We check.
Line by line.

Brent Taylor: correcting a missing $6,500 in AIPAC-routed donations

Checked September 17, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule A receipts for Brent Taylor for Tennessee (C00949867), 2025–2026 cycle

• July 3, 2026: $1,000 routed through AIPAC PAC (C00797670).
• July 3, 2026: $2,000 routed through AIPAC PAC.
• July 15, 2026: $3,500 routed through AIPAC PAC.

Each entry is reported on Form 3, line 11AI, with the memo “TOTAL EARMARKED THROUGH CONDUIT. PAC LIMIT NOT AFFECTED.” These are individual donations routed through AIPAC, not $6,500 from the PAC's own funds. The July 15 entry reports $6,500 year to date.

Our donor-side collection contained no matching Taylor transactions. The recipient-side filings support this correction under our existing policy of counting earmarked donations. We count this money once: the conduit summaries are not added again to their underlying individual donations or matching outgoing records. If a future donor-side total conflicts with these reviewed receipts, the refresh stops for reconciliation.

Verify the three FEC receipt entries · July 15 filing image · Taylor's corrected profile

Ohio governor: $8.87 million in Israel lobby money linked through Bill Ackman

Checked September 8, 2026 · Sources: FEC committee totals, receipts and independent expenditures for American Exceptionalism PAC (C00833749); FEC Schedule B disbursements from all 97 tracked committees to VIVEK 2024 (C00833913); and the Ohio secretary of state's 2026 candidate list

American Exceptionalism PAC was organized to support Ramaswamy's 2024 presidential campaign. Its FEC filings report $8,872,226.96 in total receipts and $6,554,190.89 in independent expenditures. Bill Ackman contributed $250,000 to the PAC. The $8.87 million headline is the committee's total money raised. It was not paid directly to Ramaswamy's campaign.

What the federal filings show

• American Exceptionalism PAC receipts: $8,872,226.96. This is the amount displayed on Ramaswamy's card.
• American Exceptionalism PAC independent expenditures: $6,554,190.89. These were outside expenditures reported by the committee, not campaign receipts.
• Direct and earmarked tracked PAC money: $549. Ten RJC PAC earmarks went to Ramaswamy's federal campaign. They are disclosed separately and are not added to the PAC's receipts, which would double count money raised and money spent.

What this card does not claim

• It does not say Ramaswamy's campaign received $8.87 million. The card labels the figure as money raised by the pro Vivek super PAC.
• It is not a full Ohio campaign audit. Ohio campaign filings use a separate state system. Until those receipts and outside spending are reviewed, AIP will not label Acton $0 or clean.
• It is a candidate specific exception. AIP's standard Layer 3 rule requires an untracked super PAC to pass the funder test. For this card, AIP classifies the PAC's full receipts as Israel lobby money because Bill Ackman gave it $250,000. The receipt states the exception and Ackman's exact contribution so readers can distinguish the PAC total from his share.

Verify American Exceptionalism PAC at FEC.gov. Verify Ramaswamy's federal campaign at FEC.gov. Verify the 2026 ballot at the Ohio secretary of state's candidate list.

JD Vance: $182,085, all from one Senate race. The $14.7M super PAC behind him is Thiel money, and we counted none of it.

Checked September 4, 2026 (supersedes the August 31 audit) · Source: FEC Schedule B disbursements from all 97 tracked committees to JD Vance for Senate Inc. (C00783142) and Vance for OH Senate Republican Nominee Fund 2022 (C00772947), deduplicated on FEC sub_id; Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for J.D. Vance (S2OH00436) and Tim Ryan (S2OH00402); Schedule A receipts of his authorized committees for each of the 713 roster donors; committee totals and Schedule A for Protect Ohio Values (C00770495)

Vance is Vice President, not a member of Congress, so he sits outside the congressional database and its ranks and medians. On September 4, 2026 he was put through the same four-layer sweep as every member. Here is his entire federal record with the lobby.

Layer 1 — PAC money, direct and earmarked: $81,985

• RJC-PAC, 2022 — $43,685. 135 earmarked contributions bundled by the Republican Jewish Coalition's PAC to JD Vance for Senate Inc.
• NORPAC, 2022 — $26,500. Three earmarked conduit bundles, filed as "earmarked contributions to JD Vance."
• Five other pro-Israel PACs — $11,800. U.S. Israel PAC $5,000, Heartland PAC $2,500, To Protect Our Heritage $1,800, Americans United in Support of Democracy $1,500, American Principles PAC $1,000.

Layers 2 and 3: $0

• Protect Ohio Values (C00770495) spent $14,699,532 electing him. It raised $19,797,824, and $15,000,000 of that — 76% — is Peter Thiel. Extreme concentration, but Thiel is not a pro-Israel donor we track, and we do not add names to that list to make a number bigger. None of it is counted.
• His 2024 vice-presidential run. VP candidates run on the presidential ticket's committees. The pro-Israel money in that race is on Trump's card, not his.
• Cutting the other way: DMFI PAC spent $29,952 supporting his 2022 opponent Tim Ryan. Under our rules that credits to Ryan, and we publish it because it complicates the story.
• Zero independent expenditures for or against him by any tracked committee.

Layer 4 — the lobby's mega-donors, direct: $100,100 from 42 people

Personal checks to JD Vance for Senate Inc. from individuals who have each given at least $50,000 to the tracked pro-Israel committees, matched on name and state, corroborated by ZIP or employer, netted, and capped at the 2022 limit of $5,800 per donor. Earmarks routed through RJC-PAC or NORPAC are excluded here because they are already in Layer 1.

