AIPAC just made our job harder, but we’re not stopping. Yesterday, AIPAC informed its members that it is ending its candidate endorsements and will no longer be earmarking donations through its PAC as it has since 2022. It’s not hard to see why. AIPAC told its members that this cycle has been one of the most challenging it’s faced. Its money has become a liability, and a growing number of Democrats, including some reliably pro-Israel ones like Cory Booker, have said they won’t take it. Part of what drove that backlash is that the money was public: every AIPAC earmark showed up in FEC records, and we’ve been turning those records into lists of what AIPAC gave every member of Congress. But AIPAC isn’t asking its members to stop giving. It’s asking them to give directly to the candidates its staff recommend, which means the donations will no longer be tagged with AIPAC’s name in public records. Its leaders also said it plans to “utilize new tools to help our friends win,” without saying what those tools will be. And its super PAC, United Democracy Project, will continue spending to defeat candidates it deems anti-Israel. We’ve already seen how AIPAC works when it doesn’t want its name on something. We reported on the pro-choice super PAC in Massachusetts funded by a group whose biggest outside donor was AIPAC’s super PAC, the AIPAC-tied groups that put millions into Illinois primaries largely from undisclosed sources, and the dark money network with AIPAC ties that ran attack ads against Graham Platner in Maine. Tracking money that’s been routed to hide where it came from is a major focus of what we do. AIPAC was the largest PAC contributor to federal candidates last cycle, and together with its super PAC it spent nearly $127 million on the 2024 elections. This year its super PAC spent more than $30 million on a single Democratic primary in Michigan, and for the second cycle in a row the group has surpassed $100 million in spending. All that money comes with an agenda: AIPAC lobbies Congress for billions of dollars a year in military aid to Israel, and a lot of its giving goes to lawmakers on the committees that decide that funding. AIPAC spent decades staying out of direct campaign giving, then launched a PAC in late 2021. We covered its first donations in February 2022 and have published dozens of stories on AIPAC’s money since. With the earmarks gone, this work gets more complex. We’ll keep matching earmark donors against new campaign filings, tracing the vendors AIPAC’s super PAC uses, like the Democratic Party pollsters we reported on earlier this month, tracking the pop-up PACs it sets up to keep its name off ads, and watching for whatever “new tools” the group starts using. That’s where we need your help. Sludge is a small nonprofit newsroom, and work like this, hours in FEC data for a single story, is paid for by readers who subscribe. If you’ve ever shared one of our AIPAC stories or looked up your own member of Congress on our lists, please subscribe now. It’s the most direct way to make sure we can keep following this money as AIPAC makes it harder to do so. ➡️readsludge.com/membership/ Thanks for reading, and for helping keep this going!

The New Democrats’ top fundraiser runs a nonprofit that took congressional aides, including Hakeem Jeffries’ deputy chief of staff, to Anthropic, Waymo, and AWS. She also advises a tech group that wants to “shape the kind of Democrats who win in 2026.” readsludge.com/2026/10/21/th…

NEW: Helen Milby raises money for House Democrats’ largest ideological bloc. She also runs a nonprofit bringing Big Tech executives into private meetings with congressional staff and advises a tech industry group seeking to shape the party’s AI agenda. readsludge.com/2026/10/21/th…

Tech billionaire John Doerr pitched Chuck Schumer directly that stronger antitrust rules would chill the VC industry by scrutizining acquisitions. He set up a dark money group funneling $10 million to Schumer- and Democratic-aligned nonprofits. readsludge.com/2026/10/20/te…

A new dark money nonprofit run by John Doerr of VC firm Kleiner Perkins funneled money to Democratic pass-throughs—and to conservative energy groups campaigning for permitting reform. readsludge.com/2026/10/20/te…

Here are the top donors in the latest monthly filing from AIPAC’s super PAC UDP, covering September. Hot Pockets co-creator David Merage gave $150,000. Also listed is $632,490 sent back by three Chicago PACs that AIPAC backed in the primaries.