The last time Rep. Jimmy Gomez, D-Calif., faced a primary challenge, special interest groups came to his aid by pouring more than $1 million into the race.
Today, in the 2026 race, another challenger is trying their hand against Gomez — and they have the backing of progressive outfit Justice Democrats.
Supporters of Angela Gonzales-Torres think she’ll be able to fight off spending from the pro-Israel and cryptocurrency lobby groups that dominated Gomez’s last primary. Justice Democrats said it will help Gonzales-Torres raise money through its grassroots, digital funding network.
“Being deemed progressive isn’t the same as delivering real change.”
Gonzales-Torres, a former Highland Park neighborhood council president, launched her campaign against Gomez in April, saying the incumbent had sold out the congressional district thanks to the influx of special interest money.
“I didn’t move to this district to become a politician funded by corporate super PACs,” said Gonzales-Torres, who was born and raised in North East LA. “We need to recognize that being deemed progressive isn’t the same as delivering real change.”
Gonzales-Torres criticized Gomez for not signing onto progressive bills that would have conditioned arms sales to Israel, stanched the flow of corporate cash in politics, and tackled price gouging.
“It isn’t just about calling for someone’s resignation,” she told The Intercept. “It’s about answering for our calls as Angelenos.”
Justice Democrats said Gomez’s leadership isn’t meeting the moment in a city that President Donald Trump has flooded with ICE agents and National Guard troops.
“Jimmy Gomez got to Washington and closed the door on his community behind him to embrace the same corporate PACs and right-wing lobbies that are raising costs for Angelenos and demanding their tax dollars fund genocide,” said Justice Democrats spokesperson Usamah Andrabi. “In a city that has become ground zero for Donald Trump’s war on immigrant families, Angelenos deserve a leader whose donors will never dictate how hard they fight back.”
Defended by AIPAC
Gonzales-Torres is the second challenger Gomez has faced in recent years from his left. In office since 2017, Gomez easily beat a challenge during his first term from Kenneth Mejia, now the Los Angeles city controller. In each of the last three elections, Gomez fended off more credible challenges from Democrat David Kim.
Kim came within 6 percent points of beating Gomez during the general election in 2020 — where they faced off thanks to California’s “jungle primary” system — and 3 points in the 2022 general election.
In the 2024 race, Kim called for cutting off U.S. military funding to Israel and drew fire from the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and its super PAC, United Democracy Project. Kim also supported the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement and called for an international court to prosecute illegal Israeli settlements in the West Bank.
Kim endorsed Gonzales-Torres, who previously volunteered for his campaign.
After AIPAC, the nation’s flagship Israel lobby, spent more than half a million dollars against Kim last year, Gomez won by 11 points.
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AIPAC has been among Gomez’s top campaign contributors over the last decade. AIPAC’s candidate page for Gomez praises him for supporting pro-Israel legislation, including co-sponsoring a resolution affirming U.S. support for Israel after the October 7 attacks.
The group also touted his support for legislation for supplemental security assistance to Israel, condemning BDS and traveling twice to Israel on trips paid for by AIPAC’s educational arm. The lobby group congratulated Gomez in November for beating Kim, who they described as running on an “overtly anti-Israel platform.” (AIPAC and its super PAC did not respond to a request for comment.)
Still, Gomez’s record on Israel has not agreed with AIPAC’s every position.
In the wake of the October 7 attack, he signed on quickly to measures affirming unconditional U.S. support for Israel and a harshly worded resolution on escalating campus protest movements against the war.
In November 2023, though, Gomez called for a “cessation of hostilities” in Gaza, even as AIAPC raged against any call for an end to the violence.
Whenprogressives, responding to spiking Palestinian deaths in the early days of the war, pushed a ceasefire resolution, Gomez did not sign on. (Gomez’s campaign did not respond to a request for comment.)
He has voted both for and against U.S. funding for Israel and called on Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to resign. Unlike many other pro-Israel Democrats, Gomez did not vote for a measure to condemn the slogan “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free” as antisemitic; instead, he abstained. He was also absent for a vote to adopt a definition of antisemitism that includes any criticism of Israel. And he voted present on a resolution to condemn antisemitism on college campuses.
Crypto Cash
Gomez also received support in his last race from the cryptocurrency industry. Putting in more than half a million dollars to back Gomez, crypto was the second-largest outside spender in the race after AIPAC. The political action committee Fairshake, whose subsidiary PACs back candidates in both parties, spent $511,000 to support Gomez.
Gomez has an A rating from a leading pro-cryptocurrency group and has voted for at least four bills in the last two years that were supported by the industry, including Trump’s bill to accelerate deregulation. (FairShake did not immediately respond to a request for comment.)
More recently, however, Gomez criticized Trump for profiting from crypto. Replying to a story earlier this week about the Trump family making billions of dollars from its crypto venture, Gomez tweeted that Trump and the billionaire establishment are profiting as “everyone else gets screwed.”
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Gomez has enjoyed steady support from constituents since he was first elected in 2016. Gomez has been a vocal critic of Trump. He made national headlines in June for being denied entry to a federal immigration detention facility and, in July, sued U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement for blocking him and three other Democrats from visiting detention facilities.
The money Gomez gets from corporate PACs is what Gonzales-Torres is focusing on. After pro-Israel groups, Gomez’s top donors throughout his career include real estate and insurance groups, law firms, and securities and investment outfits. He has also received support from labor unions and progressives including another Justice Democrats candidate, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, D-N.Y.
Gonzales-Torres, for her part, is rejecting corporate PAC money. Instead, she is running on affordable housing, access to mental health support, and ending mass incarceration. And she supports protecting immigrants’ rights, Medicare for All, and a Green New Deal — all things Gomez supports too.
Gonzales-Torres said she’s not focused on whether AIPAC will spend against her campaign. She’s betting small-dollar donors and a student-led campaign can overcome the big money. She said her campaign is focusing on mobilizing students in the district.
She said, “That means that we are not selling out our communities to corporate PACs.”
The post She’s Challenging an AIPAC Democrat. A National Progressive Group Wants In. appeared first on The Intercept.
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