Craig Duchossois $8,700 · Roger Hertog $5,000 · Michael Leffell $2,900 · Herbert Shear $2,900 · David Sterling $2,900 · Larry Mizel $2,900 · Edward Levy $2,900 · Steve Kimmelman $2,900 · Sanford Perl $2,900 · Carl Cohen $2,900 · Jack Halpern $2,900 · Ephraim Greenwall $2,900 · Adam Beren $2,900 · Daniel Benedict $2,900 · Elizabeth Stern $2,900 · Martin Gross $2,900 · David Shteremberg $2,900 · Harley Gross $2,900 · Gary Gross $2,900 · Jeffrey Cohen $2,900 · Wayne Berman $2,900 · James Haber $2,600 · Paul Baker $2,500 · Richard Leventhal $2,500 · Joseph Popack $2,500 · Larry Silver $2,000 · Joel Hart $2,000 · James Sprayregen $2,000 · Jacob Cohen $2,000 · Michael Kassen $1,600 · Andrew Lappin $1,500 · Russell Fuchs $1,100 · Sidney Ferenc $1,000 · Peter Hoffman $1,000 · Marvin Schlanger $1,000 · David Carroll $1,000 · Jeffrey Rosen $1,000 · Deborah Rudy $1,000 · Michael Levin $1,000 · Robert Goldberg $1,000 · Joan Hoffman $500 · Richard Lipsey $500.

• Not counted: Miriam Adelson's $2,900. Her October 2022 check lists ZIP 89119 and "self employed"; her roster record says 89109 and Adelson Drug Clinic. The matching rule is the same for every card, so it sits in the review file. Paul Singer's two Vance transactions net to $0 (contribution and refund).

Why our number is different from Track AIPAC's

Track AIPAC lists Vance at "more than $167,000 from the Israel lobby," a figure that traces to OpenSecrets' Pro-Israel industry total, which counts personal checks from every individual OpenSecrets classifies as pro-Israel. Ours counts only tracked committees and corroborated roster donors, and after the September 4 sweep lands slightly higher, because the roster catches maxed-out donors that industry coding misses.

Revision, September 4, 2026. Vance's figure was revised from $66,730 to $182,085 when he was added to the automated four-layer sweep: $18,155 more in PAC money (97 committees, correct deduplication) and $100,100 in mega-donor checks that the August audit, which checked only the Adelsons and Singer by hand, did not look for. The August receipt's $2,900 Adelson check falls out under the automated rule, as explained above.

Marco Rubio: $904,015 across four campaigns. Nineteen PACs, 116 of the lobby's biggest donors, and the $39M super PAC we still do not count.

Checked September 4, 2026 (supersedes the August 31 audit) · Source: FEC Schedule B disbursements from all 97 tracked committees to Marco Rubio for President (C00458844, also his 2010 Senate committee), Marco Rubio for Senate (C00620518) and the Rubio Victory Committee joint fundraisers (C00494617, C00485193, C00484428, C00519736), every cycle 2010–2026, deduplicated on FEC sub_id; Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for Rubio (P60006723, S0FL00338), Patrick Murphy (S6FL00319), Val Demings (S2FL00631), Charlie Crist (S6FL00160) and Kendrick Meek (S0FL00312); Schedule A receipts of his two authorized committees for each of the 713 roster donors; committee totals and Schedule A for Conservative Solutions PAC (C00541292)

Rubio is Secretary of State, not a member of Congress, so he sits outside the congressional database. On September 4, 2026 he was put through the same four-layer sweep as every member: 97 committees instead of the 24 checked in August, and the full 713-person mega-donor roster instead of two families checked by hand. The figure nearly tripled. Here is all of it.

Layer 1 — PAC money, direct and earmarked: $407,021

• Pro-Israel America PAC, 2022 — $124,933. 147 earmarked contributions bundled to Marco Rubio for Senate.
• Republican Jewish Coalition PAC — $90,367. $85,349 earmarked to his 2022 Senate campaign (202 contributions filed across 2022–24), $5,000 direct in 2016, $18 in 2024.
• AIPAC PAC, 2022 — $55,892. 56 earmarked contributions and four direct checks. The PAC has only existed since 2021, so 2022 is the only Rubio campaign it could have touched.
• NORPAC — $46,679. $29,079 earmarked to his 2022 Senate campaign, $14,600 to his 2016 presidential campaign, $3,000 routed through the Rubio Victory Committee.
• Fifteen other pro-Israel PACs — $89,150. Heartland PAC, National PAC (NATPAC) and Grand Canyon State Caucus $5,000 each; Sun PAC $13,500 ($6,000 direct in 2022, $7,500 via the Rubio Victory Committee in 2012 and 2016); American Principles PAC $12,800 across four cycles; U.S. Israel PAC (formerly Florida Congressional Committee) $11,000; To Protect Our Heritage $9,000 (2010, 2016, 2022); Friends of Israel PAC $8,000; Citizens Organized PAC $7,000; Because I Care PAC $6,000; CityPAC $2,250; Washington PAC $2,000; Americans United in Support of Democracy $1,100; National Action Committee $1,000; Maryland Association for Concerned Citizens $500. None of these were on the 24-committee list used in August.

