Mike Rogers, the Republican candidate in Michigan, will now have to test his electoral base after deciding to abandon an advertising campaign backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, in what represents another blow to the organisation and to pro-Israel lobbying groups more broadly.
According to information published by Axios, Rogers spoke with AIPAC president Michael Tuchin in Los Angeles last week. The following day, the organisation stopped airing a video advertisement targeting his Democratic opponent, Abdul El-Sayed, who is known for his sharp criticism of Israel, despite having spent more than $30 million on the campaign.
Although Rogers remains strongly supportive of Israel, his decision is being interpreted as a sign of concern that overt backing from AIPAC could become an electoral liability ahead of the 3 November election.
Rogers is running in the swing state of Michigan, home to one of the largest Arab-American communities in the United States, forcing him to tread carefully on issues related to Israel and Gaza.
A recent Fox News poll found that 55 per cent of Michigan voters oppose continued US aid to Israel.
Observers say this unprecedented tension illustrates the extent to which AIPAC’s political standing has declined amid voter anger over the war in Gaza. It is also a context that has encouraged Abdul El-Sayed and others to adopt counter-strategies that have significantly weakened the traditional influence of lobbying organisations.
This has been particularly evident in the tendency of independent candidates to appeal directly to voters while publicly highlighting enormous campaign spending as evidence of the influence of money in federal politics, using that argument to build popular sympathy.
Millions Spent With Little Return
AIPAC had previously spent millions of dollars supporting moderate candidate Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary.
But progressive candidate Abdul El-Sayed ultimately won the primary in what was described as a decisive race for the party.
El-Sayed made AIPAC a central issue in his successful primary campaign, using the group’s spending against him to portray his Democratic rival Haley Stevens as beholden to pro-Israel lobbying organisations.
During his campaign, El-Sayed described Israel as a “rogue state” and accused it of committing genocide and apartheid, although he avoided answering whether Israel had a right to exist as a Jewish state.
According to Politico, Super PACs poured more than $5 million into advertisements in recent weeks supporting Melissa Hernandez and attacking Aisha Wahab in a California congressional race for the seat vacated by Eric Swalwell.
The spending included $1.2 million from the United Democracy Project, which is backed by AIPAC, and $2.1 million from Bold America PAC.
Despite this substantial financial support, Wahab, the first Muslim and Afghan-American woman elected to the state legislature, holds a notable lead in the race to represent one of California’s most diverse congressional districts.
A Structural Shift
Although AIPAC has significantly expanded its political spending in recent years, with the New York Times reporting that the organisation doubled its expenditure to $67.2 million, it has suffered a series of high-profile defeats in Democratic primary elections.
Observers argue that these repeated losses do not merely reflect a decline in the influence of lobbying groups.
They also point to a structural transformation in American politics, with such groups moving from a period of largely unspoken and consensual dominance into an era of polarisation and direct confrontation.
This shift can be seen through at least two parallel trends.
The first is the reluctance of conservative candidates such as Mike Rogers to openly promote support from lobbying groups for fear of alienating nationalist electoral bases.
The second is the growing ability of progressive grassroots organisations led by figures such as Abdul El-Sayed to overcome financial disadvantages and win electoral contests through direct mobilisation rather than relying on heavy advertising spending.
Beyond this, the weakening of these lobbying groups is increasingly viewed as the natural result of several deeper developments.
These include widening generational, ethnic and informational divides that have helped produce a generation less bound by older political assumptions, rapid technological changes that have weakened the influence and monopoly of traditional pro-Israel media, and growing divisions within political parties over foreign policy priorities.
Demographic Changes
Demographic trends point to a gradual decline in the absolute dominance of the traditional white population of Anglo-Saxon and Germanic origin, alongside the growth of Hispanic, Asian and African-American communities.
These groups tend to have less emotional attachment to the narratives surrounding Israel’s establishment.
According to the Washington-based Pew Research Center, 60 per cent of Americans now hold an unfavourable view of Israel.
The shift is linked not only to concerns over the use of American taxpayers’ money to finance Israel’s repeated military campaigns, but also to perceptions of the moral consequences of wars that have killed children, women and unarmed civilians.
Major American cities and universities have witnessed sit-ins and demonstrations condemning Israeli war crimes against Palestinians.
These protests have reflected a noticeable shift in public opinion, particularly among younger Americans, with polling and public debate showing increasing criticism of Israel and declining levels of the traditional sympathy it once enjoyed.
According to the Institute for Strategic Studies, declining support for Israel in the United States extends across several religious groups.
“Catholics, Protestants and white evangelical Christians under the age of 50 all say they hold an unfavourable view of Israel,” the institute reported.
Pew expects that as generations born in the period following the Second World War gradually disappear, “this anti-Israel shift is likely to intensify, with a growing number of people associating Israel with aggressive militarism”.
The Decline of Traditional Media’s Monopoly
Young American voters increasingly rely on social media and digital platforms to shape their political views rather than on traditional media outlets, which the article describes as being dominated by capital connected to pro-Israel lobbying groups.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has acknowledged that the growing influence of social media played a central role in changing Israel’s image during the war on Gaza, particularly among young Republicans and Democrats in the United States.
He described these platforms as a “war front” in their own right.
US President Donald Trump also addressed the shift during an interview with the American network Real America’s Voice.
“The biggest change I have seen in a quarter of a century is what happened to Israel and the Jews. They had the strongest lobby in Washington,” Trump said.
He also attacked Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer, one of the most prominent Jewish politicians in US history, accusing him of abandoning his previous pro-Israel positions.
“Look at the House and people like Schumer. He has become Palestinian,” Trump said.
Changing Foreign Policy Priorities
The Democratic Party has faced unprecedented divisions over the limits of support for Israel and broader foreign policy priorities following the Gaza war.
These divisions have included demands to impose strict conditions on US military support.
The debate has also expanded into calls for a broader reassessment of American foreign policy priorities, including reducing military involvement in the Middle East and ending the depletion of financial resources on wars that many Americans believe do not concern them.
Statistics published by the Washington-based Institute for Strategic Studies in cooperation with the Pew Research Center found that 80 per cent of Democrats hold either somewhat or very unfavourable views of Israel, compared with 41 per cent of Republicans.
Negative views are even more pronounced among younger voters aligned with the Democratic Party.
Among those aged 18 to 29, 85 per cent expressed an unfavourable view of Israel, while the figure stood at 83 per cent among those aged 30 to 49.
According to analyses by political and polling analyst Bruno Melki and geopolitical analyst Michel Fayad, these divisions do not suggest that the US-Israel alliance is about to collapse suddenly.
Rather, they point to the continued gradual erosion of the bipartisan consensus that has traditionally underpinned the relationship.
That erosion could eventually reach a critical threshold when a presidential candidate calculates that supporting Israel would cost more votes than it would gain, particularly in states such as Michigan or Pennsylvania.
Such a scenario could ultimately threaten Israel’s position within the hierarchy of American foreign policy priorities.
