Maryland state representative Adrian Boafo, a former aide to retiring Rep. Steny Hoyer (D-Md.), won the Democratic nomination in the 5th Congressional District in a field of two dozen candidates and became a strong favorite to succeed his former boss in Congress next January.
The Associated Press called the race at 9:28 p.m.
With 59% of the votes counted, Boafo had 18,325 votes (31.9%), ahead of Quincy Bareebe, who had 10,483 votes (18.3%), and Harry Anthony Dunn, who had 7,758 (13.5%).
Boafo was boosted by at least $1.2 million in independent expenditures by the United Democracy Project, the super PAC affiliated with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
AIPAC spokeswoman Deryn Sousa told JNS that Boafo “has made clear his vision to carry forward the strong pro-Israel legacy of Congressman Steny Hoyer, one of Congress’s most steadfast champions of the U.S.-Israel relationship.”
“AIPAC members and United Democracy Project were proud to support Boafo and help ensure this seat remains represented by pro-Israel leadership,” Sousa said.
Ron Halber, CEO of the Jewish Community Relations Council of Greater Washington, welcomed Boafo’s victory.
“We have great faith he will follow in the tradition of his predecessor Congressman Hoyer, who was a great friend of the U.S.-Israel relationship,” Halber told JNS. “We look forward to another pro-Israel member of our delegation.”
Among the two dozen candidates in the race were Dunn, a former Capitol Police officer who was on duty when supporters of U.S. President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol to try to stop the certification of electoral votes making Joe Biden the next president, and Bareebe, a business executive who lent his campaign $5.7 million.
AIPAC’s support has become controversial to many in the midterm elections, as overall support for Israeli policies has waned after the Oct. 7 terrorist attack, according to polls.
Democratic consultant Joel Rubin, executive director of the Jewish Electorate Institute, said that AIPAC’s brand may be a liability in deep blue districts but not in more moderate areas.
“If you can sufficiently or effectively tar or connect a candidate to the AIPAC brand, you can automatically harm them in deep blue districts, but not necessarily in more moderate places,” Rubin told JNS.
AIPAC money “has shown to be determinative in the Boafo race,” Rubin said. “In the more moderate districts, I think you can safely say that AIPAC still has a lot of sway in a lot of these districts, but in the more blue districts, the brand is so toxic that you don’t even have to worry about the money, the brand is bad enough.”
Even in this district, the only Jewish candidate in the primary, businessman and volunteer firefighter Harry Jarin, criticized AIPAC.
“AIPAC does not speak for all American Jews,” he said in an ad. “Something like 70% of Jewish Americans disagree with AIPAC’s positions including me. AIPAC does not support Jewish candidates. They support candidates who they think they can easily boss around. So I’m Jewish, but I’m a nonstarter for AIPAC.”
Jarin described AIPAC as “fundamentally a right-wing organization that takes Republican money and they spend it in Democratic primaries to manipulate the Democratic process.”
Hoyer was a strong backer of Israel during his tenure in Washington. Since 2021, Israel supporters have been his largest source of campaign cash, according to the research group OpenSecrets.
