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AIPAC

How the pro-Israel lobbying group's PAC and super PAC actually spend, how much, on which races — and where to find the full, current list of recipients rather than a static one we'd publish here.

Last updated September 22, 2026

Terms

AIPAC PAC: A traditional political action committee, launched December 2021, that gives directly to candidates — capped at $5,000 per candidate per election, same limit every PAC faces.
United Democracy Project (UDP): AIPAC's affiliated super PAC. Can't give directly to a campaign, but can spend unlimited amounts on independent expenditures — ads for or against a candidate — which is where nearly all the large dollar figures on this page come from. See our Citizens United page for how super PACs like this became possible.

What AIPAC actually is

AIPAC (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) is a 501(c)(4) advocacy organization, lobbying Congress on U.S.-Israel policy since the 1950s. For most of that history it didn't operate a PAC or spend on elections directly — it lobbied sitting members of Congress, full stop. That changed in December 2021, when it announced it would launch both a traditional PAC and a super PAC ahead of the 2022 midterms, moving from lobbying office-holders to actively spending to elect or defeat candidates in primaries.

How much, and where it's concentrated

AIPAC entities' combined spending, 2022: $50.0M
UDP spending alone, 2024: $87.0M
Races AIPAC money touched, 2024: 389
Combined spending so far, 2026 cycle: $104.3M

OpenSecrets; The Intercept.

AIPAC PAC and UDP have now cleared $100 million in combined spending in two straight cycles — 2024 and 2026 — after their first cycle, 2022, ran roughly half that. In 2024, AIPAC money reached 389 of 469 contested House and Senate seats, over 80% of everything on the ballot. AIPAC PAC's direct contributions that cycle went to more Republican candidates by headcount (233, totaling $17.0M) than Democratic ones (152, totaling $28.0M) — but more total dollars went to Democrats, because the overwhelming majority of UDP's big independent-expenditure spending has landed in contested Democratic primaries.

The biggest single-race spends

MI Senate primary, 2026 — Abdul El-Sayed$30.6M

UDP's largest single-race spend ever; supported opponent Haley Stevens, who lost the primary to El-Sayed.

KY-4 primary, 2026 — Rep. Thomas Massie$9.0M

Combined pro-Israel PAC spending (UDP: $4.1M of it); Massie lost, in the most expensive U.S. House primary ever ($37M total).

NY-16 primary, 2024 — Rep. Jamaal Bowman$14.5M

Part of ~$29–30M UDP spent combined against Bowman and Cori Bush, the two most expensive House Democratic primaries in history at the time.

MO-1 primary, 2024 — Wesley Bell$11.7M

UDP spending supporting Bell against incumbent Rep. Cori Bush, whom Bell defeated.

CA-47 primary, 2024 — Dave Min$5.1M

Min won anyway — a reminder that AIPAC-aligned spending doesn't always decide a race.

MD-3 primary, 2024 — Sarah Elfreth$4.2M

Elfreth won her primary.

The pattern across both parties: AIPAC-aligned money mostly targets candidates seen as critical of Israeli government policy, regardless of party — it's spent heavily against progressive Democrats like Jamaal Bowman and Cori Bush, and against a libertarian-leaning Republican critic of Israel policy, Thomas Massie, in the same 2026 cycle it set a new single-race spending record opposing a Democratic Senate candidate in Michigan.

The full list of recipients

We're not publishing a complete list of every politician who's received AIPAC PAC or UDP money here. There are hundreds of them across three election cycles, the list changes every FEC reporting deadline, and a static list on this page would be out of date within weeks. Instead:

OpenSecrets maintains the most usable public version — a searchable, continuously updated database built directly from FEC filings, broken out by recipient, race, and cycle.
FEC.gov has the underlying primary-source filings both OpenSecrets and every tracker are built from, if you want to verify anything yourself.
Track AIPAC is a purpose-built, advocacy-run tracker focused specifically on this — useful, but read it knowing it's produced by a group with a point of view on the subject, not a neutral government source.

Nonpartisan, plainly

AIPAC's role in American politics is one of the more heated topics we cover, and we're not going to referee it here: we don't take a position on whether its spending is good or bad for American democracy, whether the candidates it's opposed deserved to lose, or what U.S. policy toward Israel should be. Every figure on this page is a disclosed, FEC-reported dollar amount tied to a specific, named race — sourced so you can check it yourself. That's what "plainly" means here.

Talking points

These are the questions we think you should ask those who are running for office and will represent you. We don't give our opinion on the answer, but we DO think you should be talking about them.

Should candidates be required to disclose how much of their campaign funding comes from single-issue PACs before a primary election?
Should there be a cap on how much a single-issue PAC can spend on any one race?
Should voters have easier access to a real-time, searchable list of every PAC's spending in their own district?

OpenSecrets: United Democracy Project — PAC Profileopensecrets.org
The full, FEC-sourced, continuously-updated record of every disclosed UDP expenditure — the actual "complete list."
FEC.gov: United Democracy Project — committee filingsfec.gov
The primary source both OpenSecrets and Track AIPAC are built from.
Track AIPACtrackaipac.com
An advocacy-run tracker of AIPAC-linked spending and endorsements, built on FEC data — read its own framing, not ours.
The Intercept: How Does AIPAC Shape Washington? We Tracked Every Dollar.theintercept.com
The 2024 race-by-race breakdown, including the party-split figures below.
FactCheck.org: United Democracy Projectfactcheck.org
A plain explainer of what UDP is and isn't, and common claims made about it.