accused Fine\u2019s campaign of being \u201cbankrolled by AIPAC and MAGA donors.\u201d<\/p>\n Biss, in the same debate, acknowledged he had met with AIPAC \u201cbut I stayed true to my values,\u201d and said, \u201cWe cannot allow unconditional aid to the Israeli government, no matter what they do in Gaza. I don\u2019t think it\u2019s right.\u201d <\/p>\n J Street PAC, which is associated with the liberal Zionist group, has spent money backing Biss. He has backed proposed legislation that would limit military aid to Israel, but did not answer a question on a questionnaire from Chicago public radio station WBEZ about whether Israel has committed genocide in Gaza.\u00a0<\/p>\n Jewish Evanston mayor Daniel Biss, Jewish Illinois state Sen. Laura Fine, and Palestinian-American activist Kat Abughazaleh square off in a local news station\u2019s debate for the Democratic primary for Illinois\u2019 9th congressional district, Feb. 25, 2026. The debate, like much of the campaign, turned on AIPAC money and U.S. support for Israel. (Screenshot via YouTube)<\/p>\n \u201cAIPAC wants to be able to dismiss any criticism of the conduct of the current Israeli government as being from people who are against the idea of Israel existing as a Jewish democratic state in the first place, and who are knee-jerk, reflexively opposed,\u201d Biss told Jewish Currents recently<\/a>. \u201cThey can\u2019t pull it off with someone like me, and that worries them.\u201d<\/p>\n In the race\u2019s final days, a new Super PAC linked to Elect Chicago Women \u2014 and, by association, to AIPAC \u2014 spent another $1 million<\/a> specifically targeting Abughazaleh. The lobby may have learned a lesson from the New Jersey special election, when the more hard-line Israel critic won the primary.<\/p>\n Dark horses in the race include economist Jeff Cohen; deaf civil rights lawyer Howard Rosenblum; and Skokie school board member Bushra Amiwala, a Muslim-American who has accused Israel of genocide and complained that she grew up on a school curriculum that taught any criticism of Israel is antisemitism<\/a>.<\/p>\n In a last-minute twist, a super PAC with links to AIPAC has run ads supporting Amiwala<\/a> \u2014 an effort her campaign denounced, and Abughazaleh\u2019s campaign alleged was done to split the progressive vote and blunt her momentum. Abughazaleh theorized that AIPAC was trying to hurt her in order to elect Biss, whom she called \u201cthe only candidate that they have left that they could possibly consider to be an ally.\u201d<\/p>\n In District 7, spending against a Jewish leader<\/p>\n On paper, a longtime Jewish communal leader with a strongly pro-Israel position would seem like the ideal AIPAC candidate. Not so in Illinois\u2019 7th district, which includes downtown Chicago as well as suburbs to the south and west.\u00a0<\/p>\n One of the candidates, Jason Friedman, is a real-estate developer who spent 15 years on the board of the Jewish United Fund, the Chicagoland federation, as well as serving as its director of government affairs.\u00a0<\/p>\n Friedman\u2019s views on Israel also appear in keeping with AIPAC\u2019s stated policy goals. He recently told Jewish Insider<\/a> he is a \u201cfirm believer\u201d in military aid to Israel, and argued, \u201cIsrael should not be uniquely targeted or positioned\u201d when it comes to conditions on aid.<\/p>\n At first, AIPAC-aligned donors did appear to back Friedman in the race, funneling hundreds of thousands of dollars to his campaign as early as last fall. But that has changed. The group is now formally supporting one of his non-Jewish opponents, Chicago City Treasurer Melissa Conyears-Ervin, having recently committed to spending $2.8 million on her campaign<\/a> via its shell PAC, United Democracy Project.\u00a0<\/p>\n Part of that spending has included negative ads against Friedman. Still, Friedman has not formally denounced the group, unlike other candidates who have lost favor with the lobby.<\/p>\n Friedman\u2019s campaign declined to comment for this story, and AIPAC did not answer questions sent to its press relations. But one progressive journalist, quoting an unnamed source<\/a>, said the group had determined Friedman was \u201ctoo obviously aligned,\u201d suggesting AIPAC favored the chances of Conyears-Ervin, a Black candidate who has not staked her candidacy on Israel issues, in a district with a plurality of Black voters. Conyears-Ervin did not respond to questions by WBEZ about whether Israel had committed genocide in Gaza and whether aid should be conditioned.<\/p>\n Another candidate in the race, Reed Showalter, earned the ire of some local Jews after a candidate event held at an Oak Park synagogue. During the event, Showalter launched into an attack on the Netanyahu government. Later, his campaign used footage of his answer in ads<\/a> that were deeply critical of his opponents\u2019 views on Israel \u2014 leading two members of the congregation to criticize him for \u201cusing a Jewish community forum as a setting to score points off his opponents for clicks.