Comment PONTIAC, Mich. — Rep. Andy Levin had watched it happen in Ohio, then Pennsylvania, then North Carolina, then Maryland. He knew that the United Republic Project, a super PAC created by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, had become the biggest spender in the Democratic Congress. primaries, helping pro-Israel Democrats beat leftist candidates. But it was surprising, he said, to see the pro-Israel PAC spend at least $4.2 million to help Rep. Haley Stevens in the member-by-member primary just outside Detroit. “The whole thing is so absurd,” Levin, 61, said in an interview here after a rally with Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D). “I’m a way out Jew. I have mezudes on the doors in my office. I am one of two former synagogue presidents in Congress.” The Aug. 2 primary in the new 11th Congressional District, drawn by a nonpartisan committee last year, has become one of the nation’s most expensive and the latest battle between the Democratic Party’s left and donors who want to reduce progressive influence. in Congress. It’s also a test of the pro-Israel group’s influence in the Democratic primary, where, seven months into its existence, it has won all but one of the races in which it has played. Four years after Levin and Stevens arrived in the House — the scion of a Michigan political dynasty, and a first-time candidate for freshman class president — have waged a bitter, sometimes personal battle for a safe Democratic seat. As donors fought proxy conflict in support of Israel, Levin, echoing supporters such as Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), has framed their race as a race for the soul of the party. Stevens, who easily outpolls Levin, sees a different choice — a down-to-earth young Democrat who would be the first woman to represent some of the area’s cities, or a “60-year-old white man,” as she put it to him in a debate. that shouldn’t have run here. “I’m not running for Congress to discuss ideology,” Stevens, 39, said after a tour of a steel mill in Madison Heights. “I think there’s a pedigree component here, but I also think there’s a ‘who’s going to be the Oakland County champion?’ ingredient.” None of the Democrats wanted to be confronted, though pro-Israel donors were eager to shoot down Levin — the lead sponsor of a two-state solution bill that calls East Jerusalem, the West Bank and Gaza “occupied territories” and would put financial pressure on Israel not to annex them. Michigan lost one of its House seats after the 2020 census, and while the old map put Levin in a safe seat and Stevens in a swing seat, the redistricting put them both in a district that didn’t have access to Republicans. The couple’s arguments start over who should run where. Stevens had represented nearly half of the new district and ran two hard-fought races where her story — “I was chief of staff on President Obama’s auto bailout,” referring to the 2009 bailout of auto companies during the financial crisis — appeared constantly on television. Levin represented about a quarter of the new 11th District, but his house was smack in the middle of it. (Stevens, who married last year, bought a new house with her husband who moved her into the redesigned seat.) Some Democrats wanted Levin to run in a neighboring seat that narrowly voted for Trump, and where two-time U.S. Senate candidate John James was one of two contenders for the GOP nomination. “I’m an Oakland County kid,” Levine said, explaining his decision. “My children are the fifth generation of my family to live here in the new 11th District.” If he had run for the 10th District, he would have expected AIPAC and its allies to come against him. “It would be the same story there,” Levin said. “That’s where he would be in the general. here, it’s in the primary.” Critics of Levin’s views on Israel saw an opportunity immediately. In mid-January, just weeks after Levin and Stevens declared for the 11th District, former AIPAC chairman David Victor, an Oakland County resident, typed out an email to potential Stevens donors. The “circle race,” Victor wrote, was not in Detroit, where Israel critic Rashida Tlaib (D) was seeking re-election. Tlaib and Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-Minn.), two frequent AIPAC targets, had “very little influence over the other members, given their background and their margin.” But as a self-proclaimed Zionist whose father and uncle served in the US House and Senate, Levin was “arguably the most corrosive member of Congress on the US-Israel relationship.” Stevens and Levin disagreed on Israel. pledged “unquestioning support” for the country, while Levin was critical of Israel’s settlement building and the “forced removal” of Palestinians from east Jerusalem. Alana Alpert, who has been Levin’s rabbi since 2015 — the year they co-founded a