A week out from the Aug. 18 special election to fill Eric Swalwell's East Bay congressional seat, more than $5 million in outside money has flooded in against state Sen. Aisha Wahab — who won the June primary by 26 points — and she says she'll answer with a Federal Election Commission complaint alleging coordinated online interference.

On paper, this is a runoff between two Fremont-area Democrats — Wahab and BART Board President Melissa Hernandez — trading final pitches on housing, affordability and public safety. In practice, it has become a test of how far outside spending, much of it tied to the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC, can move a low-turnout special election in California's 14th District. Wahab is borrowing the playbook of Michigan's Abdul El-Sayed and running against that money; Hernandez, the beneficiary of it, is running as the tougher-on-crime outsider. And in the final week, campaign-finance complaints are flying in both directions.

The special election on Aug. 18 will decide who serves out the remainder of former Rep. Eric Swalwell's term after his resignation, and both Democrats will meet again in November for the full term. State Sen. Aisha Wahab, D-Hayward, took the June primary over BART Board President Melissa Hernandez by 26 percentage points, according to ABC7. But the closing stretch looks nothing like that margin.

Federal Election Commission filings reviewed by ABC7 show Hernandez outraising Wahab roughly two-to-one — about $1.53 million raised to Wahab's $631,000 between Jan. 1 and July 29. The larger money is outside the campaigns entirely. Super PAC spending has topped $5 million on ads boosting Hernandez and attacking Wahab, ABC7 reported, and KQED, citing Politico, traced much of it to AIPAC-aligned groups: $1.2 million from the United Democracy Project and $2.1 million from Bold American PAC, a committee that has itself received significant backing from the United Democracy Project.

"They want to send a message to other candidates, other people running for office, that we will spend an enormous amount of money against you if you oppose Israel and the ongoing military support for Israel," political consultant Jim Ross told ABC7.

On Wednesday, outside Hayward City Hall, Wahab said the fight had moved online and announced she would file an FEC complaint. Her team alleges a coordinated campaign of fake accounts pushing false claims — a sharp escalation from the Islamophobic harassment Wahab, the first Muslim woman and Afghan American in the state Legislature, says she has long faced.

"What we are seeing is a surge of suspicious accounts, bot-like activity, and very much coordinated to say the same vile, misleading narratives," Wahab said, per KQED. "A lot of these accounts have one friend and three posts that have no connection to the district."

Campaign spokesperson Joe Macaluso said the new posts make specific fabrications — including a claim that Wahab assaulted a former staffer — and that the campaign is asking Meta to analyze the activity while asking the FEC to determine whether it amounts to an unreported, paid effort to influence the race. Meta did not immediately respond to KQED's request for comment.

What we are seeing is a surge of suspicious accounts, bot-like activity, and very much coordinated to say the same vile, misleading narratives," Wahab said, per KQED.

The complaints run both ways. Semafor reported that a Hernandez supporter had filed a separate FEC complaint accusing Wahab of accepting an illegal, unreported in-kind contribution after her state Senate account gave $60,000 to the Alameda County Democratic Party, which later mounted an independent expenditure on her behalf. Wahab told Semafor the complaint misrepresents the party's support.

Hernandez's camp rejects the interference framing. "Our campaign is getting hit by bots too, likely from her wealthy corporate donors," Hernandez said in a statement carried by KQED. "We're not launching bots. We're winning votes from voters who are comparing our records." Her campaign manager, Ajay Mohan, handed out flyers at the press conference listing Wahab donors including Amazon and Meta, under the line: "Aisha Wahab campaigns against corporate money in politics. Then she cashes the checks."

Beneath the money fight, the candidates are pressing familiar closing arguments. Wahab has centered housing "at all income levels" and jobs, telling NBC Bay Area she wants to "keep the next generation" in their communities, while defending her Sacramento record on public safety — she notes she coauthored SB 14, which made human trafficking a felony. Hernandez, a former Dublin mayor, is running on affordability and a law-and-order message, touting endorsements from police and firefighter unions and casting Wahab as a Sacramento insider: "Sending more Sacramento politics to Washington, D.C. isn't change," she told ABC7.

Whoever wins next week, the rematch is already set for November — with the outside money unlikely to slow down.