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Some of the Democratic Party’s top pollsters and consultants have collected more than $7 million since 2021 from AIPAC’s super PAC and its closest Democratic ally, as the AIPAC group now spends to defeat the party’s Senate nominee in the key battleground state of Michigan.
Last week, the United Democracy Project (UDP) dropped $95,000 on mailers targeting Democratic Senate nominee Abdul El-Sayed in his matchup against Republican Rep. Mike Rogers, after spending at least $30.6 million opposing him and supporting his primary opponent, Rep. Haley Stevens. The group has foreshadowed unloading much more cash to defeat El-Sayed in the weeks ahead. At a Michigan debate last week, Rogers welcomed AIPAC’s support.
At least 20 Democrat-tied firms have worked for UDP or its close ally Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) since 2021, including Impact Research, the polling firm founded by Joe Biden’s campaign pollster John Anzalone, as well as Global Strategy Group (GSG) and Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (GQR).
Several of the firms are also working this cycle for the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee (DSCC), the campaign arm of the Senate Democrats, and the mammoth Senate Majority PAC (SMP) super PAC. The trio of Impact Research, GSG, and GQR have been paid millions of dollars this cycle by the DSCC and SMP—for example, the DSCC paid Impact in May 2025, after it had already collected over $100,000 this cycle from UDP. Similarly, the DSCC paid GSG over $131,000 in December, over a month after the firm received its first payments from UDP since 2022.
UDP and DFMI have spent nearly 13x as much with the Democratic firms as they have with Republican-aligned firms, according to a review of Federal Election Commission records through Aug. 31.
Several of the largest donors to UDP have also been major donors to President Trump and other Republican committees. WhatsApp founder Jan Koum, the group’s largest individual donor, has given $7.1 million to MAGA Inc., the super PAC aligned with Trump that is spending millions to back Republicans in the midterms.
This year, much of UDP and DMFI’s spending in Democratic primaries was obscured from public view. UDP has routed $12.1 million in 2026 to a handful of super PACs whose names avoided AIPAC’s brand. Recently, the New York Times and the Guardian US have described AIPAC’s toxicity among Democrats, after its super PAC set records for primary spending to knock out critics of unconditional aid to Israel.
"If these firms want to be taken seriously as committed to upholding democratic values and defeating Republicans, they should not take contracts from Republican-funded super PACs that are not only advocating pro-genocide policies, but are actively trying to defeat Democrats in swing states," said Usamah Andrabi, communications director of the progressive Justice Democrats.
Taken together, payments to the 20 Democratic aligned-firms from UDP and DMFI have been rising: from over $1.5 million in the 2022 cycle, to over $2.8 million in the 2024 cycle, to nearly $2.8 million so far in the 2026 cycle through August. None of the Democratic firms contacted by Sludge would comment on their work for UDP or DMFI.
