A pro-Israel group is preparing a nearly half-million-dollar ad blitz in a contentious California congressional primary race to boost a candidate who recently walked back from calling the Gaza war a genocide. The ad spend comes just days after Democratic Party leadership intervened to bankroll the same candidate over a progressive insurgent.The ads will run in California’s Twenty-Second Congressional District, where State Assemblymember Jasmeet Bains (D-Delano) is being challenged by progressive activist and local school board member Randy Villegas.The ad spend is an example of pro-Israel affiliates moving in lockstep with Democratic Party leaders’ spending vehicles to put their thumb on the scale in competitive primary races before voters get a chance to weigh in.Bains and Villegas are competing in the state’s June 2 nonpartisan “jungle” primary election against the Republican incumbent David Valadao.This week, the Democratic Majority for Israel, a political action committee (PAC) committed to “a Democratic Party and a Democratic majority in Congress that is proudly pro-Israel,” placed a $400,000-plus ad buy in the district’s media market for this coming weekend, according to the ad tracker listings page AdImpact. It’s the PAC’s first independent expenditure on advertising in the district this election cycle.The PAC, which shares many of the same donors as the powerful bipartisan pro-Israel American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC), endorsed Bains in February.Another PAC, 314 Action, also reported this week that it has spent $500,000 in the district to support Bains. The PAC has nearly $180,000 in ad spending scheduled to hit the airwaves this weekend, according to AdImpact.314 Action, which focuses on electing scientists and doctors, has officially endorsed Bains, a physician. The group has shared donors with AIPAC, and the two PACs have intervened concurrently to boost the same candidates. Such circumstances have led to repeated accusations that 314 Action is operating as a surreptitious pass-through vehicle for AIPAC-directed spending.Bains, who did not respond to a request for comment before publication, recently walked back past remarks suggesting Israel’s military actions in Gaza were a genocide.Villegas, who’s backed by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT), criticized Bains’s flip-flop on the issue and has called for curtailing US funding for Israel’s military actions.The ad placement comes just several days after the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, the official campaign arm of Democratic Party leadership, intervened to endorse Bains, adding her to the committee’s “Red to Blue” funding program geared toward flipping swing seats. Bains is one of several recent “Red to Blue” funding recipients who are still part of hotly contested primary battles.Bains’s Democratic opponent seized on the political anointment.“Right now, national Democrats are trying to put their thumb on the scale in our race to help support the corporate Democrat over us,” Villegas said in a video posted on X. “And this is unacceptable, especially at a time when people have lost faith in Democratic leadership.”