Ali seeks to make AIPAC an issue in NJ-8 campaign

After a huge influx of spending from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee reshaped the Democratic primary in one New Jersey congressional district, an underdog challenger in a neighboring district is trying to make the pro-Israel group into a top campaign issue.

Mussab Ali, who is challenging Rep. Rob Menendez (D-Jersey City) for renomination in his urban North Jersey district, has released several statements in recent weeks calling on Menendez to disavow AIPAC and reject their funding. Ali, a former school board president in Jersey City, told the New Jersey Globe that AIPAC’s past and present support for Menendez should give voters serious pause about supporting him again.

“AIPAC is being funded by billionaire MAGA donors who have made it explicitly clear that their mission is to take down anyone who is even remotely critical of the state of Israel,” Ali said. “The majority of voters do not want someone who is putting the interest of a foreign government ahead of the people of their own state.”

Menendez responded that he has not been afraid to break with pro-Israel groups and criticize Israel when he believes they’re wrong. If AIPAC and its donors want to continue supporting him anyway, he said, that is their choice.

“I have a voting record that I believe is critical of [Benjamin] Netanyahu, is against the Iran War,” Menendez said. “If individuals choose to support me, and they choose to do so as AIPAC members, that’s okay. They see my votes – and there’s a lot of daylight from people like Josh [Gottheimer] – and that’s their decision. I’m okay with that.”

The two-term congressman is considered the favorite for renomination, and has assembled a broad coalition of supporters behind him. One of those supporters is Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), New Jersey’s most progressive member of Congress and a vocal Israel critic.

But Ali has sought to outflank Menendez to the left in any way he can, and AIPAC – which has taken on an ever-increasing role in Democratic primaries around the country – is one issue where he sees an opportunity.

Menendez’s willingness to separate himself from AIPAC somewhat could also earn him flak from pro-Israel groups and voters; after this story was initially published, Teaneck Mayor Mark Schwartz shared a statement calling Menendez a “fair-weather friend” of Israel. “All it takes is a little primary for him to try to distance himself from his long-held beliefs,” Schwartz said.

Upon his arrival in Congress in 2023, Menendez generally charted a pro-Israel path, much like most New Jersey members of Congress of both parties have done for decades – among them Menendez’s father, former Senator Bob Menendez, a former Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman and a steadfast ally of Israel. (Ali derided the younger Menendez’s Israel stance as “inherited” from his father.)

In the wake of the October 7 Hamas attack, Menendez joined a “March for Israel” on the National Mall, and the next year voted several times to provide billions of dollars in aid to Israel, breaking with most of his fellow Democrats to do so in one instance.

Facing a serious primary in 2024 following his father’s indictment, Menendez got help from AIPAC, which never spent directly on his behalf but which encouraged donors to support him. Of the $1.3 million Menendez raised in the first six months of 2024, a little over $200,000 was earmarked through AIPAC PAC, which allows donors to give to candidates through their own donor portal; AIPAC congratulated Menendez after his victory, saying that “being pro-Israel is good policy and good politics.”

That donor portal remains active, and Menendez raised another $140,000 that was earmarked via AIPAC PAC in 2025. Menendez is one of eight New Jersey members of Congress, five Democrats and three Republicans, currently listed as an AIPAC endorsee on their website.

But one of those endorsees, Senator Cory Booker, recently started taking steps away from AIPAC, telling Politico last week that he’s sworn off funds from both AIPAC and other PACs. While AIPAC continues to list him as an endorsed candidate, it no longer includes an option to give him money.

Ali called on Menendez to follow Booker’s lead last week, saying in a statement that Menendez “refuses to admit that he was wrong to accept AIPAC money.”

The salience of AIPAC as a campaign issue in New Jersey grew enormously after last month’s special Democratic primary in the 11th district, where several AIPAC-backed super PACs controversially spent $4 million propping up former Lieutenant Gov. Tahesha Way and sinking former Rep. Tom Malinowski. The anti-Malinowski effort technically succeeded, but the candidate who beat him was Analilia Mejia, a progressive Democrat who is much more of an Israel critic than Malinowski ever was.

Ali argued that AIPAC’s scorched-earth campaign against Malinowski, who had a broadly pro-Israel voting record during his first stint in Congress, showed that the group is unwilling to tolerate any dissent from its stances.

“It’s become very clear that the line with AIPAC is not, ‘I have a nuanced take on Israel,’” Ali said. “It’s, ‘I have 100% fealty to Netanyahu, and I will always provide unconditional aid to the state of Israel no matter what they do.’”

Menendez, for his part, said that he was baffled by the way AIPAC handled the 11th district race: “I think that was a terrible decision,” he said. “A lot of the decisions they make don’t make any sense to me.”

The influx of money into the 11th district substantially raised AIPAC’s profile in the New Jersey political world, and it has many wondering which race the group might target next. One much-discussed possibility: the 12th district, where Watson Coleman is retiring and 13 Democratic candidates with a wide range of views on Israel are seeking to succeed her.

The chances of direct AIPAC intervention in Menendez’s 8th district seem lower, given the difficult path Ali faces to victory. Menendez said that while he has no control over what AIPAC does or doesn’t do, it won’t matter much either way.

“I don’t need any of the outside groups to beat Mussab,” he said. “I am going to beat him handily.”

This story was updated at 1:38 p.m. on April 1 with comment from Mark Schwartz.