Pro-Israel groups have spent more than $11 million on a TV ad blitz aimed at scuttling President Barack Obama’s nuclear deal with Iran, but so far they aren’t gaining any ground with House and Senate Democrats.

Citizens for a Nuclear Free Iran, created by the powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, has shelled out more than $11 million since mid-July running ads pressuring lawmakers to vote against the deal when it comes before Congress next month, according to totals compiled by the Tracking Firm, a data company.


The group has been running network TV ads in 23 states, spending more than $1 million in California, Florida, New York and Texas, respectively.

“The Iran nuclear deal, good deal or bad deal?” a narrator in the CNFI ad asks. “Iran keeps their nuclear facilities, military sites can go uninspected, restrictions end after 10 years, then Iran could build a nuclear weapon in two months. Iran has violated 20 international agreements and is the leading state sponsor of terrorism. Congress should reject a bad deal. We need a better deal.”

Yet the CNFI ad blitz doesn’t appear to have moved any Democratic votes at this point, and the internal fight among Democrats is where the real political struggle over the Iran agreement is taking place.

Just on Tuesday, Democratic Sens. Barbara Boxer of California, Tim Kaine of Virginia and Bill Nelson of Florida publicly declared their support for the agreement. Kaine is a member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.

“The agreement takes a nuclear weapons program that was on the verge of success and disables it for many years through peaceful diplomatic means with sufficient tools for the international community to verify whether Iran is meeting its commitments,” Kaine said. “For this reason, I will support it.”

Democratic Rep. André Carson of Indiana, a member of the House Intelligence Committee, also voiced his support.

The anti-Iran deal forces do have prominent backers among Democrats. New York Reps. Nita Lowey and Steve Israel both came out against Obama’s deal on Tuesday. Lowey is a close ally to House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi of California and the ranking member of the House Appropriations Committee, while Israel is a member of House Democratic leadership.

Rep. Ted Deutch of Florida, ranking member on the Middle East and North Africa subcommittee on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, has also announced he opposes the deal.

However, none of the 151 House Democrats who signed on to a May 7 letter to Obama urging a negotiated settlement over Iran’s nuclear weapons program have come out against the P5+1 agreement at this point. Unless the anti-deal forces begin making inroads into that group — which has so far held steady — Congress will not be able to derail the agreement.

Patrick Dorton, a spokesman for CNFI and a former Clinton White House aide, strongly disputed any suggestion that the anti-agreement side is losing ground to Obama.

“There have been absolutely no surprises to date in terms of where members are on either side,” Dorton said. “There is a significant group of undecided members.”

Dorton added: “If you look at poll after poll, public opposition to the deal has doubled since the agreement was announced.”

Yet there is clearly no momentum on the anti-deal side, at least not among House or Senate Democrats whose support Obama will need to uphold a veto of a “resolution of disapproval” that will be taken up by Congress in September. Rep. Peter Roskam (R-Ill.), one of the leading opponents of the Iran agreement, said a majority of lawmakers now back that resolution. Yet that is not the two-thirds majority needed to overcome an Obama veto.

Meanwhile, backers of Obama’s package have been running their own television campaign. J Street, a pro-Israel group that supports the deal, is putting up $2 million in ads for Oregon, Colorado, Pennsylvania, Michigan and Maryland. In mid-July, the group had focused on only D.C.-based cable and news. J Street’s Jessica Rosenblum said its effort has grown from $1 million before the deal was announced to $5 million, adding that a “considerable” amount of that will be used on broadcast, print and online ads.

The Obama administration has also been keeping the pressure on rank-and-file Democrats. Obama has met personally with more than 80 lawmakers since announcing the deal. Cabinet and other senior administration officials have met individually or in small groups with more than 175 House members and senators, according to White House aides.

Lauren French contributed to this report.