One Congessional primary gone very sour

I’m Nida Allam. Last year, I had an abortion that saved my life. Now, the Supreme Court is taking away our right to choose. People like us won’t have access to care. And we will die. That’s what’s at stake. Super PACs are spending millions trying to silence me, but our movement is stronger than that. I’m endorsed by Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders.

Nida Allam is running in a Democratic primary in the Research Triangle area of North Carolina for an open congressional seat. The winner of the primary can be expected to win the seat in November. Allam is something of a rising star in NC Democratic politics, currently serving on the Durham County Board of Commissioners. Allam was drawn into politics in response to the murder of three of her friends in the context of an Islamophobic hate crime in 2015.

She certainly has reason to speak out against the right wing drive to outlaw abortions; the procedure she alludes to in this ad ended an ectopic pregnancy that might have killed her if she had been forced to carry the fetus to term. 

Allam is not expected to win. She put together a strong campaign and a respectable amount of cash -- but the aggressively pro-Israel/anti-Palestinian lobbying group AIPAC and its associates jumped in to fund her establishment rival, Valerie Foushee, to the tune of some $1.7 million dollars. All of a sudden, this is the most expensive House contest in North Carolina history. 

And it's ugly. Anonymous texts to voters suggest there is a supporter of terrorists on the ballot. The progressive caucus of the North Carolina Democratic Party rescinded its endorsement of Foushee because AIPAC has funded 100 Republicans who refuse to condemn the January 6 insurrection. Bernie Sanders has tweeted his disgust with the AIPAC intervention, demanding to know what the group has against "strong progressive women of color fighting for the working class."  The progressive Jewish lobbying group J Street has denounced the AIPAC political interventions:

J Street's vice president of communications, Logan Bayroff, called AIPAC's 2022 investments a way "to try to defeat, silence and, in some cases, smear progressives. ... we were created to help provide a political voice for the large majority of the American Jewish community that holds liberal democratic values and liberal views when it comes to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and foreign policy," Bayroff added.

Early voting has begun for the May 24 primary.