The J Street Action Fund, the political independent expenditure arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace group, announced today that it had made a $100,000 targeted digital ad buy to support the candidacy of human rights attorney Jessica Cisneros and oppose Rep. Henry Cuellar in the critical primary election for Texas’ 28th Congressional District.
The significant buy will be meeting key primary voters where they are with digital ad placements on Hulu, Univision, and other major news outlets and social media sites running during the pivotal final two weeks until Election Day. The group’s series of 30-second spots will run in both English and Spanish, and expect to reach a universe of nearly 80,000 voters in a district where the outcome of the most recent Democratic congressional primary was decided by under 3,000 votes.
“With this campaign, we aim to make clear that Jessica Cisneros is a fresh, principled voice who will fight for the true needs and values of her district, while her opponent Rep. Cuellar has a repeated history of putting his own personal interests and out-of-touch, conservative views ahead of the people he was elected to represent,” said Logan Bayroff, J Street’s Vice President of Communications.
The English-language ads can be viewed here and here.
“With our support for Ms. Cisneros, the J Street Action Fund is demonstrating that the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement intends to stand firmly behind candidates who embody our commitment to democratic values, diplomacy-first foreign policy, human rights and Israeli-Palestinian peace,” Bayroff said. “Rep. Cuellar has repeatedly aligned himself with foreign policy hawks and opposed a critical measure designed to prevent former president Trump from taking us into a disastrous war with Iran. That’s not the kind of principled leadership we need to see in Congress.”
Launched in January, the J Street Action Fund aims to raise $1 million for targeted independent expenditures in key Congressional races in the 2022 cycle. It will strive to shape the public narrative and perception of what it means to be “pro-Israel,” demonstrating that candidates who adopt principled, pro-Israel, pro-peace, anti-occupation positions are in line with the views of most American Jews and can expect significant support from the community.
The Action Fund will complement the work of JStreetPAC, a conduit PAC which raised over $7 million for 197 endorsed Congressional candidates and $2 million for the Biden-Harris campaign in the 2020 election cycle. It will help give the organization the flexibility to better support and defend aligned candidates facing unfair right-wing attacks, whether in significant primaries or in the general election.