# Track AIPAC made AIPAC money a liability in some 2026 races. How far did it reach?

The X account has more than 530,000 followers. Some Democrats swore off AIPAC money. Most AIPAC-backed candidates still won, mostly in safe seats.

By 567 Politics staff · 567politics
Published: 2026-11-11T03:51:55.702899Z
Updated: 2026-11-11T03:54:56.505975Z
Canonical: https://567politics.com/news/track-aipac-influence-2026-elections-persona-non-grata-november-2026

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The X account [Track AIPAC](https://x.com/TrackAIPAC) set out to make working with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee a political liability. In 2026, some Democrats treated it that way. [Rep. Pat Ryan](/politicians/pat-ryan) of New York told the account he would return AIPAC money. [Senator-elect Abdul El-Sayed](/politicians/abdul-el-sayed) of Michigan beat a campaign that United Democracy Project, AIPAC's super PAC, spent tens of millions of dollars trying to stop. In May, after AIPAC celebrated his primary defeat, Rep. Al Green of Texas called the group "persona non grata."

The midterm record does not show that AIPAC-backed politicians became untouchable. As of November 10, with 462 of 475 congressional races called, the candidate that AIPAC and other pro-Israel PACs backed most won 368 of 410 races, or 90%, [Who Funds My Rep? found](https://whofundsmyrep.com/2026-ballot) from Federal Election Commission filings. Most of those wins were in safe seats. The expensive, contested bets went much worse. Responsible Statecraft, published by the Quincy Institute, [tallied](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/aipac-candidates-2026/) $55.3 million of $84.1 million spent by UDP and affiliated PACs in decided races as going to campaigns the groups lost, a sharp drop from their 2024 dollar-success rate.

This story tests how far Track AIPAC's influence actually reached, and how far the "persona non grata" claim holds. It builds on 567politics reporting on [how pro-Israel PAC money performed in the midterms](/news/midterms-us-support-israel-decline-iran-war-aipac-spending-voter-poll-trump-vance-november-2026) and on [AIPAC's decision in October to end PAC endorsements](/news/aipac-ends-endorsements-pac-giving-super-pac-continues-backlash-2026). The new reporting here is on the account itself: who runs it, which of its 2025-26 posts traveled farthest, which candidates answered it, and where its figures and AIPAC's figures part company.

## An account from 2019, a project the founders date to 2024

X's public records show that @TrackAIPAC, which displays the name AIPAC Tracker, was created on April 28, 2019. As of the evening of November 10, 2026, Eastern time, the account had 530,294 followers, 108,876 posts and a blue verification check. It was not listed as identity-verified. Its biography reads, "Tracking AIPAC and the entire Israel lobby's anti-democratic influence on the United States," and it points readers to [Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00879080/?cycle=2026), a hybrid PAC, and to a [Linktree page](https://linktr.ee/TrackAIPAC). The location field says "United States of America." Those figures come from X's user lookup tools, retrieved November 10.

The co-founders date the project later. In November 2025, Cory Archibald and Casey Kennedy identified themselves after what they described as doxing threats, [The New Arab reported](https://www.newarab.com/news/track-aipac-goes-online-highlight-pro-israeli-funding). In interviews they said they started the X account in April 2024 and drew more than 100,000 followers within about a month. 567politics could not reconcile that start date with X's April 2019 creation record and does not treat either date as an error without more evidence. Archibald had worked as a consultant for former Reps. Cori Bush and Jamaal Bowman. Kennedy has said the 2020 documentary series *The Lobby* helped inspire the work.

Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption registered with the FEC on May 16, 2024, as committee C00879080, a hybrid PAC with a San Diego post-office box. Kennedy is listed as treasurer and co-executive director on the committee's [statement of organization](https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00879080/1931258/). For the 2025-26 cycle, through October 14, 2026, the PAC reported $1.96 million in receipts and $1.82 million in disbursements, including $142,336 in independent expenditures, according to its [FEC committee summary](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00879080/?cycle=2026), opened November 10. That is a fraction of what AIPAC's super PAC spent. UDP, committee C00799031, reported $112.8 million in receipts and $53.6 million in independent expenditures over the same coverage period, plus $18.3 million in operating expenditures, on its [FEC summary](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00799031/?cycle=2026). Those FEC totals do not include all later 24-hour and 48-hour independent-expenditure notices. Track AIPAC's main instrument in the cycle was attention, not a comparable spend.

