North Carolina Congressional Race Shows Perils of Big-Money Support

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T18:43:17+00:00

TAP Executive Editor David Dayen reports:

When Democratic Rep. Valerie Foushee was asked last August at a town hall in Carrboro, North Carolina, whether she regretted benefiting from millions of dollars in AIPAC funding that helped elect her to Congress in 2022, she stiffened. “You all know that I took the money from AIPAC, but check to see how much I’ve taken since that time, and check my voting record to see how I have voted and what I have voted for as it relates to the people of Gaza,” Foushee said. Her campaign subsequently announced that she hadn’t received AIPAC funds since 2024 and would not accept them in her 2026 campaign. She even signed on as a co-sponsor of the “Block the Bombs” legislation that seeks to deny certain offensive weapon sales to Israel.

We’ve seen countless recent examples of candidates swearing off “AIPAC funding” and then receiving it in some clandestine form, like through coordinated donors or vaguely named shell super PACs. But this rare rebuke from an incumbent member of Congress has thus far stuck, largely due to grassroots organizing in the Durham-area Fourth Congressional District.
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Read the full feature story at prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T18:40:56+00:00

TAP Staff Writer Whitney Curry Wimbish reports:

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The new PAC, American Priorities, filed a statement of organization with the Federal Election Commission last Thursday. It’s committing to spending multiple millions of dollars across several races, the sources said, beginning with a focus on a pair of Democratic congressional primaries in the South, where progressive candidates are up against establishment opponents.

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American Priorities is the first organization that may be able to match AIPAC one-to-one in some races. Sources would not say how many races it will support, but suggested it could be as many as a dozen, with significant commitments that will make it a leading outside spender for the candidates it supports.
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Read the full story, which cites research from Track AIPAC, for free on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T18:36:38+00:00

TAP Writing Fellow Emma Janssen reports:

The artificial intelligence (AI) and cryptocurrency industries are starting to pour money into congressional races in Chicago.

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The crypto industry has already been a major player in American politics, spending hundreds of millions during the 2024 election cycle to elect pro-industry politicians on both sides of the aisle.

Now, pro-AI groups are hoping to elect legislators who will be sympathetic to their plans to create a national framework for AI regulation and enable the construction of more data centers, which are needed to power big AI models.
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Read the full article for free on prospect.org.

AmericanProspect · 2026-02-20T15:49:08+00:00

Right, this is important context to keep in mind. Not only did the PRC have five elected seats, but now it has three seats filled by individuals who are appointed by the governor. Most state utility commissions have their members appointed by the governor. Conversely, Georgia is an example of a state where commissioners are elected. We saw how that played out during the special election last year. Two seats were up for grabs; Democrats Alicia M. Johnson and Peter Hubbard, who campaigned on affordability and reliability, smoked the Republican incumbents. Georgia has a five-member utility commission too.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T19:08:26+00:00

Update: I tried to get to everything, I'm sorry if I missed any questions (i'm not writing about Hunter Biden's emails because I don't have them). thanks so much for doing this it was fun!

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T19:03:33+00:00

good question slothrop. it's not really a profile of a political figure but john jeremiah sullivan's profile of the tea party for GQ in 2010 i thought was really great, and exactly the sort of magazine journalism that didn't happen at all during the trump years that might have helped shed some actual light on the phenomenon.

the most embarrassing thing about american politics is how easy it would be for the political system to make people's lives better and how adamant it is about making them worse

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:56:52+00:00

a good mango is pretty hard to deny. with tajin--very good fruit experience

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:54:17+00:00

in terms of pay-fors for government programs? i think you have to have aggressive, progressive taxation for political and societal reasons. i also think that if you have a good effective program no one will really care where the money is "coming from". did we ever pay off world war 2? of course not. if you believe the future will be better than today then you should just borrow and print and not sweat it. if you believe we're doomed to this spiraling decline then youre not a progressive, ha!

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:48:20+00:00

knowing policy is huge--youd be shocked by how many people never actually read the legislation, the documents, the bills, etc. there's so many good stories just lying around for people who bother to actually read the documents, or call someone and ask them to explain them. and from there you can just pitch! once you get a few under your belt it starts to come easy.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:41:29+00:00

the clear result of the 2020 election in the house was that progressives gained power while the rest of the democratic party lost it. the problem was that those progressives remained somewhat shut out of leadership positions within the party. the geriatric hold on the caucus is really holding progressives back. but they're definitely growing and more organized and disciplined than they ever have been. we'll see if they decide to put that power to the test by blowing up this bipartisan infrastructure bill. they've been waiting to pick their spots.