Why these PAC figures are higher than the August receipt: the August audit removed rows that shared an amount and a date, which also removed different donors' checks of the same size bundled on the same day (AIPAC PAC forwarded two $25 checks to Rubio on November 9, 2022, from two different people). The sweep deduplicates on the FEC's unique transaction id instead. At most $5,001 of the PAC total could still be an amended-filing duplicate (two $2,900 AIPAC PAC checks dated the same day, which are more likely the primary and general maximums).

Layers 2 and 3 — independent expenditures and funder-tested super PACs: $0

• Zero independent expenditures for or against Rubio by any of the 97 tracked committees in 2010, 2016 (Senate or presidential) or 2022, and none for or against Murphy, Demings, Crist or Meek.
• Conservative Solutions PAC (C00541292) spent $38,954,180 electing him president in 2016. It raised $60,564,219. Paul Singer gave it $5,000,000, 8.3%, well below anything we have ever counted (our floor case is 28%). Its lead funder is Norman Braman at $7,000,000, with Ken Griffin, Ron Cameron and Larry Ellison at $5M each, none tracked. It fails our funder test and none of the $39M is in his figure.
• Florida First Project and National Victory Action Fund also fail: the first is funded by Conservative Solutions PAC itself, the second by WinRed small-dollar money.

Layer 4 — the lobby's mega-donors, direct: $496,994 from 116 people

Personal checks to his presidential and Senate committees from individuals who have each given at least $50,000 to the tracked pro-Israel committees. Each gift is matched on name and state, corroborated by ZIP code or employer against the donor's roster record, netted of refunds, chargebacks and the two halves of every redesignation, and capped at the legal limit per committee per cycle so an amended filing's second copy of a check cannot count. Earmarks routed through a tracked PAC are excluded here because they are already in Layer 1.

Edward Levy $14,620 · Elizabeth Stern $13,900 · Michael Leffell $13,700 · Bernard Marcus $13,000 · Ron Weiser $11,200 · Sam Fox $11,200 · Sanford Perl $11,000 · Mel Sembler $11,000 · Alex Slusky $11,000 · Roger Hertog $10,400 · Earle Mack $10,400 · Wayne Berman $9,652 · Craig Duchossois $8,920 · Richard Fain $8,900 · Peter Berger $8,700 · Andrew Lappin $8,500 · Ezra Katz $8,500 · Larry Silver $8,300 · Mitchell Julis $8,100 · Steven Hilton $7,900 · Julius Trump $7,800 · Martin Gross $7,800 · Steven Lavin $7,500 · Barbara Feingold $7,500 · Carl Cohen $7,400 · Richard Horvitz $7,000 · Robert Kargman $6,400 · Neil Kadisha $5,900 · Adam Beren $5,800 · Jim Frank $5,800 · Herbert Shear $5,600 · Sheldon Adelson $5,400 · Daniel Loeb $5,400 · George Rohr $5,400 · Robert Diener $5,400 · Howard Jonas $5,400 · Debbie Jonas $5,400 · Walter Stern $5,100 · Stephen Schwarzman $5,086 · Keenan Wolens $5,020 · Barry Silverman $4,950 · Gila Milstein $4,900 · Manuel Rajunov $4,700 · Bernard Kaminetsky $4,500 · Michael Kassen $4,000 · Joel Hart $4,000 · Richard Yulman $3,750 · Philip Darivoff $3,700 · Timothy Wuliger $3,700 · Scott Zimmerman $3,400 · Jeffrey Rosen $3,400 · Robert Cohen $3,300 · Richard Bassuk $3,000 · Jacob Brodie $2,900 · Randall Levitt $2,900 · Howard Brodie $2,900 · George Klein $2,900 · Harold Berenson $2,850 · Judy Silverman $2,750 · Stephen Malkin $2,700 · George Violin $2,700 · Ronald Bloom $2,700 · Bradley Bloom $2,700 · Isaac Applbaum $2,700 · Eliot Lauer $2,700 · Seth Siegel $2,700 · Louis Miller $2,700 · Ilan Shalit $2,700 · Larry Russ $2,700 · Michael Epstein $2,700 · Ronald Gallatin $2,700 · Gary Gross $2,700 · Adam Milstein $2,700 · Linda Dresner $2,700 · Jason Rimokh $2,700 · Steven Price $2,600 · Samuel Porat $2,500 · Steven Tananbaum $2,400 · Bradley Krouse $2,400 · Lawrence Greenberg $2,080 · Phil de Toledo $2,000 · Douglas Hertz $2,000 · Steven Hefter $2,000 · Mark Rubin $2,000 · David Merage $2,000 · Adam Fein $2,000 · Joshua Katzen $2,000 · Robert Goldberg $2,000 · Arnold Lampert $2,000 · Zipora Arison $1,500 · Joan Hoffman $1,350 · Peter Hoffman $1,350 · Stacy Schusterman $1,000 · Amnon Rodan $1,000 · Sidney Ferenc $1,000 · Paul Baker $1,000 · Ann Davis $1,000 · Douglas Gessner $1,000 · Donna Sternberg $1,000 · Daniel Farb $1,000 · Jay Davis $1,000 · Raphael Ades $1,000 · Hilary Smith Kapner $1,000 · Jay Gould $1,000 · David Robbins $1,000 · Deborah Rudy $1,000 · George Blank $1,000 · Eric Kassoff $1,000 · Joshua Landes $1,000 · Adam Weinstein $667 · Alan Levow $500 · Anna Tenenblatt $500 · Mark Gerstein $500 · Amir Gold $500 · Matthew Crow $400 · Jeffrey Snyder $50.