Archibald has been direct about the aim. "We set out to make working with AIPAC a political liability," she told The New Arab in November 2025. Kennedy told *The Intercept* in March 2026 that the tracking is "as broad as possible, and that's by design," a remark [quoted at length in a contemporaneous write-up of that interview](https://theguardline.com/how-does-trackaipac-actually-track-aipac/). The group later said it would not change its name after AIPAC moved to shut its PAC. "AIPAC is shuttering the AIPAC PAC, but will continue operating their already existing United Democracy Project super PAC, which we have always tracked, along with all the others in the pro-Israel PAC," the account [wrote on November 6](https://x.com/TrackAIPAC/status/2118766747675247006). That post had 58,963 views and 5,348 likes as of November 10.

```diagram
type: timeline
title: Track AIPAC, from the X account to the 2026 midterms
source: [X user lookup for @TrackAIPAC](https://x.com/TrackAIPAC), [The New Arab](https://www.newarab.com/news/track-aipac-goes-online-highlight-pro-israeli-funding), [FEC](https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00879080/?cycle=2026)
---
2019-04-28: X records show the @TrackAIPAC account was created
2024-04: Archibald and Kennedy say they launched the Track AIPAC project
2024-05-16: Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption registers with the FEC
2025-11: The co-founders identify themselves after what they call doxing threats
2026-03: The Intercept reports a debate over the account's donor-lumping method
2026-07-15: Rep. Pat Ryan tells the account he will return AIPAC funds
2026-10: AIPAC says it will stop PAC endorsements and direct contributions after the cycle
2026-11-03: Voters give Democrats both chambers of Congress
```

## The posts that traveled, and the reply that mattered

Track AIPAC's signature product is a "red card," a graphic that puts a candidate's face in grayscale against a red backdrop and a dollar total for what it calls pro-Israel funding. The cards circulate as quote posts under members' own statements. 567politics reviewed the account's 2025-26 posts with X's search and user-post tools on November 10 and did not treat likes or views as a poll of public opinion. The sample is the account's own output, not a systematic ranking of every post it has ever published.

Among the posts checked, several of the highest-engagement items came in the week after Election Day. A November 8 post on El-Sayed's win had 103,059 views, 11,036 likes and 1,429 reposts as of November 10.

https://x.com/TrackAIPAC/status/2119260625436106992

The caption said the senator-elect "overcame >$68 MILLION in spending by AIPAC and their allies." That figure is Track AIPAC's own, using a broad "allies" definition, and it is higher than independent tallies of UDP and other tracked PACs. Responsible Statecraft counted $31.47 million in UDP spending against El-Sayed across the primary and the general election. Who Funds My Rep?, working from FEC filings through November 6, listed $22.3 million spent against him in the general-election cycle presentation, a figure that does not by itself capture all primary spending for Haley Stevens. The difference is a reminder that Track AIPAC's graphics are an advocacy product, not an official FEC total.

The exchange that best documents the account's direct influence came earlier. On July 15, Ryan wrote that he had voted to block $3.3 billion in aid to Israel's government, that he did not want AIPAC's support, and that "hardline stances that refuse to stand up to a corrupt and increasingly dangerous Netanyahu regime have no place in our politics." Track AIPAC replied, "Thank you, Rep. Ryan. Now will you dump AIPAC?" That reply had 993,559 views as of November 10. Ryan then quote-posted the question.

