{"id":356369,"date":"2026-06-11T15:43:10","date_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:43:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356369\/"},"modified":"2026-06-11T15:43:10","modified_gmt":"2026-06-11T15:43:10","slug":"progressive-california-democrat-advances-over-rival-backed-by-pro-israel-spending","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/356369\/","title":{"rendered":"Progressive California Democrat advances over rival backed by pro-Israel spending"},"content":{"rendered":"

JTA \u2014 A Democratic congressional candidate heavily backed by pro-Israel spending has lost her spot in a California swing district\u2019s runoff, after a progressive critic of Israel overtook her in the ballot count a week after the primary election.<\/p>\n

State Assembly member Jasmeet Bains, a moderate, received around $500,000 in ad buys from the Democratic Majority for Israel group, according to a Sacramento Bee review of Federal Election Commission filings, in her bid to represent California\u2019s 22nd district, in the state\u2019s Central Valley.<\/p>\n

In the days after California\u2019s June 2 primary, Bains appeared on track to come in second, meaning that she would face off in November against Republican incumbent Rep. David Valadao \u2014 who has the backiing of AIPAC, the pro-Israel lobby.<\/p>\n

But late Tuesday, the Associated Press formally called the race for school board member Randy Villegas over Bains. As of press time, Villegas held 32 percent of the vote to Bains\u2019 27%, with 90% of total votes tallied. Valadao was in first place with 40% of the vote.<\/p>\n

The result sets up another front line in the Democratic Party\u2019s effort to gain control of Congress amid rapidly shifting voter sentiment about Israel. Democrats are hoping to flip the 22nd district, where most residents are Latino, after statewide redistricting this year.<\/p>\n

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Villegas, who is backed by Jewish progressive Sen. Bernie Sanders, called for a ceasefire in Gaza in January 2024, a few months after the Hamas-led October 7 attack, and has called Israel a \u201cgenocidal regime.\u201d<\/p>\n

According to FEC filings, he received support from American Priorities PAC, a pro-Palestinian super PAC; multiple media outlets also noted that Villegas had backing from a Republican PAC, indicating that he was seen as a preferable opponent for Valadao.<\/p>\n

\t\"\"<\/a>
\n\t\tUS Rep. David Valadao, Republican-California, poses for a photo in Washington, January 6, 2015. (Jacquelyn Martin\/AP)<\/p>\n

During the campaign, DMFI president Brian Romick told Jewish Insider that Villegas \u201cconsistently has an anti-Israel record.\u201d But most of the group\u2019s spending in the race did not mention Israel. Instead, the group bought ads insinuating that Villegas had been complicit in covering up abuse of minors at his local school district. The ads were misleading, local media reported.<\/p>\n

In a sign of how pervasive anti-Israel sentiment has grown among Democrats, Bains, too, said Israel committed genocide in Gaza prior to DMFI\u2019s entry into the race. After receiving its backing, the candidate walked back her stance.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we\u2019re disappointed at the outcome of this race, we remain enthusiastic about our record so far this primary cycle,\u201d Romick told JTA in a statement. He pointed to DMFI\u2019s backing of Texas Democrat Johnny Garcia against Maureen Galindo, who made antisemitic statements, and the success of another DMFI-backed candidate elsewhere in California.<\/p>\n

Yet for DMFI, the loss adds to a mixed record in a primary season that has seen Democrats turn sharply against pro-Israel spending, especially from AIPAC. Other candidates endorsed by pro-Israel groups in Illinois, New Jersey, and elsewhere have lost to critics of Israel.<\/p>\n


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\t\t\tAlready a member? Sign in to stop seeing this<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JTA \u2014 A Democratic congressional candidate heavily backed by pro-Israel spending has lost her spot in a California…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":356370,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[145202,145201,7,9,8,14021,145200,132464],"class_list":["post-356369","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-california","tag-american-priorities-pac","tag-brian-romick","tag-california","tag-california-headlines","tag-california-news","tag-david-valadao","tag-dmfi-democratic-majority-for-israel","tag-randy-villegas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356369","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=356369"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/356369\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/356370"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=356369"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=356369"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=356369"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}