Which individual members of Congress received the largest direct PAC contributions from AIPAC in the 2023–2024 cycle, with dollar amounts?
Executive summary
AIPAC’s political operation was one of the largest financial players in the 2023–2024 cycle, directing tens of millions in direct PAC contributions to federal campaigns and vastly more through its super PACs and independent expenditures (AIPAC PAC and United Democracy Project) [1] [2]. Public reporting identifies several individual recipients and singled-out large gifts — notably Wesley Bell’s campaign receiving more than $3.1 million and substantial six-figure checks to New York Rep. Ritchie Torres — but available sources do not publish a single, fully ranked table of every member and exact dollar totals in one place, limiting a definitive top-N list from the documents provided [3] [4] [5].
1. The headline recipients that appear repeatedly in reporting
The clearest single-item figure in reporting shows the AIPAC PAC routed more than $3.1 million to Wesley Bell’s 2024 campaign, a dominant share of that campaign’s receipts noted in Sludge’s review of FEC filings through July 2024 [3]. Ritchie Torres is cited in multiple pieces as a prominent recipient, with reporting putting his cumulative AIPAC-related receipts in the high hundreds of thousands for 2023–24 (one account cites roughly $368,000 while another notes $201,000 in a November filing) [4] [5]. Those two figures — Bell and Torres — are the most concrete, individual-dollar amounts called out in the sources supplied [3] [4] [5].
2. The wider scale: AIPAC’s PAC totals and distribution context
Across the cycle, AIPAC’s PAC and its affiliated super PACs together approached roughly $126.9 million in spending, with the PAC alone contributing more than $44–55 million to federal candidates depending on the filing window cited — and OpenSecrets listing AIPAC’s organization-level contributions to campaigns in the tens of millions as well [1] [2] [3]. Sludge’s tracking work reports at least $45.2 million of AIPAC PAC money going directly to campaigns of members of the 119th Congress and more than $55.2 million in federal-candidate donations overall, establishing that many members received direct contributions even if individual tallies are not exhaustively enumerated in a single public table in these sources [1].
3. Why a complete ranked list is not reconstructed here
The sources provided publish totals and many spotlighted cases, but a consolidated, authoritative FEC-derived ranking of every individual member with exact AIPAC PAC dollar amounts was not included in the materials supplied to this analysis; Sludge and OpenSecrets offer databases and rolling tallies but the excerpts here do not give a single final top-recipient roster to cite comprehensively [1] [2] [6]. Therefore, while reporters repeatedly name high-profile beneficiaries and quote FEC figures for aggregate and selected candidate amounts, compiling the exact “largest direct PAC contributions” ranked across all members would require direct extraction from the FEC or the original Sludge/OpenSecrets candidate-level tables beyond the snippets provided [1] [2] [6].
4. Competing narratives, incentives and how to read the numbers
Coverage emphasizes two different impressions: one, that AIPAC’s PAC channeled consequential, bipartisan direct donations to lawmakers who backed aid for Israel (a point emphasized by Sludge and OpenSecrets as motive and effect); and two, that the super PAC (United Democracy Project) and independent expenditures dwarfed direct, legally limited PAC gifts — meaning influence is exerted both by direct donations and by outside spending that does not show up on a direct-contribution ranking [1] [5] [3]. Reporters also note that AIPAC’s PAC functions largely as a conduit for donor-directed checks, which can obscure the line between individual donor influence and AIPAC institutional choice [1] [5].
5. Bottom line and recommended next step for definitive figures
Based on the supplied reporting, Wesley Bell is the single individual named with the largest cited direct PAC total (more than $3.1 million) and Ritchie Torres is among the larger congressional recipients (high hundreds of thousands cited) [3] [4] [5]. For a complete, ranked list of individual members of Congress and exact dollar amounts from AIPAC PAC in 2023–2024, the underlying FEC contribution tables or the full Sludge/OpenSecrets candidate-level data downloads should be queried directly; the snippets provided do not include that complete dataset [1] [2] [6].