California lawmaker overcomes pro-Israel spending to win special election
California state Senator Aisha Wahab has won a special election to fill the seat of former United States Congressman Eric Swalwell, overcoming a deluge of attack advertising funded by pro-Israel groups in the final weeks of the race. US media outlets projected on Thursday that Wahab, a progressive, had beaten her rival, moderate Democrat Melissa Hernandez.
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Key Facts
- Fact 1: She will now represent California’s 14th congressional district, which includes the southeastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, for the remainder of Swalwell’s term, which ends in January.
- Fact 2: Wahab went on to win June’s primary for the special election by a wide margin, with more than 42 percent of the vote to Hernandez’s 17.
- Fact 3: But the race tightened as the United Democracy Project, a super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), spent nearly $2.5m since early August to boost Hernandez, according to media reports.
- Fact 4: The news outlet CNN reported that BOLD America, another group that receives funding from AIPAC, also spent $1.9m.
California state Senator Aisha Wahab has won a special election to fill the seat of former United States Congressman Eric Swalwell, overcoming a deluge of attack advertising funded by pro-Israel groups in the final weeks of the race. US media outlets projected on Thursday that Wahab, a progressive, had beaten her rival, moderate Democrat Melissa Hernandez.
What to know about California’s special election to replace Eric Swalwell How Abdul El-Sayed’s ‘extraordinary’ win stunned pro-Israel establishment How much has AIPAC spent against Michigan’s Abdul El-Sayed? And why? She will now represent California’s 14th congressional district, which includes the southeastern part of the San Francisco Bay Area, for the remainder of Swalwell’s term, which ends in January.
(Original synthesis pending human/AI review — generated by the stub provider by selecting real sentences from the source material, not by writing new analysis or commentary.)
Original source: Al Jazeera
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