The super PAC wars of New Jersey’s 12th congressional district have begun.
American Priorities PAC, a brand-new but deep-pocketed super PAC intended to support progressive, Israel-skeptical candidates around the country, announced this morning that it is kicking off an enormous investment supporting Adam Hamawy, one of the leading Democratic candidates in the open Central Jersey district.
For now, the PAC has announced a $600,000 ad buy that will run for the next two-and-a-half weeks, a sum that’s larger than what any individual candidate (including Hamawy) has reported raising for their own campaigns thus far. The ad, “Heart,” extols Hamawy’s background as a medical doctor and Army veteran, saying that he’s worked to save lives in Iraq, Gaza, and the United States.
With just over a month to go until the June 2 Democratic primary, American Priorities says that it plans to eventually double that ad investment and spend “approximately $2 million” on the 12th district campaign in total. It’s not clear yet whether all of that will go towards pro-Hamawy messaging – as opposed to attacking any of Hamawy’s 11 primary opponents – though a spokesperson for the PAC said the current plan is to stick to positive campaigning.
American Priorities was launched in February with an explicit mission to counter the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the powerful pro-Israel group that has spent tends of millions of dollars influencing Democratic primary elections (including in New Jersey). As pro-Palestine candidates take beatings from AIPAC spending, founder Hannah Fertig told Semafor, “we simply want to make sure that someone’s there to protect candidates who question these policies.”
The widespread expectation has been that AIPAC and other interest-group PACs, such as those supporting pro-AI and pro-cryptocurrency candidates, will at least consider getting involved in the race for the 12th district, where Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), a progressive and vocal Israel critic, is retiring. The district is split between two of the country’s most expensive media markets, but most of the candidates running have raised relatively little money, giving super PACs more power to shape the race to their liking.
So far, though, no other PACs have announced substantial investments in the race. One veterans-focused PAC, Servant-Leader Fund, has spent around $100,000 on mailers boosting Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson, while a dark money group called the Florence Avenue Initiative has sent out some rather perplexing mailers that attack carpetbagging and congressional stock trading but don’t mention any candidates by name.
That means that, at least for now, American Priorities has the airwaves mostly to itself – and Hamawy, as the best-funded candidate in the race so far, can back the group up with his own spending, too. (Hamawy, for what it’s worth, says on his campaign website that he supports overturning Citizens United, the Supreme Court decision that paved the way for super PACs to begin their dominance of American campaign spending.)
According to FEC filings, American Priorities raised $3.8 million from a total of 12 donors during the first three months of its existence, with every donor giving at least $50,000. Half of its funding came from just two people, Mohammed Waqas and Omer Hasan, who gave $1 million each; both were also top donors to a pro-Zohran Mamdani super PAC that spent in last year’s mayoral race.
The race for New Jersey’s 12th district is the third congressional election the group has gotten involved in since its founding. In February, American Priorities spent more than $1 million boosting North Carolina congressional candidate Nida Allam, who narrowly lost to incumbent Rep. Valerie Foushee; it also made a small expenditure on behalf of Frederick Haynes, who easily won an open-seat Democratic primary in Texas.
Both of those candidates were aligned with other left-wing groups like the Justice Democrats, which has also endorsed Hamawy. Hamawy has generally positioned himself as the most left-leaning candidate in the 12th district race, especially on foreign policy issues, though most of his Democratic foes similarly identify as progressives.