https://x.com/PatRyanUC/status/2077502480586338565

"Yes, don't want their endorsement and returning the funds," he wrote. The post had 1,322,194 views, 19,788 likes and 1,380 reposts as of November 10. Track AIPAC told the *Washington Examiner* it welcomed the decision and hoped "his commitment goes beyond returning money and extends to the policy choices that matter more than the money itself," the [Examiner reported on July 16](https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/news/campaigns/congressional/4652539/pat-ryan-pledges-refund-aipac-money-could-cost-him-790k/). The Examiner, analyzing FEC records, put the amount Ryan had received through AIPAC since 2022 at $791,782, including earmarked individual contributions. 567politics' verified FEC snapshot for the 2026 cycle, retrieved November 8 from [Ryan's candidate page](https://www.fec.gov/data/candidate/H8NY19223/?cycle=2026), shows $10,000 in direct contributions from AIPAC PAC (committee C00797670) to his campaign committee. That snapshot covers PAC-to-committee receipts in one cycle. It is not a career total and does not, by itself, confirm or refute the Examiner's multi-cycle earmark figure. 567politics did not independently rebuild the $791,782 tally line by line, and it has not confirmed whether Ryan completed the refunds he pledged.

Ryan still won re-election in New York's 18th District on November 3. Who Funds My Rep? listed $156,000 in pro-Israel PAC money behind him in that race and counted the result as a win for that money. The pledge made AIPAC's brand a problem he chose to shed. It did not make him a loser.

Other Democrats had already begun to swear the money off. Rep. Seth Moulton of Massachusetts, running for Senate, pledged in October 2025 to return AIPAC donations and refuse future funds, [The Harvard Crimson reported](https://www.thecrimson.com/article/2025/10/24/moulton-pledges-return-aipac-donations/), citing a campaign plan to return $35,000 by January. Moulton was running against Sen. Ed Markey, who won the Massachusetts Senate race in November. In Texas, James Talarico said on a podcast, "I've never taken money from AIPAC, and I'm not taking money from AIPAC in this campaign," and won his Senate race by more than 12 points, [Al Jazeera reported](https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/11/7/how-did-aipac-backed-candidates-fare-in-the-us-midterm-elections). Who Funds My Rep? later listed $64,000 in pro-Israel PAC money "backing" Talarico and scored the race as a win for that money, an illustration of the same lumping problem that follows Track AIPAC: J Street and other groups that are not AIPAC can land in a "pro-Israel PAC" total. Al Jazeera said groups allied with AIPAC gave about $6,000 to Talarico's opponent, Ken Paxton.

## Where the account campaigned, and what the results show

Track AIPAC and its PAC endorsed candidates who pledged to reject AIPAC, support Palestinian statehood and reject definitions of antisemitism that, in the PAC's view, conflate criticism of Israel's government with hatred of Jews, the [Jewish Telegraphic Agency reported](https://www.jta.org/2026/03/25/politics/these-pro-palestine-pacs-are-trying-to-beat-aipac-at-its-own-game) in March 2026. El-Sayed was among the most prominent. In an April 2026 Data for Progress poll of 515 likely Michigan Democratic primary voters, conducted April 2-8 for Drop Site News and Zeteo, 64% said they were less likely to support a Senate candidate who received donations from AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups, and 10% said they were more likely, [Drop Site reported](https://www.dropsitenews.com/p/michigan-senate-democratic-primary-poll-aipac). Sixty-two percent agreed they would be less likely to trust a candidate to stand up for Michigan residents if that candidate would not stand up to AIPAC. The poll was taken months before the August primary, with a modest sample and a large undecided share, and it measured Democratic primary voters in one state, not the November electorate.

El-Sayed won the August primary over Stevens, 48.4% to 47.6% in the [Primary Democrats tally](https://primarydemocrats.com/2026.html), then defeated Republican Mike Rogers in the general election. "Thank you for giving me the opportunity to beat you twice," he said to AIPAC on election night, per Al Jazeera. 567politics has [the Michigan race in detail](/news/michigan-senate-el-sayed-defeats-rogers-first-muslim-senator-november-2026). The site has no verified FEC snapshot for El-Sayed's own committee, so this story does not report his receipts as if they had been checked in that system.

