Michigan Senate Candidates Claim $20 Million Dollar Offers to Run Against Rashida Tlaib Connected to AIPAC

MICHIGAN, Nov. 28, 2023 ~ Actor Hill Harper and Dearborn businessman Nasser Beydoun, Democrat candidates for Michigan‘s open U.S. Senate seat, alleged that they each received $20 million offers to drop their senate campaigns to primary Democrat Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib (MI-12).

The senate candidates allegedly turned down campaign money that would have come from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a political group that lobbies for the interests of the Israeli government in Congress and donates to politicians’ campaigns from both major parties. Tlaib, the only Palestinian American in Congress, has long directed sharp criticism towards Israel‘s “apartheid regime” against Palestinians and its recent bombing campaign on the Gaza Strip, though she has been met with backlash and was even censured over her remarks on Israel.

After Politico reported last week that Harper declined an offer from Michigan businessman Linden Nelson, the candidate posted on X, formerly Twitter, claiming that one of “AIPAC’s top donors” tried to get him to run against Tlaib. He wrote in another post that he would not, “run against the only Palestinian-American in Congress just because some special interests don’t like her.” Nelson, who did not respond to media inquiries, does have a history of financially contributing to AIPAC and political candidates opposed to Tlaib, though AIPAC spokesperson Marshall Wittmann told multiple news outlets that the group was “not involved in any way in this matter” and that Nelson had not donated to the PAC “in over a decade.”