Big backers of Connie Chan for Congress tied to pro-Israel PACs

A political action committee that has spent nearly half a million dollars in ads to bolster Connie Chan’s bid for Congress in the last stretch of the primary is linked directly, albeit circuitously, to pro-Israel lobbying groups.

The money trail, first reported by Drop Site News on Saturday, amounts to an October surprise (in May) for San Francisco progressives.

In 72 hours, they will weigh Chan against Saikat Chakrabarti, the centimillionaire who is neck-and-neck with her in recent polling and vying for the No. 2 spot behind frontrunner Sen. Scott Wiener. The top two finishers in June’s primary will advance to November’s general election.

Dozens of online accounts racked up millions of views over the weekend disseminating the ties, including Chakrabarti himself, who said “AIPAC sees me as their biggest threat, so they will do whatever it takes to try to defeat me.”

Dem. Majority for Israel

United Democracy Project

pro-Israel lobbying group

AIPAC super PAC

$37,750 in-kind polling (April)

$250,000 cash (April)

EDW Action Fund

Elect Democratic Women PAC

affiliated

Pro-Choice Majority Action

created May 1, 2026

$475,000 in pro-Connie Chan ads (May)

Dem. Majority for Israel

pro-Israel lobbying group

$37,750 in-kind polling (April)

United Democracy Project

AIPAC super PAC

$250,000 cash (April)

EDW Action Fund

Elect Democratic Women PAC

affiliated

Pro-Choice Majority Action

created May 1, 2026

$475,000 in pro-Connie

Chan ads (May)

Graphic by Kelly Waldron.

Chan has pledged not to take money from AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby. Campaign spokesperson Julie Edwards said the claim that Chan is “carrying water for AIPAC is absurd and laughable.”

“This is clearly a desperate attempt from our opponent to undermine our campaign because we have momentum to win on June 2,” Edwards wrote in a statement.

“Connie has also been clear from day one of this campaign that she would not accept a dime from AIPAC, and she has stayed true to this throughout. PACs act independently of our campaign, and we would urge any organization supporting Connie to respect the very clear values she has laid out not to accept donations from AIPAC.”

Chan has no control over PACs spending on her behalf, and she would be an unusual ally for the Israel lobby: Chan has pledged to support an arms embargo on Israel, voted with the progressive bloc on the Board of Supervisors to pass San Francisco’s ceasefire resolution in early 2024, and names “the genocide of the Palestinian people” as a focus of her foreign policy platform.

The Russian doll-like nature of campaign finance also means it is unclear how much money, if any, from AIPAC actually ended up paying for pro-Chan ads.

Still, Chan has, overnight, become virtually joined at the hip to AIPAC among certain online leftist circles — her face in an ominous black-and-red graphic has been plastered across the internet in the same vein as politicians who are forceful defenders of Israel and have directly accepted millions from AIPAC.

AIPAC money sent to ‘Elect Democratic Women’ PAC

The route starts with Pro-Choice Majority Action, a PAC created on May 1 that has spent $475,000 to cut ads for Chan in just the last 10 days.

The Pro-Choice Majority Action PAC is legally affiliated with another PAC, EDW Action Fund, meaning the two are “financed, maintained or controlled” by the same individuals or group, and can pass money to each other. EDW Action Fund is an offshoot of Elect Democratic Women, which has worked to back dozens of female Democratic candidates for Congress since 2018.

But EDW Action Fund has also taken significant sums from pro-Israel groups. In April, it received $287,750 ($250,000 in cash, the rest in “in-kind” polling) from two pro-Israel lobbying groups — the Democratic Majority for Israel and the United Democracy Project, an AIPAC affiliate.

Elect Democratic Women, the group whose PAC directly received AIPAC funding, has supported dozens of female candidates this election cycle, including Rep. Lateefah Simon, D-Oakland (who was given “top scores” on Palestinian rights by the pro-Palestine Institute for Middle East Understanding) and Oregon Rep. Maxine Dexter, D-Portland (who compared Israel’s actions in Gaza to the Holocaust before apologizing).