Other races cut the same way in expensive Democratic primaries and special elections. Daniel Biss won Illinois's 9th District after UDP spent $6.31 million in a failed effort to stop him, per Responsible Statecraft. On election night he said, "AIPAC found out the hard way: the 9th District is not for sale," [Inside Political Money reported](https://insidepoliticalmoney.com/news/aipacs-2026-scorecard-in-democratic-primaries-so-far-a-quick-rundown/). Aisha Wahab beat Melissa Hernandez in California's 14th, a race in which UDP and allied groups spent millions for Hernandez. Primary Democrats counted 18 contested 2025-26 Democratic House and Senate primaries in which AIPAC, UDP or allied PACs spent at least $100,000 on ads: AIPAC's side won 9, lost 8 and had 1 mixed result.

The other side of the ledger is larger if the unit is candidates, not dollars. AIPAC [wrote on X](https://thenationaldesk.com/news/americas-news-now/aipac-says-hundreds-of-pro-israel-democrats-and-republicans-won-in-the-midterm-elections-thomas-massie-marjorie-taylor-greene) the day after the election, "AIPAC congratulates the hundreds of pro-Israel Democrats and Republicans who won their elections last night. More than 234 candidates supported by AIPAC members have already won, with many additional races still too close to call." It congratulated [Chuck Schumer](/politicians/chuck-schumer) and [Hakeem Jeffries](/politicians/hakeem-jeffries) and said, "AIPAC members are determined to expand their political activism in the cycles ahead. Our community will increase its support for Democrats and Republicans who recognize that a strong partnership with Israel helps keep both countries secure, advances peace and stability, promotes democratic values, and grows our economy through trade and innovation." It later updated the winner count to 245 and said about 10% of backed candidates had lost in a wave year, as 567politics [previously reported](/news/midterms-us-support-israel-decline-iran-war-aipac-spending-voter-poll-trump-vance-november-2026).

Al Jazeera, citing Track AIPAC, reported that pro-Israel groups backed candidates in at least 32 of 35 Senate races, spent more than $100,000 in 26 of them, and saw 21 of those 26 candidates win. Who Funds My Rep? found that where the tracked PACs spent $100,000 or more, their preferred candidate still won 109 of 127 called races as of November 10. Incumbents on the ballot won 89% of called races, the site noted, "so most of that record reflects safe seats." Wesley Bell of Missouri, George Latimer of New York, Sarah Elfreth of Maryland and Adrian Boafo of Maryland were among the AIPAC-aligned Democrats who won again. In Kentucky, AIPAC-aligned spending helped Ed Gallrein defeat Rep. Thomas Massie in the Republican primary; Gallrein then won the general election.

```chart
type: column
title: Share of UDP and affiliated PAC spending in races the groups won
suffix: %
note: 2022 and 2024 are Responsible Statecraft's figures for United Democracy Project. 2026 is 567politics' calculation from the same outlet's Nov. 4, 2026 tally of $28.8 million of $84.1 million in UDP and affiliated PAC spending in decided races going to preferred winners ($55.3 million went to races the groups lost). The 2026 figure uses a broader set of affiliated PACs than the earlier UDP-only years, so the comparison is approximate.
source: [Responsible Statecraft](https://responsiblestatecraft.org/aipac-candidates-2026/)
---
Cycle | Spending in winning races
2022 | 69
2024 | 87
2026 | 34
```

Both ways of counting can be accurate. The candidate count answers how often a backed politician won, and the answer is still usually. The dollar count answers whether the costly interventions paid off, and in 2026 most did not. Neither count proves that Track AIPAC, or AIPAC's money, caused a given result. Strong incumbents attract donations. A Democratic wave sank Republicans, including some AIPAC backed. El-Sayed's race turned on many issues besides Israel, as exit-poll reporting on the midterms has shown.

