elections.

https://gothburz.substack.com/p/i-spent-256-million-replacing-a-congressman

I am the Senior Director of Congressional Replacement at AIPAC.

That's not my official title. My official title is something with "government affairs" in it. But "Congressional Replacement" is what I do. When a member of Congress votes wrong on our line item, I build the operation that removes them. I have a budget. I have a timeline. I have a vendor stack. And I have a record you can verify: Jamaal Bowman, New York, removed 2024, cost $14.5 million. Cori Bush, Missouri, removed 2024, cost $8.5 million. Thomas Massie, Kentucky, removal scheduled May 20th 2026, budget $25.6 million.

That's the most expensive House primary in American history. I consider it a bargain. Let me show you why.

**I. The Vocabulary**

The donors need Massie removed because he voted against our foreign aid appropriation. He was the sole Republican to oppose the Iron Dome Supplemental in 2021. The sole member of Congress, not sole Republican, sole member, to oppose a resolution affirming Israel's right to exist in 2023. He has voted against every foreign aid package for thirteen years.

But you can't run ads in rural Kentucky that say "your congressman voted against sending your tax dollars to a foreign government and we'd like to correct that." Kentucky would elect him twice.

So we needed a different word. The word is "disloyal."

In 2014, voting against every spending bill was called fiscal conservatism. In 2019, it was called the Tea Party mandate. In 2026, it is called disloyalty to the President of the United States.

I didn't change the votes. I changed the vocabulary. The President was happy to co-sign. He called Massie "the Worst Republican Congressman in History." He called him a "bum." He said "vote him out." We coordinated the timing. I wouldn't call it a product launch. But I wouldn't object if you did.

**II. The Money**

Here is how the budget breaks down. United Democracy Project, our super PAC, contributes $2.6 million. The Republican Jewish Coalition adds $4 million. MAGA KY, a PAC managed by Tim Murtaugh, Trump's 2020 communications director, spends $5.6 million. Christians United for Israel buys the billboards. The individual donors, Paul Singer, Miriam Adelson, John Paulson, route contributions through a platform called Democracy Engine.

I need to explain Democracy Engine, because it's my favorite part of the operation.

Democracy Engine is a multi-party donor aggregation platform. What it aggregates, specifically, is attribution. A contribution enters Democracy Engine from a hedge fund manager in Manhattan. It exits Democracy Engine as a line item on a campaign finance report in Covington, Kentucky. The money doesn't change. The origin story does.

Paul Singer manages $69.7 billion from a tower on 57th Street in New York. Miriam Adelson's net worth was built in Las Vegas casinos. John Paulson's office is on Park Avenue. Between them, they have never cast a ballot in Kentucky's 4th congressional district. They cannot name the county seats. They do not need to. Democracy Engine translates their preferences into Kentucky's.

The candidate himself, Ed Gallrein, retired Navy SEAL, Trump-endorsed, raised $1.3 million on his own. That's nine percent of the total pro-Gallrein spend of $14.3 million. Ninety-one percent of the money behind the "Kentucky values" candidate was contributed by people who do not live in Kentucky, have never lived in Kentucky, and whose primary policy interest is the foreign aid budget of a country eight thousand miles from Covington.

I present this as a design feature, not a flaw. Why would you want a candidate who raises his own money? Self-funding indicates self-thinking. Self-thinking introduces variance. Variance is risk. We don't invest in risk. We invest in compliance.

**III. The Product**

Gallrein has no voting record. No legislative history. No published policy positions that could be held against him in a future cycle. His campaign website lists the words "conservative," "freedom," and "Kentucky" in that order. His policy page is a photograph of him in uniform.

I don't say this as criticism. I say this as a specification sheet.

The ideal replacement congressman in 2026 is a résumé with a compliance guarantee. Pre-tested messaging. Zero ideological fingerprints. $14.3 million in someone else's convictions loaded like firmware. You don't need positions when your donors have positions. You don't need a record when your record starts the day you take the oath. He will arrive in Washington owing his career to three billionaires and four organizations. He will know exactly which line item pays his mortgage.

The median household income in Kentucky's 4th district is $63,000. Paul Singer's net worth is $6.7 billion. That is 106,349 Kentucky households. One man, in one Manhattan office tower, earning the combined annual income of every family in the district he is about to staff. I don't find this ironic. I find it efficient.

**IV. The Threat**

Now here is the part I don't discuss publicly, and the reason the budget is $25.6 million instead of $14.5 million.

Bowman and Bush were expensive. But they were Democrats. The base case. Massie is more expensive because Massie is more dangerous. Not because he has more support. Because of what he introduced in the House.

The AIPAC Act. Formally: the Americans Insist on Political Agent Clarity Act. It would amend the Foreign Agents Registration Act. FARA. The 1938 law Congress passed to counter Nazi propaganda operations. Massie's bill would require organizations that primarily advance the interests of a foreign government to register as foreign agents.

He means us.

If AIPAC were required to register under FARA, every dollar of our $25.6 million operation would require public disclosure of its foreign-interest origin. Every donor. Every routing. Every Democracy Engine transaction. Every call to every member's office. All of it, in a searchable federal database, labeled: foreign agent.

The bill will not pass. Massie won't be in Congress to reintroduce it. That's not a prediction. That's a line item on the budget.

We are not spending $25.6 million to replace a congressman. We are spending $25.6 million to eliminate a regulatory threat. The seat is a byproduct. The product is the precedent.

**V. The Precedent**

This is the part I present to donors as return on investment.

There are 435 members of the House. Every one of them is watching Kentucky. Every one of them can see the math. Massie voted wrong on one appropriations line item, and a coalition spent $25.6 million, more than any House primary in American history, to end his career. The message is not complicated.

You do not need to spend $25.6 million on every district. You need one example. One member, destroyed publicly, expensively, and completely. The other 434 learn. The cost per compliant vote, amortized across the full Congress, is $58,850.

I consider that competitive.

Bowman was the proof of concept. Bush was the replication. Massie is the expansion into the opposing party. Left, right. The mechanism doesn't care. The mechanism has a budget line, not a party. If you vote wrong, the budget finds you. If you try to make the budget visible, the budget finds you faster.

The primary is Tuesday. The polls show 48 to 43. If we win, we will have demonstrated that no member of Congress, regardless of party, ideology, seniority, or constituent support, can survive voting against our appropriation. Not a progressive in the Bronx. Not a libertarian in Kentucky. Nobody.

And when someone asks how a congressman elected by 478,000 Kentucky voters was removed by three billionaires from New York, Las Vegas, and Manhattan, the answer will be the same word we've been using since the beginning.

Loyalty.

We don't need to register as foreign agents. We register as loyal Americans. The distinction is $25.6 million and a vendor platform that makes one look like the other.

Everything I just described is legal. I need you to understand that. Not "technically legal." Not "arguably legal." Legal. Fully, completely, structurally legal.

That's the product. Not the congressman. Not the seat. Not even the vote.

The product is a system where everything I just described is legal.

And you just read the whole thing.