EDW Action Fund is part of a network of affiliates that includes a handful of other PACs, like Pro-Choice Majority Action and another focused on battleground races. The pro-Israel lobbying money sent to EDW Action Fund represents one-twentieth of the total $5 million raised by that network.

Lenny Young, an advisor with EDW Action Fund, said the network’s funds are shared among affiliated PACs. But, he wrote in a statement, “a candidate’s stance on Israel is not a criterion for garnering our support,” and that the PAC has “supported candidates who are pro-Israel, and those who are not.”

Asked whether the AIPAC donations had come with instructions to support a particular candidate, Young said, “I can’t comment on those internal conversations.”

The Pro-Choice Majority PAC was stood up on May 1, meaning its first disclosures won’t be due until June 20, well after the primary. Committees like that are known as “pop-up PACs” — they can form weeks before an election and spend heavily without disclosing donors until after an election.

Pro-Israel lobbyists have taken an interest in state races. An AIPAC spokesperson told Politico in April that the group would be “looking carefully at California races” to “prevent detractors of the U.S.-Israel relationship from being elected to Congress.”

Last-minute money spend critical in final days

The Pro-Choice Majority Action’s half-million to back Chan was significant, and badly needed: Chan has lagged in the money race compared to Wiener and centimillionaire Chakrabarti.

Wiener is a more pro-Israel candidate than either Chan or Chakrabarti. He is polling far ahead of both and is virtually guaranteed first place.

Wiener has fundraised some $4 million from individual donors, and is backed by millions more in tech-backed PAC money; Chakrabarti has poured $10 million of his own money into his campaign.

Chan, by contrast, had raised just $651,000 as of mid-May.

That changed dramatically in the last two weeks. Rep. Nancy Pelosi named Chan her favored successor on May 18, and four PACs have since spent some $600,000 in a last-ditch effort to boost Chan. The bulk of that spending came from the Pro-Choice Majority Action PAC.

Though Chan has been critical of Israel, Chakrabarti has been more forceful in condemnations. In a foreign policy Q&A with Mission Local, he said he supported the boycott, divestment, and sanctions movement outright, and would halt defensive weapons like Iron Dome.

Chakrabarti also went further than Wiener and Chan by saying voters would need to “replace a lot of the people who are in Congress” to change the U.S.-Israeli relationship, specifically naming the “large Israeli lobby.” 

AROC Action, a leading San Francsico pro-Palestinian group that endorsed both Chakrabarti and Chan, said Chakrabarti had “demonstrated particular clarity and consistency on Palestine solidarity, forcefully calling for an end to the genocide in Gaza.” 

While Wiener has been publicly agnostic on whom he prefers to face in November, it is lost on nobody that only Chakrabarti has vast personal resources — he is worth more than $100 million — and has pledged to spend whatever it takes to be competitive. Political strategists have pegged a Wiener vs. Chakrabarti matchup as “a fair fight.” 

Pro-Choice Majority Action, the group that took out the ad buys for Chan, has backed just three other House candidates this election cycle:

• In CA-14, Rep. Eric Swalwell’s former district in the East Bay, the PAC spent $200,000 on ads for Melissa Hernandez, a Democrat who is polling far behind frontrunner Aisha Wahab. The latter has called Israel’s actions in Gaza a genocide, while Hernandez has demurred.
• In CA-22, in the Bakersfield area, the PAC spent $100,000 on ads for Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains, who is facing off against Bernie Sanders-backed progressive Randy Villegas. After initially saying Israel’s actions qualified as genocide, Bains later walked that claim back to Politico. She has been endorsed by a pro-Israel group.
• In TX-33, between Fort Worth and Dallas, the PAC spent $100,000 on the unsuccessful bid of Julie Johnson, who was backed by AIPAC directly but lost to a representative with, curiously, a longer and more forceful past history of defending Israel.

This piece has been updated to include a statement from EDW Action Fund, and to clarify the total raised by EDW Action Fund’s affiliates.