## Polls show a Democratic shift, not a national rejection of AIPAC

The strongest evidence for the liability claim is among Democratic voters, not among Americans as a whole. In an AP-NORC poll of 3,040 adults taken June 11-17, 2026, about 6 in 10 said they did not know enough about AIPAC to form an opinion. Fifteen percent viewed the group favorably and 25% unfavorably, [AP-NORC reported](https://apnorc.org/projects/few-jewish-adults-feel-supported-by-the-major-political-parties-or-the-president/). The margin of sampling error was plus or minus 2.8 points. Among Jewish adults in the same survey, 34% were favorable and 28% unfavorable. A later poll of 800 Jewish registered voters for the Jewish Electorate Institute, fielded August 25-September 3, found 42% favorable toward AIPAC and 35% unfavorable, with a 3.5-point margin of error, [the Times of Israel reported](https://www.timesofisrael.com/poll-majority-of-us-jewish-voters-concerned-netanyahu-has-fueled-antisemitism/). Republican Jewish respondents were 71% favorable. Jewish Democrats were 31% favorable and 44% unfavorable.

Views of Israel and of U.S. aid have moved further than views of the lobby's name. Pew found 60% of U.S. adults held an unfavorable view of Israel in late March 2026. A Fox News Voter Poll of midterm voters, conducted by SSRS from October 19 through November 3, found 51% said U.S. support for Israel was "too strong." 567politics estimates that about three in four Democratic House voters and about one in five Republican House voters gave that answer, as set out in [the midterm Israel report](/news/midterms-us-support-israel-decline-iran-war-aipac-spending-voter-poll-trump-vance-november-2026). The [Democratic Party](/parties/united-states/democratic) now holds both chambers, and its voters are the ones most likely to treat AIPAC money as a warning sign. [Republican](/parties/united-states/republican) voters, in the same surveys, still mostly call current support for Israel about right.

A national Data for Progress poll of 745 likely Democratic primary voters, conducted April 9-14, 2025, for Zeteo, found 71% favored restricting U.S. military aid to Israel until it stopped attacks on civilians, supported Palestinian rights and committed to a long-term peace process; 20% favored continuing aid. That survey measured aid policy, not AIPAC's brand, and it sampled Democratic primary voters, not the general electorate.

Green's "persona non grata" line, then, fits a real change inside his party. It overstates the country. After he issued the statement, AIPAC quote-posted his "crawl back into your hole" sentence and wrote, "No. Sincerely, Millions of pro-Israel American Citizens."

https://x.com/AIPAC/status/2060032511925796876

That reply had 79,525 views as of November 10. Green had just lost a runoff to Rep. Christian Menefee in Texas's redrawn 18th District, a race AIPAC had celebrated. The person who supplied the phrase was already on his way out of Congress.

Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for UDP, offered a sharper critique of Track AIPAC's campaign arm and similar groups in March, telling the Jewish Telegraphic Agency that it is "not good for American democracy" that they are "trying to silence pro-Israel voices in the Democratic party." "This is the fringe left using dark money to advance an anti-Israel agenda," he said.

## Critics say the cards smear. Track AIPAC says the breadth is the point

The most persistent criticism of Track AIPAC is not that it posts FEC numbers. It is that the numbers on the red cards often are not AIPAC's numbers. *The Intercept*'s March 26, 2026, examination, by Jonah Valdez, found that the account initially relied on OpenSecrets compilations, then began adding independent expenditures and, in 2026, bundlers and major donors of $200 or more who had also given to pro-Israel groups. In Illinois's 9th District it assigned Daniel Biss a red card and a $460,357 total that, the article said, came mostly from J Street, a liberal pro-Israel group that has broken with AIPAC on weapons transfers and settler violence. Tali deGroot, J Street's vice president of political and digital strategy, called the method "intellectually dishonest." A Track AIPAC spokesperson told *The Intercept* the group "wholeheartedly agree[d]" that J Street and AIPAC differ, but still classified J Street as part of the pro-Israel lobby. "J Street might have some disagreements with AIPAC," Kennedy said, "but they are both working in favor of a foreign government within our government."

