Which candidates were reported as receiving $5,000 from AIPAC PAC in FEC filings for 2024?
Executive summary
A direct list of candidates reported as receiving exactly $5,000 from AIPAC PAC in 2024 cannot be produced from the provided reporting because none of the supplied sources publish a candidate-by-candidate table showing $5,000 line items; reporting instead focuses on aggregate totals, the PAC’s per‑candidate legal cap, and large earmarked disbursements to named lawmakers [1] [2] [3]. The FEC filings are the primary records that would contain per‑candidate contribution amounts; the articles and organizational summaries supplied here summarize totals and major recipients but do not enumerate every $5,000 contribution [2] [4].
1. Why the $5,000 figure matters — the legal cap and how reporting frames it
Federal law limits conventional PAC contributions to no more than $5,000 per election to a candidate’s campaign committee for the 2024 cycle, and reporting outlets repeat that statutory cap when explaining AIPAC PAC activity [1]. Many stories use that $5,000 ceiling as shorthand for “what a PAC can directly give,” but that legal limit does not capture the full range of ways AIPAC’s political entities influenced races in 2024 — including super PAC spending by the United Democracy Project and donor‑earmarking practices cited by investigative outlets [1] [3].
2. What the reporting actually provides: totals and named large recipients, not a $5,000 roster
Investigative coverage and AIPAC’s own statements give cycle totals and identify some large recipients — for example, reporting notes AIPAC PAC and related entities spent more than $55 million on federal candidates and that AIPAC supported hundreds of candidates in 2024 [2] [5]. Independent articles highlighted very large PAC payments to individual Democrats such as Rep. Ritchie Torres and Rep. Hakeem Jeffries, citing November filings where those campaigns received sums far above $5,000 [3] [6]. Those same reports, however, do not list every recipient that got the PAC maximum of $5,000 [3] [6].
3. How AIPAC’s reporting and outside databases differ in granularity
AIPAC’s own PAC site states it “supported 361 pro‑Israel Democratic and Republican candidates in 2024 with more than $53 million in direct support,” a summary that does not break down individual $5,000 contributions [5]. Aggregators like OpenSecrets and FEC raw filings are the repositories for per‑candidate contribution lines — OpenSecrets gives cycle totals for the organization but the supplied excerpt does not extract a candidate‑level $5,000 list [4]. ReadSludge promises a data table to look up PAC totals by candidate but the supplied snippet does not reproduce a concrete roster of $5,000 entries [2].
4. Reporting disputes and the “earmarking” controversy that complicates headline figures
Several outlets note that donors earmark contributions routed through AIPAC structures, allowing substantially larger sums to appear to benefit individual campaigns beyond the standard PAC cap; investigative pieces treat this as an explanation for why some candidates show much larger inflows than $5,000 in FEC filings tied to the AIPAC ecosystem [3] [6]. That reporting frames a tension: the statutory $5,000 PAC limit exists, but the combination of super PAC spending and donor direction can produce effective support to campaigns that far exceeds a simple per‑candidate cap [1] [3].
5. What can be done to get the definitive list and why the supplied sources fall short
To obtain a definitive roster of which candidates reported exactly $5,000 from AIPAC PAC in 2024 requires consulting the Federal Election Commission’s itemized contribution reports or the candidate‑level tables that some investigative outlets host; the sources provided summarize totals, name major high‑dollar beneficiaries, and describe legal mechanics, but do not publish a complete candidate‑by‑candidate list of $5,000 contributions in the excerpts supplied [2] [1] [4]. Given those limits in the reporting provided, asserting a precise list here would exceed what the supplied documents support.