\u201d<\/p>\n State Sen. Robert Peters speaks during a protest in Chicago, Nov. 16, 2025. A Jew by choice, Peters has been critical of Israel, and of AIPAC for targeting his campaign for a Democratic congressional nomination. (Daniel Boczarski\/Getty Images for People\u2019s Action)<\/p>\n In District 2, the Jew of color who called for a ceasefire<\/p>\n Robert Peters, an Illinois state senator running for the House in the state\u2019s 2nd Congressional District, has one of the more unusual Jewish stories of any candidate this year.\u00a0<\/p>\n Peters, 40, who was born deaf, identifies as a Black man. He was an adopted child who, in 2022, reconnected with his Jewish biological father<\/a>. Not long after, he formally converted to Judaism and joined a local congregation, speaking openly of his roots in Ukraine and Lithuania.<\/p>\n He then drew on this Jewish heritage in explaining his decision to protest at the Israeli consulate for a ceasefire<\/a> in Gaza less than a month after the Oct. 7, 2023, attacks.<\/p>\n \u201cI was taught that as Jews, we must speak out against injustice,\u201d Peters, who holds Barack Obama\u2019s old seat in the statehouse and has won several leading progressive endorsements including from Jewish Sen. Bernie Sanders, wrote in the Chicago Sun-Times in November 2023. He added that he \u201cfelt ill as I read about Hamas\u2019 brutal violence targeting Israeli civilians,\u201d but that the Jewish concept of pikuach nefesh \u2014 saving a life \u2014 soon compelled him to speak out against the war.<\/p>\n Fast-forward to his current congressional campaign, and Peters \u2014 who says Israel committed genocide in Gaza \u2014 has penned an op-ed for the Forward blasting AIPAC<\/a> for targeting his campaign. He linked himself to Biss as two Jews who are critical of Israel.<\/p>\n \u201cGroups like AIPAC are concerned that if Jewish people like us can speak out against Israel and still win elections, then others who may have been nervously hanging back may feel like they can take bolder action as well,\u201d Peters wrote. He criticized the lobbyists for obscuring their spending against him in a shell PAC, Affordable Chicago Now, whose ads do not mention Israel.<\/p>\n Peters is running against four other candidates; his supporters have said he would be the first Black Jew in Congress if elected<\/a>. A new AIPAC-linked Super PAC named Affordable Chicago Now! has spent around $4.4 million<\/a> on its preferred candidate, Cook County Commissioner Donna Miller \u2014 who lost Schakowsky\u2019s endorsement over the AIPAC support<\/a>. (Schakowsky herself once boasted of being aligned with AIPAC, before political headwinds on Israel changed.)<\/p>\n District 8: Attacking from the left<\/p>\n In addition to the above three congressional races, AIPAC affiliates are also spending heavily in a fourth Chicago-area district, Illinois\u2019 8th, where no Jews are running.<\/p>\n Former U.S. Rep. Melissa Bean, who is Serbian Christian, is the beneficiary of nearly $4 million in campaign spending from Elect Chicago Women, the AIPAC-aligned PAC. Bean\u2019s campaign says she backs a two-state solution. <\/p>\n Of the seven candidates running in the 8th, however, the one who\u2019s garnered the most outside attention is Indian-American tech entrepreneur Junaid Ahmed, who has the backing of several progressive groups including Sanders and PAL PAC.<\/p>\n Ahmed, who is Muslim, has \u201cPeace in Gaza and Palestinian Self-Determination\u201d as one of his leading campaign platforms, and has declared Israel\u2019s actions in Gaza a genocide. As with Abhugazaleh in District 9, AIPAC-affiliated groups have run ads attacking Ahmed from the left<\/a>.<\/p>\n Illinois Democratic Senate candidate U.S. Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi (walks in the St. Patrick\u2019s Day parade in Chicago, March 14, 2026. Krishnamoorthi is seeking to win the seat being vacated by U.S. Sen. Dick Durbin. (Scott Olson\/Getty Images)<\/p>\n Senate concerns<\/p>\n The Democratic contest to replace retiring Sen. Dick Durbin has been relatively low-key when it comes to Jews and Israel, compared to some of the state\u2019s congressional races. Yet it has not been immune to controversies.<\/p>\n During a recent debate, one of the candidates, Rep. Robin Kelly, shocked viewers by accusing Israel of committing genocide in Gaza<\/a> \u2014 and challenging her opponents to do the same.\u00a0<\/p>\n \u201cEvery candidate on stage tonight had the opportunity to condemn genocide in Gaza,\u201d Kelly, who received AIPAC support only a year ago, wrote on X. \u201cI\u2019m the only one who did.\u201d<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/3-16-26-abu.jpg\")
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