• Not counted, on purpose: Miriam Adelson and Paul Singer. Both gave to his campaigns (she $5,400 in 2016 and $2,600 via the Rubio Victory Committee in 2015; he $5,400 in 2016, $5,400 to his presidential run, and $3,143 in 2010). Under the matching rule the ZIP and employer on those filings must agree with the donor's roster record, and they do not: her Rubio checks list ZIP 89145 and "self employed" against a roster record of 89109 and Adelson Drug Clinic; his list "Elliott Management Corporation" against a roster record of Elliott Investment Management. About $44,000 sits in the review file instead of his total. We would rather undercount two famous names than loosen a rule that protects 624 other cards. Also excluded as unverifiable: one $2,700 receipt from "Singeralla, Paul" and $312 from "Mary L. Adelson."
• 141 other gifts failed the ZIP-or-employer check and are in the same review file, about $227,000 in total. When in doubt, it stays out.

Why our number is lower than Track AIPAC's

Track AIPAC lists Rubio at "more than $1 million from AIPAC and the Israel lobby," a figure that traces to OpenSecrets' Pro-Israel industry total. That total counts personal checks from every individual donor OpenSecrets classifies as pro-Israel. Ours counts a personal check only when the donor is on the mega-donor roster, and only when the filing corroborates the match. After the September 4 sweep the two figures are closer than they look: the difference is smaller donors OpenSecrets attributes to the lobby, the $44,000 above, and a $39 million super PAC that fails the funder test no matter how it is counted.

Why this card matters. Rubio runs American foreign policy. His total now sits comfortably inside the top 100 of our congressional database, and the pattern is the point: nineteen pro-Israel PACs and 116 of the lobby's biggest individual donors, in every cycle he ever ran, starting with his first Senate race in 2010.

Revision, September 4, 2026. Rubio's figure was revised from $318,303 to $904,015 when he was added to the automated four-layer sweep. The change is $137,311 more in PAC money (97 committees instead of 24, and a correct deduplication) and $448,401 more in mega-donor checks (713 roster donors instead of two families). The August receipt counted Adelson-family and Singer checks of $48,593 by hand; under the automated rule most of those fall out, as explained above.

Donald Trump: $230.3 million. One family put $196 million of it into two super PACs with the same name.

Checked August 27, 2026; 2020 Preserve America committee added September 4, 2026; joint fundraising committees and the 2026 refund added by the September 5 sweep · Source: FEC Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for Donald J. Trump (P80001571), Kamala Harris (P00009423) and Joseph R. Biden (P80000722), 2020 and 2024 cycles; FEC Schedule A receipts and committee totals for Preserve America PAC (C00756882 for 2020, C00878801 for 2024), RJC Victory Fund (C00528554), Make America Great Again Inc. (C00825851), Republican Jewish Coalition PAC, NORPAC, American Principles PAC and U.S. Israel PAC into Make America Great Again PAC (C00580100), Trump Victory (C00618389), Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee (C00770941) and Trump 47 Committee (C00867937), and Democratic Majority for Israel (C90022864 and C00710848)

Trump is not a member of Congress and not a 2026 congressional candidate, so he sits outside our main database and is excluded from every congressional rank, median and chart on this site. We list him because the number is the largest we have found anywhere.

The seven components

• Preserve America PAC (C00756882), 2020 — $102,983,484. The 2020 committee is a separate FEC registration from the 2024 one, which is how it was missed in August. It raised $105,322,042. Sheldon Adelson gave $45,000,000 and Miriam Adelson $45,000,000, 85.5% of the committee between them, and Bernard Marcus, also a donor we track, added $10,000,000. That is 95% of its funding from tracked donors. Every dollar of its $102,983,484 in independent expenditures opposed Joe Biden in the 2020 general election. Same funder test, same credit rule as the 2024 committee below.
• Preserve America PAC (C00878801), 2024 — $112,321,880. It raised $114,790,326. Miriam Adelson gave $106,000,000, 92.3% of the entire committee, and Paul Singer added $2,500,000. That is 94.5% of its funding from donors we track, the most donor-concentrated committee in our records. It spent $112,266,880 against Kamala Harris and $55,000 for Trump.
• RJC Victory Fund (C00528554), 2024 — $10,346,494. The Republican Jewish Coalition's super PAC. $9,996,777 against Harris, $97,067 against Biden, $252,650 for Trump. RJC-PAC wrote checks to eight Republican primary hopefuls that cycle, but the super PAC advertised for only one of them, which is how the attack spending is credited. This is a pro-Israel PAC by name and mission; no funder test is needed.
• RJC Victory Fund (C00528554), 2020 — $3,739,487. $2,651,400 against Biden, $68,895 against Bernie Sanders during the Democratic primary, and $1,019,192 for Trump.
• RJC Victory Fund (C00528554), 2026 cycle — minus $62,727. A media-placement refund the super PAC reported on February 27, 2025 against its 2024 pro-Trump spending. The FEC's per-candidate total for the cycle is negative, so we subtract it.
• RJC-PAC contributions and earmarks, 2020 and 2024 — $859,632. 2020: 729 earmarked contributions totaling $206,222 bundled into Make America Great Again PAC (C00580100), and $333,400 in seven transfers to Trump Victory (C00618389), his joint fundraising committee with the RNC. 2024: 439 earmarked contributions totaling $141,510 into the Trump Save America Joint Fundraising Committee (C00770941), and $178,500 in nine transfers to Trump 47 Committee (C00867937). This is direct money, not independent expenditures. The August figure of $165,739 for 2020 came from a filtered pull; the raw rows, de-duplicated on the FEC's transaction id, sum to $206,222.
• NORPAC, American Principles PAC, U.S. Israel PAC — $125,525. NORPAC $65,000 to Trump 47 Committee (2024); American Principles $56,500 to Trump Victory (2020), $3,000 to Trump 47 (2024) and $25 in 2016; U.S. Israel PAC $1,000 to Trump Victory (2020).

