Dems backed by Trump donors are also losing ground
President Donald Trump is so unpopular, even his donors are unpopular — as evidenced by a Democrat who recently won in a crowded primary in part by linking his challengers to a pro-Israel lobby that is also full of MAGA mega-contributors.
“Since late summer/early fall, it became clear that AIPAC [a pro-Israel lobby] had a candidate in this race, and I was clear that I was not prepared to sign on to a no-strings-attached blank check of military aid to Israel,” Evanston Mayor Daniel Biss told conservative commentator Lauren Egan from The Bulwark to discuss his win in a crowded Democratic primary for Illinois' 9th Congressional District. “That's their litmus test.”
Biss went on to describe how AIPAC set up a shell super PAC with a benign name, Elect Chicago Women, that “spent something in excess of $7 million on the campaign, which basically dwarfed the amount of money that everybody else was able to spend” to stop Biss. Even though Biss is Jewish and descended from Holocaust survivors, his refusal to be entirely pro-Israel was initially a liability — until his campaign decided to turn it into an asset, in part by shining a light on the groups behind the shell super PAC.
“We made a decision pretty early on that we were going to make this the issue,” Biss explained. “We were going to lay the groundwork to explain what AIPAC was doing and who they were. So to say: hey, this is money from AIPAC and Trump donors — because there's a lot of Trump donor money mixed up in all that.” Additionally, Biss pointed out that these donors wanted to give a “no-strings-attached military aid” package to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, which is unpopular in America, and that they were doing this secretly.
“All three of those stories together really helped make it the issue,” Biss said. “And then, amazingly, by the time Election Day came, their preferred candidate finished a distant third. My predominant opponent on Election Day — the person who came in a close second — was someone who is actually much more anti-Israel than I am.”
Trump donors are particularly unpopular right now as they align behind the president’s agenda while the rest of the country moves away from it.
"Determined to get a piece of the action, the very wealthy are lining up in droves," pundit Thomas Edsall wrote in a recent New York Times editorial. "Despite Trump’s having lost ground in almost every demographic during his second term, one group stands firmly in the president’s camp: the superrich who have their wallets open."
As of 2026 Federal Reserve data showed the top 0.1 percent now holds 14.4 percent of U.S. wealth, up from 8.6 percent in 1989. Concurrent with this recent data point, wealthy donors shifted sharply toward Republicans in the 2024 election, with critics attributing the trend to Trump's economic policies exacerbating income inequality.
"Contributions by the very rich to Republicans grew from roughly $300 million in 2022 to just under a billion in 2024, while donations to Democrats fell from roughly $300 million to less than $200 million,” Edsall wrote.
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