Super PACs tied to Aipac have spent more than $5 million in recent weeks on ads in the race for Eric Swalwell’s former seat, boosting Melissa Hernandez and hammering Aisha Wahab as the contest heads into a runoff later this month. The spending has turned a local California race into one of the most expensive and combative fights on the state’s political map.
Wahab, a state senator endorsed by the California Democratic party, is the frontrunner. She outpaced Hernandez by more than 20 points in a June primary and in the special election to complete the rest of Swalwell’s term, but the outside money has narrowed the spotlight to a simple question: how much can a flood of ads change before voters return to the polls in November?
The money is coming from several directions. United Democracy Project has spent $1.2 million in the race, Bold America Pac has spent $2.1 million, and Track Aipac says the lobby has spent more than $4.4 million to support Hernandez. Aipac has also doubled its political spending overall, largely in Democratic primaries, to $67.2 million, and it has poured money into other races too, including support for Haley Stevens in Michigan’s Democratic Senate primary that ultimately went to Abdul El-Sayed.
Wahab said the barrage of attack ads over the last month has misrepresented her record and driven a stream of reactions from voters. Her campaign fields calls and emails daily from people disgusted by the ads, she said, and she described the spending as election interference. She also framed the fight in personal terms, pointing to a childhood marked by her father’s murder and time in the foster care system, and to her backing for legislation on human trafficking and sexual assault survivors.
That complaint runs straight into the line from Hernandez’s camp. Ajay Mohan, Hernandez’s campaign manager, said Melissa does not control independent expenditures, and that no candidate does. The spending is independent on paper, but it is unmistakably focused: money aimed at helping one candidate and trying to define the other before two more votes are cast.
Swalwell resigned earlier this year after multiple allegations of sexual assault, leaving the seat open in a district covering a swathe of the East Bay. Wahab now has endorsements from Our Revolution, Rob Bonta and Yesenia Sanchez, but the weight of the race may come down to whether voters accept the ads now blanketing their screens, or reject them as outside meddling that arrived too late to settle the contest before November.