What we checked and did not count

• His own super PAC does not qualify. Make America Great Again Inc. raised $410,509,931 in 2024. Paul Singer gave $5,000,000 of it, 1.2%. The largest bloc is Timothy Mellon at $150,000,000. It fails our funder test and we counted none of its $251.8M against Harris.
• Money spent against him. Democratic Majority for Israel put $435,400 into independent expenditures opposing Trump in 2024 ($262,900 from its independent-expenditure filer, $172,500 from DMFI PAC). We publish that because it cuts against the headline. It is credited to Harris, not netted out of his figure.
• Other large anti-Harris committees. America PAC, Right for America, Restoration PAC and Duty to America were checked and are not counted: their funding is not dominated by donors we track.

Why spending against his opponent counts. This is the rule we already apply. In KY-04 we credit United Democracy Project's $3,575,107 opposing Thomas Massie to his challenger, and MAGA KY's $6,200,914 opposing Massie the same way. Money spent to defeat the only other candidate in a two-way race is money spent to elect you. We apply it in both directions: DMFI's anti-Trump spending is credited to Harris on her page.

An arithmetic note. Raw FEC Schedule E rows double-count, because the FEC keeps both the original and every amended filing of the same ad buy. Preserve America's raw rows sum to roughly $224 million against Harris; the real figure is $112,321,880. We use the FEC's schedule_e/by_candidate aggregates and committee totals throughout, which reconcile exactly to each committee's reported independent-expenditure total. Anyone reproducing this from raw Schedule E downloads will get inflated numbers unless they de-duplicate.

What this is and is not. Most of it is independent expenditure spending, not a contribution to Trump. He did not receive it and by law could not coordinate on it. What we are showing is that the single largest concentration of pro-Israel donor money in American politics was spent to put him in office. Readers can decide what that is worth.

Revision, September 5, 2026. Trump's figure moved from $229,488,188 to $230,313,775. The September 5 career sweep read every tracked PAC's Schedule B against every committee he has ever authorized, which added four joint fundraising committees the August audit had not searched (Trump Victory, Trump 47, Trump Save America JFC, and the raw rows into Make America Great Again PAC), $68,895 RJC Victory Fund spent against Bernie Sanders in the 2020 primary, and a $62,727 refund the super PAC reported in 2025. The mega-donor layer (Layer 4) has not yet been run for this card.

Revision, September 4, 2026. Trump's figure was revised from $126,504,704 to $229,488,188 to add Preserve America PAC's 2020 committee (C00756882), $102,983,484 in independent expenditures against Biden funded 85.5% by the Adelsons. The August audit tallied only the 2024 registration of the same name. Its 2020 spending had been checked as a source for other cards but never added to this one.

Correction, August 27, 2026. An earlier version of this receipt said Democratic Majority for Israel spent $963,300 opposing Trump and that no pro-Israel PAC gave him direct money. Both were wrong. The $963,300 came from raw Schedule E rows that double-count amended filings; the correct figure from the FEC's own aggregates is $435,400. And RJC-PAC did bundle $165,739 in earmarked contributions to his committee in 2020, which we had missed. His published figure has been revised from $112,321,880 to $126,504,704 to add the RJC Victory Fund and RJC-PAC money.

TX-SEN: the most expensive Senate primary in the country, and the Israel lobby is barely in it.

Checked August 28, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule B disbursements from AIPAC PAC (C00797670), NORPAC (C00247403), RJC-PAC (C00345132), To Protect Our Heritage (C00135541), Pro-Israel America PAC (C00699470), DMFI PAC (C00710848), United Democracy Project (C00799031) and JACPAC (C00139659) to Ken Paxton (S6TX00388) and James Talarico (S6TX00479) committees; FEC Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for both; FEC Schedule A receipts and committee totals for Texans for a Conservative Majority (C00542217), Lone Star Rising PAC (C00918268), Lone Star Liberty PAC (C00901223) and Fellowship PAC (C00915181)

We get asked about this race constantly. Here is everything we found, including the parts that are boring.

Ken Paxton — $5,076

• RJC-PAC, $5,076. $5,000 to Ken Paxton for Senate and $76 to Team Paxton. That is the entire figure.
• Nothing from AIPAC PAC, NORPAC, DMFI PAC, United Democracy Project, Pro-Israel America, To Protect Our Heritage, or JACPAC.
• $24,960,684 was spent against him by Texans for a Conservative Majority. We checked its donors: it raised $37,286,844, the largest funder is John Nau at roughly $7.9M, and no bloc of donors we track comes close to leading. It fails our funder test, so none of that money is credited to his opponent.
• The two committees spending for him also fail. Lone Star Liberty PAC ($770,071 supporting Paxton) is led by Douglas Scharbauer at $1,225,700 of $10,291,993. Fellowship PAC ($500,000 supporting Paxton) is 88.5% one donor, Cantor Fitzgerald at $10,000,000 of $11,300,000 — an extreme concentration, but Cantor Fitzgerald is not a pro-Israel donor we track, and we do not add names to that list to make a number bigger.

