By: Tony A
ANDOVER – The yard signs for hometown candidate Daniel Koh are thick in this suburb north of Boston, as the six-way race for the Massachusetts 6th Congressional District enters its final weeks. A passerby might be curious to ask: “Who is paying for all these signs?”
At least financially, Koh is dominating the field, with over $4 million raised as of the most recent filing deadline. And as the campaign would have it, his campaign is largely funded and backed by labor.
The Massachusetts AFL-CIO, as well as a near majority of local unions, have endorsed Koh, including AFSCME Council 93, the International Association of Machinists, NAGE SEIU Local 5000, SEIU Local 888, Teamsters Local 25, UNITE HERE NEJB, and the Massachusetts Building Trades Union as well as many of its members including, IBEW Local 103, IBEW Local 104, IBEW Local 2222, IUPAT DC 35, Laborers Local 22, Laborers Local 175, Laborers Local 88, and more.
It is likely that many unions see Koh’s frontrunner status as a deterrent to endorsing other challengers. If labor leaders think Koh’s win is inevitable, the incentive to support different, more progressive candidates diminishes.
Only a handful of unions have declined to genuflect before him. UAW International and SEIU State Council have backed candidate and State Rep. Tram Nguyen (D-Andover), a member of UAW Local 2320 from past work as a legal aide. The National Education Association and the Massachusetts Teachers Association endorsed candidate Mariah Lancaster.
Boston DSA formally recommended against moderate candidates Koh, Nguyen, and financial technology executive John Beccia, but declined to recommend any progressive challenger.
For better or worse, Koh is the labor candidate. Given Koh’s resume, this labor coalition is disappointing, but unsurprising.
He’s a former protege of Boston’s ‘labor mayor’ Marty Walsh, and served as Mayor Walsh’s chief of staff before following him to the U.S. Department of Labor. Koh also served in the Biden White House, where he was deployed to Michigan to negotiate with the Uncommitted Movement during the presidential primary on the administration’s behalf. There, negotiations were described as “tense,” and Koh and the Biden administration left without conceding any ground in their facilitation of the Gaza genocide.
His loyalty earned him the ‘MSNBC Trifecta’ of endorsements: Former President Joe Biden, Former Vice President Kamala Harris, Former Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg.
Executives & AIPAC Dollars
Labor isn’t the only movement funding Koh.
Koh has received criticism for taking the maximum allowable donations from a Palantir executive and from sports gambling websites, among others.
According to a review of FEC filings conducted by Working Mass, the Committee to Elect Dan Koh has received at least $183,700 from donors who also gave to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC.
Koh has not received funding directly from AIPAC. But at least 68 donors donated to both AIPAC and Dan Koh’s campaign. Their combined donations to AIPAC total $206,395.
These donors include Josh Kraft, of the Kraft family, as well as executives at Apollo Asset Management, Bain Capital, and Goldman Sachs. At least 29 of these donors reside out of state, while only five live in the 6th District.
Because receipts are only available through the June 30 filing deadline, the total Koh has received is likely larger.
The AIPAC-overlapping total is small relative to Koh’s overall haul, but sizable relative to the budgets of his progressive opponents. The $183,700 figure exceeds half of the total campaign funds raised by all of the race’s three progressive challengers, Beth Anders-Beck, Jamie Belsito, and Mariah Lancaster.
The donations are a blaring warning signal for the type of Representative Koh intends to be: business as usual, corporate, bland, and likely to continue the technocratic facilitation of extractive and genocidal American wars abroad.
The unwitting alliance between labor unions and supporters of America’s most vilified lobbying arm is an indictment of the current state of labor’s electoral orientation: a movement on the defensive, with endorsements rarely democratically decided, and inclined to back establishment figures who prioritize incremental worker concessions over progressive candidates who might shift political leverage from capital to labor.
If you’re driving by a Koh yard sign, remember it was likely paid for by AIPAC-linked donors, a labor union, or both.
Tony A is a contributing writer to Working Mass and a resident of Massachusetts’ 6th Congressional District.
