Rep. Summer Lee, Slammed For Backing Gaza Cease-Fire, Wins Democratic Primary

Pennsylvania Rep. Summer Lee, a member of the progressive Squad, easily dispatched her Democratic challenger in Tuesday’s primary, after a much-hyped battle over Lee’s early support for a ceasefire in Gaza never fully materialized.

The AP called the race in favor of Lee, who is in her first term in Congress, shortly after the polls closed Tuesday night. Her challenger, borough council member Bhavini Patel, attracted support from Pennsylvania’s richest resident, Republican billionaire Jeffrey Yass. But Lee never faced the firehose of outside spending by pro-Israel groups, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, that many progressives initially feared.

Patel’s attacks on Lee for being insufficiently loyal to Biden also fell flat, with Biden himself praising Lee during the final days of the primary campaign.

Although she cruised to victory, Lee warned that her fellow progressives would face a similar playbook in the months ahead.

“This is going to be the blueprint,” she said in an interview with HuffPost in the closing weeks of the primary. “No one is beating progressives without lying about us. They have to distort our values, because the reality is, when people get our message clearly, they like it.”

Progressives were braced for Lee to face a punishing reelection when, after the Hamas attacks on Oct. 7, AIPAC promised an unprecedented effort to unseat lawmakers critical of Israel.

AIPAC and its super PAC, the United Democracy Project, ended last year having shattered their previous fundraising records, with $41 million cash on hand and counting.

Lee, like other Squad members, was reportedly one of AIPAC’s top targets. The United Democracy Project had already spent nearly $4 million trying to defeat Lee in