James Talarico — $150

• JACPAC, $150. One contribution to Talarico for Texas. That is the entire figure, against $68,555,930 raised.
• Nothing from AIPAC PAC, NORPAC, RJC-PAC, DMFI PAC, United Democracy Project, Pro-Israel America, or To Protect Our Heritage. No direct gifts from any tracked donor.
• Lone Star Rising PAC spent $3,980,262 supporting him. It raised $21,693,425, and Reid Hoffman gave $11,500,000 of it, 53%. That is a dominant single funder by any measure, but Hoffman is not a pro-Israel donor we track. Concentration alone does not qualify a committee; the concentrated money has to be money we track. None of it is counted.

Why we are publishing a boring answer

Two of the highest-profile Senate candidates in America, more than $100 million in play, and the pro-Israel total across both of them is $5,226. That is the finding. A database that only ever returns big numbers for famous people is a database that is being steered, and this race is a good test of whether ours is.

If either candidate takes lobby money between now and November, it will show up here and we will update both figures.

Ted Cruz: the $3.9 million super PAC everyone points to does not count, and we are not going to pretend it does.

Checked August 28, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule B disbursements from AIPAC PAC (C00797670), NORPAC (C00247403), RJC-PAC (C00345132), To Protect Our Heritage PAC (C00135541), Pro-Israel America PAC (C00699470), DMFI PAC (C00710848) and United Democracy Project (C00799031) to every Ted Cruz committee; FEC Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for Rafael Edward Cruz (S2TX00312, P60006111); FEC Schedule A receipts and committee totals for Truth and Courage PAC (C00796045)

Why people think the number is $4 million

Truth and Courage PAC spent $3,864,738 supporting Cruz in the 2024 Senate race against Colin Allred. Miriam Adelson gave that committee $2,000,000. Both facts are true and both are in the filings.

Update, September 4, 2026 (full rebuild). Cruz's card is now $2,301,245: $1,687,246 from the tracked PACs, rebuilt from the raw filings across every committee he has run with (AIPAC PAC $726,147 across 779 earmarked checks in 2024 alone; the August figure of $372,146 missed half of them; NORPAC $540,778 incl. Cruz for President; RJC-PAC $332,271; 15 smaller PACs), plus $613,999 in direct gifts from the lobby's mega-donors (the new Layer 4, see Methodology). Truth and Courage PAC is still excluded for the reason below.

It still fails our funder test. Truth and Courage raised $37,916,061 in 2024. Adelson's $2,000,000 is 5.3% of it. The largest single funder is Win It Back PAC at $6,600,000, followed by the Concord Fund at $2,500,000 and America 2076 at $2,100,000. Adelson is not the largest bloc, or close to it.

Our rule counts a non-pro-Israel committee's spending only when its largest bloc of funding comes from the major pro-Israel donors we track. We applied that rule against ourselves on Donald Trump's page, where we counted none of Make America Great Again Inc.'s $251.8M because Paul Singer was only 1.2% of it. The lowest concentration we have ever counted is Security Is Strength PAC at 28%. Truth and Courage at 5.3% is not a close call.

If we counted it, Cruz's figure would be $5.3M and the methodology on this site would mean nothing. A rule you abandon when the number would be bigger is not a rule.

What the $1,411,545 actually is

We re-verified it from the giving side, pulling each tracked committee's own reported disbursements to every Cruz committee rather than searching his receipts. That direction catches money routed through his joint fundraising committees, which a recipient-side search misses.

• NORPAC — $567,828. Across Ted Cruz for Senate ($286,278), Ted Cruz Victory Committee ($140,050) and Cruz for President ($141,500), in the 2014, 2016, 2018 and 2024 cycles.
• AIPAC PAC — $372,146. All of it in the 2024 cycle, all to Ted Cruz for Senate. AIPAC's PAC did not exist before 2021.
• RJC-PAC — $299,055. $229,055 to Ted Cruz for Senate and $70,000 to Ted Cruz Victory Fund, in 2018 and 2024.
• To Protect Our Heritage PAC — $6,000.
• Direct gifts from tracked donors — about $19,000. Individual contribution limits mean Paul Singer, Miriam and Sheldon Adelson, Ronald Lauder and the Perlmutters could give only a few thousand each.

That reconciles to $1,264,046. The remaining $147,499 is individual donor money from the original July compilation that we have not yet re-walked donor by donor. We are publishing that gap rather than quietly rounding to the number we can prove today. If the re-walk comes in lower, we will correct the figure and say so here.

What we checked and found nothing

• No independent expenditures. Not one committee we track made an independent expenditure for or against Cruz in any cycle, in either his Senate or his 2016 presidential race.
• Nothing from Pro-Israel America PAC, its action fund, DMFI PAC, United Democracy Project, or the Joint Action Committee for Political Affairs, in any cycle.
• His leadership PAC is excluded. Jobs, Freedom, and Security PAC took $5,000 each from Sheldon Adelson, Miriam Adelson and RJC-PAC, $15,000 in total. Leadership PAC money is not counted for any member in this database, so it is not counted for Cruz. We disclose it here so nobody has to find it themselves.

Newt Gingrich: $13,078,545. 85.6% of the committee that spent most of it came from one family; the rest is twenty years of PAC checks to his House campaigns.