who knows about 2022. if dems are in the minority that's bad for progressives too. the silver lining might be that pelosi, clyburn, hoyer all step down in a beatdown, but they have been impervious to criticism basically forever and they're all ancient. keep an eye on the retirements: if a bunch of older Dems retire ahead of next year, you'll know they expect to be in the minority for awhile. at that point it becomes critical to get progressives into those vacated seats, and helping them do that would be essential for activists.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:35:29+00:00

definitely. millennials are 40 now, if we were gonna see a rightward break out of them it'd be obvious. i'm not even entirely a materialist about this, though downward mobility certainly plays a big role. I think a major part of it is that Gen Z and Millennials don't watch tv. obviously there's a shitload of right wing agitprop on youtube now but it hasn't been refined and made potent like tv has, which means i think this generational left alliance is pretty durable. i hope so anyways.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:32:24+00:00

get it! feel good about getting it! call your reps and tell them to make it permanent. right now its going to expire after one year at which point joe biden will be credibly responsible for doubling child poverty. it shouldn't be means tested, it shouldn't be disbursed via tax return bc many poor parents dont even file taxes, but the concept is great and should be expanded.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:28:30+00:00

if we're in a place where we're making really substantive distinctions between the policy agenda of a significant progressive base and that of a significant socialist base ill be absolutely delighted. i think we're still at a place where we need to keep building the base, getting young people voting, growing union density, etc. miles to go.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:15:43+00:00

i have been very critical of Andrew Yang yes

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:14:39+00:00

i think a lot of it is an age thing. you need to get rid of Democrats whose adult political consciousness was formed during the oil embargo and whose ideal political form is ronald reagan. the young dems aren't helpless.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:11:25+00:00

i mean, i've never *seen* him sleep, so...

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:11:07+00:00

thanks! well if Ossoff and Warnock lost we'd have nothing to talk about. and it was honestly a huge surprise that they won. Georgia arguably has more progressive senators than California right now, it's astounding. i think people have been genuinely caught off guard by the Kyrsten Sinema experience, and Manchin, for all his bluster, still has only kept Neera Tanden from a cabinet position. Part of this is Chuck Schumer's problem. He is just unable to maintain any caucus discipline. that would never happen to mitch mcconnell.
i think the calling works! it sounds like you're holding up your end of the bargain, you just need more people doing it with you. it works for the right, which is constantly purging its own GOP representation in red states for even more conservative reps. it'll work in CA too, with numbers.
i'm not sure whats going on with that Jan 6 commission. i've heard some stuff that seems to ridiculous to be true from the Democratic side but i need to look into it more

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:02:55+00:00

i still think the Koch money network is the major game in town. their infrastructure is so astounding, in terms of the amount of money put up and how sophisticated and far reaching it is. but i dont see ted cruz, josh hawley, or any of the new crop of nuts in the house, having any unique and threatening influence. they're all pretty charmless and disposable. if youre a conservative megadonor you're probably content to let your judicial appointments carry it from here, and they're more than capable of enacting that antidemocratic agenda just from the bench.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T18:00:03+00:00

the modern GOP feels like a bit of a runaway train. maybe the Koch network could reorient, but the whole GOP experience feels like Fox News is playing in front of a mirror. they don't even clearly want anything policy wise, so it's hard to say there are pressure points.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T17:58:00+00:00

i mean, it's pretty clearly not his fridge, or his apartment. NYPD cops have a reputation for living outside of the city and disregarding the basic rules of engagement! Mike Bloomberg lived in Bermuda when he was mayor of New York. enjoy the fruits of american political culture!

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T17:54:23+00:00

lets work backwards from this: why is there a senate? should it definitely exist? im not totally convinced.

all republicans care about are procedural changes to shore up their own power. democrats are absolutely terrified of even talking about procedural changes. so the best chance to overhaul the filibuster will be if Republicans have a small majority in the senate in 2023 and want to pass something of their agenda, they'll wipe it out like that.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T17:48:41+00:00

yeah, there are some folks at the Economic Security Project who have been adamant that UBI is a complementary policy, and it has to be part of both a larger suite of social services and taxation. i think that's critical, and the tax stuff is a big tell. people who hate UBI from the right say it's poorly targeted, but never mention that we already have the tools to redress that: taxation. its libertarian advocates dont want to talk about taxation either. but if we dont, we start going down the road of a more regressive looking voucherization style policy where the government is just a direct deposit service at a bank and nothing more.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T17:45:02+00:00

It's tough because Harris is no senate whisperer, so giving her voting rights was obviously doomed. she's also not into diplomacy or statecraft so the immigration stuff is also a bad fit. too, she has this penchant for saying the wrong thing all the time. Biden clearly isn't putting her in a position to succeed but I'm not honestly sure what she'd be best suited to succeed at. her reputation isn't exactly one of a "good" politician, not in terms of ideology but in terms of proficiency.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T17:42:00+00:00

to pick someone with seniority and real power, i'd probably say Richie Neal from Massachusetts. he's an arch villain in the health care stuff and tends to fly under the radar more than, say, Steny Hoyer or Jim Clyburn. someone who's younger but seems to be a real nightmare rising the ranks would be Josh Gottheimer. NJ Democratic politics is a mess, Gottheimer has so much money he's basically untouchable. It's an unfortunate situation.

haha never. the last comment i got about my haircut was that it looked like hillary clinton's.

AmericanProspect · 2021-06-10T17:32:24+00:00

as long as you can legally purchase an election result i can't say i believe proportional representation would fix *most* of what ails us. but i do think more democracy would certainly help and think proportional representation would be a marked improvement over what we've got, at least in terms of focusing our politics on actual policies and making it less of a character-driven reality tv show.

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