Jacob Kornbluh of *The Forward* argued in March 2026 that the graphics lumped together "all campaign funding groups that recognize Israel's right to exist." Morriah Kaplan, executive director of IfNotNow, told *The Intercept* that tracker accounts matter because "AIPAC and other dark money lobbies are intentionally very difficult to track," but that "without understanding how TrackAIPAC defines 'pro-Israel,' it's not as valuable a tool for transparency as it could be." Rep. Jasmine Crockett accused the account of being "MAGA plants who are meant to disrupt and confuse" after it gave her a red card.

Some critics go further and call the project antisemitic. Shannon Watts, a gun-safety advocate who has opposed Democrats taking AIPAC money, and commentator Will Stancil have used that word about the account, [San Diego Jewish World reported](https://www.sdjewishworld.com/2026/09/05/190667/). Yemisi Egbewole of the centrist group Third Way described it as a "horrendous social media page, which capitalizes on 'Israel bad, Jews suspicious' brain rot," while still crediting its attention to outside spending, [Inside Political Money reported](https://insidepoliticalmoney.com/news/track-aipac-is-booming-some-of-its-donors-also-gave-to-far-right-candidates/). In an email to that outlet, Track AIPAC rejected the charge as "not new" and "knowingly false." "Our methodology has never had anything to do with race or religion, and it never will," the email said. "Politicians have reached for that accusation for years to shield the funding of a genocide from scrutiny." It added, "We stand against antisemitic rhetoric from anyone, in either party, without exception." The same email said, "We believe without question that the lobbying wing of a foreign government has had more power inside the halls of Congress than the American people themselves." AIPAC is a domestic American lobby, funded by American donors; U.S. law bars foreign governments from giving to federal campaigns. Calling it "the lobbying wing of a foreign government" is Track AIPAC's characterization, not a legal finding.

In the same *Intercept* interview, a spokesperson said later graphics would break J Street and other sources out "for transparency purposes." 567politics did not independently retrieve a later post announcing a full revert to an earlier method, so readers should treat cards issued at different times as a mix of methods unless a card itself names the sources. OpenSecrets pages were not used as a line-by-line check in this story because the underlying FEC committee pages for UDP and Citizens Against AIPAC Corruption were opened directly.

## What the claim gets right, and where it falls short

Green's phrase, and the broader claim that AIPAC-backed politicians are increasingly "persona non grata," describe a real shift with clear limits. The evidence for a growing liability is strongest in Democratic primaries, in public refusals by previously friendly Democrats such as Ryan and Moulton, in El-Sayed's and Biss's wins against heavy UDP spending, in AIPAC's own October decision to stop PAC endorsements, and in polls that show Democratic voters now treat the group's money as a reason for distrust. Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute told Al Jazeera, "We have entered a new era. It is not just that AIPAC is spending millions of dollars and losing. You also have a new reality now in which candidates find AIPAC's donations toxic and are rejecting it."

The claim falls short as a description of American politics as a whole. Hundreds of AIPAC-backed candidates won, including Democratic leaders Schumer and Jeffries. Where the groups spent $100,000 or more, they still won most of those races. Most Americans, in the June AP-NORC survey, said they did not know enough about AIPAC to rate it. Republican voters remain much more supportive of current Israel policy than Democrats. Track AIPAC's own PAC spent a little more than $142,000 in independent expenditures through mid-October, which cannot be compared with UDP's tens of millions as a financial force. Correlation is not causation: a Democratic wave, the Iran war and a long drop in favorability toward Israel all moved in the same direction as the account's rise.

AIPAC's answer is the one it posted after Election Day and the one it posted to Green. It points to a long list of winners in both parties and says its members will spend more, not less. Track AIPAC's answer is the one Archibald gave The New Arab and the one the group emailed to Inside Political Money: the point was to make the money toxic, the method is broad on purpose, and the antisemitism charge is, in its telling, a shield. The 2026 results leave both statements standing, and neither one fully proven. The money became a problem in some races. In many others, it still traveled with the winner.