Checked August 27, 2026; House career added September 5, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for Newt Gingrich (P60003654), 2012 cycle; FEC Schedule B disbursements from 22 tracked PACs to Friends of Newt Gingrich (C00237750, C00141101, C00195008, C00216036) and Newt 2012 (C00496497), 1982–2012 cycles; FEC Schedule A receipts and committee totals for Winning Our Future (C00507525) and Restore Our Future, Inc. (C00490045)

This is the template. Twelve years before Preserve America, the same family ran the same play at a ninth of the scale, and it is the cleanest example in the FEC record of a single donor bloc financing a presidential campaign through an outside committee.

• Winning Our Future raised $23,937,048 across its entire existence.
• $20,500,000 of that came from three Adelsons: Miriam $12,500,000, Sheldon $7,500,000, Shelley $500,000. That is 85.6% of the committee.
• The next largest donor gave $1,100,000 — Harold Simmons, less than one-eighteenth of the Adelson bloc.
• It spent $12,970,321 supporting Gingrich in the Republican presidential primary, plus $4,031,988 against the Romney–Ryan ticket and $5,000 against Obama. Only the pro-Gingrich figure is on his card.
• When the money stopped, the committee stopped. Winning Our Future filed for two cycles and never spent meaningfully again.

Direct money: $108,224, all of it before he ran for president. In August we checked his 2012 committee (C00496497) against six PACs and found nothing, and said so. The September 5 career sweep reads every tracked committee's filings back to 1980, and it found 22 pro-Israel PACs writing checks to Friends of Newt Gingrich across his Georgia House campaigns, 1982 through 1998: National PAC $22,500, Women's Pro-Israel National PAC $15,000, Citizens Organized PAC $13,000, World Alliance for Israel PAC $8,000, Americans for Good Government $7,500, NORPAC $7,000, U.S. Israel PAC $4,500, Washington PAC, Heartland PAC and National Action Committee $4,000 each, Hudson Valley PAC $3,750, BayPAC $2,724 (including $250 to Newt 2012), and ten others under $2,500. The August statement was true of the committee it checked and wrong about his career; his figure is revised from $12,970,321 to $13,078,545.

Cutting the other way. Restore Our Future, the pro-Romney super PAC, spent $18,730,788 against Gingrich in the same primary — more than was ever spent for him. Sheldon and Miriam Adelson gave Restore Our Future $30,000,000, but that was only 19.5% of its $153,741,731 in receipts. That is below the concentration at which we count a committee's spending (our lowest counted case is Security Is Strength PAC at 28%), so we do not credit that $18.7M to Romney and Romney has no card on this site. We are publishing the fact anyway, because it complicates the simple version of this story: Adelson money was on both sides of that primary.

Kamala Harris: $7,792,868. J Street bundled $6.1 million into the 2024 campaign she took over, and the August audit had missed almost all of it.

Checked August 27, 2026; rebuilt September 5, 2026; revised September 25, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule B disbursements from JStreetPAC (C00441949), JACPAC (C00139659) and NORPAC (C00247403) to Harris Victory Fund (C00744946), Harris for President (C00703975), Harris Action Fund (C00838912) and Kamala Harris for Senate (C00571919), every row dated; FEC Schedule E independent expenditures by candidate for Kamala Harris (P00009423) and Donald J. Trump (P80001571), 2024 cycle, from Zioness PAC (C00891259), DMFI PAC (C00710848) and Democratic Majority for Israel (C90022864); FF PAC (C00669259)

We publish this card because a method that only ever produces big numbers for one side is not a method. In August we said her total was "almost nothing." With J Street's committees on the tracked list, that is no longer true, and we are saying so.

The six components

• JStreetPAC, 2024 cycle — $6,061,668. J Street's PAC collects checks from its donors and forwards them, earmarked, to the campaigns it endorses. Its own Schedule B shows $5,346,403 in 663 checks to Harris Victory Fund, $432,480 in 823 checks to Harris for President, and $282,785 in 24 checks to Harris Action Fund. $3,120,178 of it is dated on or after July 21, 2024, the day Biden withdrew and she became the candidate; $2,941,490 arrived earlier, while the same committees still carried Biden's name. Her committees' own receipts show the same checks, each one marked as earmarked through JSTREETPAC.
• Zioness PAC, 2024 — $987,808. Eight independent expenditures supporting Harris in October 2024, digital advertising placed through SKDKnickerbocker and a mail program. Zioness is a pro-Israel committee on our tracked list; this is the FEC's per-candidate total for it.
• Democratic Majority for Israel, 2024 — $724,392. $186,292 in independent expenditures supporting Harris from DMFI PAC (C00710848), $102,700 from DMFI's separate independent-expenditure filer (C90022864), and $435,400 the two spent opposing Trump. Every anti-Trump expenditure is dated October 2024, after she was the nominee, so under the anti-opponent rule it is credited to her. The August audit counted the $102,700 and the $435,400 but missed the $186,292 because it searched only one of DMFI's two filer IDs.
• JACPAC — $13,500 career. $11,000 to Harris Victory Fund in 2024 ($1,000 of it before July 21); $2,500 to Kamala Harris for Senate in 2016.
• Heartland PAC and Maryland Association for Concerned Citizens — $4,500. $2,500 and $2,000 to Kamala Harris for Senate in 2016.
• NORPAC — $1,000. One contribution to Harris for President, August 29, 2024.

