Special Investigations

Press Freedom Defense Fund

Two-Thirds of Shri Thanedar’s Campaign Cash Came Through AIPAC as He Lost Over $600K

AIPAC bundlers have propped up the Michigan congressman, who has invested millions in campaign funds in crypto.

Rep. Shri Thanedar, D-Mich., lost more than $630,000 in investment income last quarter after he put $3.7 million in campaign funds into the cryptocurrency industry, according to a new filing with the Federal Election Commission released on Wednesday. Amid those losses, bundlers from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee have stepped in to prop up his campaign.

Two-thirds of the money Thanedar raised in the last quarter came from AIPAC, which collects money from multiple donors and funnels it to the pro-Israel group’s preferred candidates, according to his campaign’s most recent FEC filing. Less than a quarter of those donors listed Michigan as their state of residence. Thanedar, who is facing a challenge from a democratic socialist in next month’s Democratic primary, was in the minority of House Democrats who voted against cutting $3.3 billion in military aid to Israel from a State Department spending bill this week.

“That’s a lot of money for a campaign to be losing, especially when the market is at record highs.”

“That’s a lot of money for a campaign to be losing, especially when the market is at record highs.”

“They’re not raising a lot of money from donors at this point,” said Brendan Glavin, director of insights at the watchdog campaign finance group OpenSecrets, about Thanedar’s filing. Asked about the investment losses Thanedar listed in the filing, Glavin said, “That’s a lot of money for a campaign to be losing, especially when the market is at record highs.”

Thanedar — who has made his money building, buying, and selling off companies — has heavily self-funded his campaign to stave off Donavan McKinney, a Michigan state representative aiming to maintain a wave of socialist success that’s seen challengers from the left topple establishment favorites in New York, Pennsylvania, and Colorado so far this midterm cycle. Thanedar gave himself $800,000 in June, the latest in more than $12 million he’s loaned his campaign since he first ran for Congress in 2021. He outraised McKinney last quarter, though Thanedar’s campaign carries his personal loans as debt.

In his most recent campaign filing, Thanedar reported more than $3.9 in investment income losses this cycle.

There’s a New Democratic Machine. It’s Unabashedly Socialist.

The August 4 Michigan primary is among the next races to pit a democratic socialist candidate against an incumbent. McKinney — whose endorsers include Justice Democrats, the Working Families Party, the Metro Detroit chapter of Democratic Socialists for America, several major unions, and Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt. — is running on Medicare for All, the Green New Deal,........

© The Intercept