AIPAC Poised to Unleash Smear Campaign Against Wahab

AIPAC-backed super PACs appear poised to spend heavily against Aisha Wahab, reviving a familiar "soft on crime" line of attack ahead of the Aug. 18 special election; Line of attack echoes 2022 mailer

☕️MORNING BUZZ

Vol. VI, No. 1,329

🗓️27 days to CA14 Special Election

—Special interest groups backed by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) appear to be shifting into high gear in the 14th Congressional District special election.

Campaign finance filings indicate at least $500,000 in upcoming spending to support Melissa Hernandez and oppose front-runner Aisha Wahab is about to land, with more to come.

The first signs of the strategy surfaced earlier this month through a push poll conducted by an unidentified group that asked voters about Wahab’s record on sex trafficking and fentanyl—suggesting public safety will be the centerpiece of the outside campaign.

That strategy is now reflected in messaging contained in a campaign “red box” posted onHernandez’s campaign website.

A red box is a section of a candidate’s website where campaigns post public messaging guidance, polling themes, graphics and photos, and suggested language to inform independent expenditure committees and Super PACs.

—One suggested red box message states: “Aisha Wahab weakened a law so adults who solicit 16- and 17-year-olds for sex avoided felony charges, a loophole so serious that Governor Newsom publicly denounced her amendment.”

The statement refers to Senate Bill 1414, a 2024 proposal by Republican Sen. Shannon Grove to make soliciting any minor under 18 for commercial sex a felony.

While the bill was before the Senate Public Safety Committee, chaired by Wahab, amendments narrowed the proposal so the new felony provision applied only to victims under age 16.

As a result, solicitation involving many 16- and 17-year-olds generally remained a misdemeanor under existing law, unless human trafficking statutes applied.

Wahab and other Democrats defended the committee changes, arguing solicitation of 16- and 17-year-olds was already illegal, human trafficking of any minor was already punishable as a felony, and that the legislation improperly blurred the distinction between trafficking and solicitation.

A 2022 mailer during Wahab’s campaign for the State Senate made similar convoluted linkage to public safety.

The emerging attacks echo Wahab’s 2022 state Senate campaign, when independent expenditure committees attempted to portray her as soft on sexual assault through a convoluted line of attack tying her to a campaign donor who had supported a judge’s lenient sentence against Brock Turner, the Stanford swimmer convicted of rape in 2018, a high profile story at the time.

The political attack line against Wahab was quickly quelled after news reports debunked the claim. At the time, Wahab called the mailer “purposefully misleading” and racist.

With Wahab holding commanding leads in both the June regular and special primaries, the influx of outside spending suggests the Aug. 18 contest will become the most expensive and negative phase of the campaign yet.

🆕 Updated July 21.

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