liberal group called Detroit Jews for Justice — said the attacks were clearly unjust and that her mother was so upset to see them that she had vow out support for AIPAC. “There are some very progressive people in our community who basically have their fears about Israel we’re taking advantage, to distract them from the issues that affect us most,” Alpert said. “Who benefits from this, anyway? The companies that Andy wants to hold accountable.” Some supporters of Levin’s stance on Israel have rallied against Stevens. In early July, an IfNotNow activist, who calls Israel an “apartheid” state, confronted Stevens on camera. In the final stretch of the race, a local IfNotNow organizer created “Jews for Andy” to campaign for the congressman. But as in other races where the United Democracy Project (UDP) has spent money — about $30 million this cycle — Israel has not been a top issue in the region. When the PAC’s ads began airing, they echoed Stevens’ own positive messages. In interviews around the district, voters who said they were still making up their minds cited other priorities as they made what, for many, was a tough choice between two Democrats they liked. “I think we can’t lose on this,” said Lori Mizzi-Spillane, 62, who said she thought long and hard before deciding to support Levin. “The environmental issues are what turned me around.” Levin and his allies have tried to highlight more distinctions, from his past as a union organizer — “A Shop Steward for Congress,” says a campaign slogan — to his support of left-wing principles like Medicare-for-all and Green New Deal. “I trust Andy!” Warren said at the rally in Pontiac after Levin reminded the crowd that he had endorsed her campaign for president. “I don’t trust Andy because he has a slick line, because he chooses carefully which account he puts his name on, because he sits back and waits. I trust Andy because he fights from the heart.” Convincing voters that Stevens won’t run for them — or that she’s been compromised by PAC spending — has been as difficult here as in the other states where the UDP has intervened. Levin has echoed supporters like Sanders, pointing to Republican PAC donations — and AIPAC’s support of dozens of Republican incumbents — to argue that the GOP is trying to buy the seat. That’s the message broadcast by J Street, a liberal group that opposes further annexation and supports the creation of a Palestinian state. “No amount of campaign money is worth giving up our democracy,” says a narrator at the 30-second mark, linking AIPAC’s support of Republican incumbents to their votes to overturn the 2020 election. The group put up more than $700,000 behind that point, far less than the UDP — and less than Emily’s List super PAC Women Vote!, which works to elect female Democrats, had spent on its own seats. “It’s disingenuous to whine about dark money while using dark money ads to unfairly attack Haley Stevens, who is anyway a great incumbent House Democrat that even Andy Levin has supported in the past,” said Patrick Dorton, spokesman of UDP. On Friday, Sanders will head to Pontiac to rally with Levin and make the case that the super PAC’s spending is a ploy to replace a reliable progressive with a business-friendly centrist. But Logan Bayroff, a spokesman for J Street, agreed there was more work to be done to convince Democratic voters that the pro-Stevens ads on their screens had a darker motive. “We did our best to get that information in front of the voters,” Bayroff said. “The ads come from a super PAC called the United Democracy Project. Nobody reads the fine print.” Stevens, too, was dismissive of attempts to portray spending on her behalf as a crime against democracy. “I don’t come from a political family,” he said, before telling a story about the trouble he had raising money in 2018 — and the help national Democrats came in after being attacked by Republican super PACs. “It’s very ironic to punish a colleague for super PAC money when super PAC money is coming your way,” Stevens added, referring to J Street.. Stevens also benefited from developments unrelated to PAC spending, from a larger share of the district that had voted for her in the past to news stories that synced with her campaign messages. Levin stumbled in June, running an ad featuring a 2018 endorsement from the late John Lewis (D), a civil rights icon and Georgia congressman who died in 2020. It collapsed after complaints from members of the Congressional Black Caucus — including Rep. Brenda Lawrence (D-Mich.), who endorsed Stevens after he declined to run in one of the new districts. Stevens has also been helped by liberal anger over his ouster Roe v. Wade, that led to a burst of new fundraisers for Democrats last month, boosting Democratic women in particular. On Monday, Stevens knocked on the doors of primary voters in one of the…
