Kaela Berg is heading into Minnesota’s Second Congressional District primary with more than $1 million in outside support, a late wave of spending that has put Women Vote, Pro-Choice Majority Action and Elect Democratic Women at the center of the race. Berg, a union flight attendant and Minnesota House member, is benefiting from a money flow that has become one of the clearest signs of how much outside groups are shaping the contest.
The size of the support is what makes the burst stand out. Women Vote is sending Berg more than $550,000, Pro-Choice Majority Action is adding $415,000, and Elect Democratic Women is contributing $100,000. The totals matter because they do not come from Berg’s own campaign and because they arrive in the final stretch before tomorrow’s primary, when every ad and mailer can still move votes.
That is why the Peggy Flanagan Vs Angie Craig search traffic is spiking now: the race is being driven less by candidate debate than by who is financing the last round of persuasion. Women Vote is the super PAC affiliated with EMILYs List, while Elect Democratic Women is affiliated with Pro-Choice Majority Action. Behind those names is a larger pattern that has defined Democratic primaries in Minnesota, where super PACs have been shifting money through other PACs to make pro-Israel spending look more neutral than it is.
The funding trail also creates the contradiction that now shadows Berg. Her campaign says she supports ending weapons sales to Israel, calls the war in Gaza a genocide, opposes Israeli settlements in the West Bank, and backs immediate humanitarian aid to Gaza as part of an eventual two-state solution. But the groups helping her have all taken money that traces back to pro-Israel interests: Women Vote received $650,000 from Democratic Majority for Israel this cycle, and Elect Democratic Women received $1.35 million from United Democracy Project and another $137,000 from Democratic Majority for Israel this year.
United Democracy Project is an AIPAC affiliate, and that link is the part that keeps the story open even as the race heads to the ballot box. Kaela Berg is being lifted by outside organizations that are themselves fed by groups with pro-Israel ties, yet her own public position is sharply at odds with the politics that money usually serves. Matt Little, who is running in the same district and has the endorsement of the Minnesota Democratic-Farmer-Labor Party and the Congressional Progressive Caucus, has also been part of a race where outside spending has loomed over the closing argument.
Tomorrow’s primary will show whether that money changed the outcome or simply confirmed how aggressively outside PACs can now steer Democratic contests in Minnesota. What it will not settle is how much of the money now backing Berg is ultimately tied to the same pro-Israel network that has been working through cleaner-sounding groups to influence the race from behind the curtain.