Money from before she was the nominee, and why it counts

Harris for President and Harris Victory Fund are the same FEC committees that were Biden for President and Biden Victory Fund until July 21, 2024; the Harris Action Fund joint fundraising committee was also raising money before that date. JStreetPAC forwarded $2,941,490 to those three committees earlier in the 2024 cycle (55 checks to the victory fund, 250 to the campaign, 17 to the action fund), and JACPAC gave the victory fund $1,000. When Biden withdrew, she did not start a new campaign: she took over his committees, renamed them, and spent the money already in them. Those checks paid for her campaign, so they are on her card. Until September 25 we dated them out; we have reversed that.

What is still not counted. JStreetPAC also bundled $2,078,211 to Biden's committees in the 2020 cycle, $1,555,926 of it after August 11, 2020, when she was his running mate. That was Biden's campaign, and she never took it over. By the same rule we apply to JD Vance, a running mate's money belongs to the top of the ticket, so it is not on her card. Counting it would put her at $9,348,794. We published the figure so nobody has to find it.

What we checked and did not count

Her biggest super PAC does not qualify, for a different reason. FF PAC spent $306,469,337 supporting Harris in 2024. Its single largest funder is Future Forward USA Action at $266,445,355 — a 501(c)(4) that does not disclose its donors at all. We cannot apply a funder test to money whose funders are hidden, so we count none of it.

Nothing from AIPAC's PAC, United Democracy Project, Pro-Israel America, RJC PAC, or To Protect Our Heritage, in any cycle, to any of her committees. The mega-donor layer (Layer 4) has not yet been run for this card.

The money in her race still ran the other way. $112.3M from Preserve America and $10.1M from RJC Victory Fund were spent against her in 2024. Both are credited to Trump on his page. Her total is about one thirtieth of his.

Revision, September 5, 2026. Harris's figure was revised from $547,575 to $4,850,378: JStreetPAC's committees were added to the tracked list on September 4 (Abdullah's ruling), and the full 97-committee sweep found Zioness PAC's $987,808 and DMFI PAC's $186,292 in supporting expenditures that the six-PAC August audit had not searched for. JACPAC's career figure moved from $7,500 to $12,500 and NORPAC's from $1,975 to $1,000 on re-reading the rows. The card's number is the sum of dated rows, not an estimate.

Revision, September 25, 2026. Revised from $4,850,378 to $7,792,868. We now count the $2,941,490 JStreetPAC and the $1,000 JACPAC gave her 2024 committees before July 21, 2024, because she inherited those committees and the money in them. Nothing else changed.

SC-SEN: no pro-Israel PAC spent a dollar on Darline Graham. The PAC that spent $2.6M for her is funded mostly by the people who fund them.

Checked August 26, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule E independent expenditures for Darline Graham (candidate S6SC04437), and Schedule A receipts for Security Is Strength PAC (C00573733), MAGA Inc. (C00892471), Palmetto Action (C00950600), American Mission (C00916692), WFW Action Fund (C00698936) and National Right to Life Victory Fund (C00509893)

Darline Graham (R) filed for the South Carolina Senate seat on July 23, 2026 and is in a runoff. Outside groups have already spent $4,928,428 supporting her and $382,007 opposing her. We checked all of it.

• Not one committee we track spent anything. Not AIPAC's PAC, not United Democracy Project, not DMFI, not Pro-Israel America, not NORPAC, not RJC, not To Protect Our Heritage, not J Street. Zero, for or against. If you stopped at the committee names, her number would be $0.
• Her largest backer is "Security Is Strength PAC," at $2,604,268. The name says national security. So we pulled its donor filings.
• Its largest bloc of money is pro-Israel mega-donor money: $1,000,000 from Miriam Adelson (September 2, 2025), $500,000 from Paul Singer (October 16, 2025), $255,000 from Ronald Lauder (November 5, 2025 and January 22, 2026), and $250,000 from Laura Perlmutter (May 12, 2026). That is $2,005,000 of the $7,125,862 it raised this cycle. No other bloc comes close; the Ellison family is next at $1,250,000. Singer and Adelson money is already in this database, in KY-04.
• Judge the label by the funders. This is the same test we applied to "MAGA KY" in Kentucky, where a Kentucky-sounding committee turned out to be Singer and Adelson money, and we counted it in full. We are applying that test consistently here.

What we did not count, and why. Three other committees spent $1,595,530 for her and none of it is in her figure. American Mission ($690,820) is 93% funded by Leading the Future, an artificial-intelligence industry vehicle. Palmetto Action ($701,730) is funded by Conservative Americans PAC and GOPAC. National Right to Life Victory Fund spent $3,900. We also left out MAGA Inc., which spent $827,711 for her and took $25,000,000 from Miriam Adelson, because it is a general-purpose national committee with $400,684,172 in receipts and her money there is 7% of the pot, not the largest bloc. And we left out WFW Action Fund ($100,000), 20% funded by Paul Singer. Counting those two would put her at $3,531,979. We did not.

What we cannot yet check. Her own committee, Darline for Senate (C00957308), has raised $346,783 including $47,000 from other committees. The itemised detail is not yet in the FEC's processed data, so we have not run the direct-and-earmarked scan we run on everyone else. Her figure may rise when that posts. We will update it and say so here.

NH-01: we went looking for lobby money in the Shaheen–Sullivan primary. We found a dark-money web instead.

Checked August 24, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule A/B for Stefany Shaheen (committee C00906446) and Maura Sullivan (C00658724), Schedule E independent-expenditure aggregates, and Schedule A receipts for Article One PAC (C00931774)

With the September 8 Democratic primary two weeks out, we audited every channel we track for the open NH-01 seat:

• Stefany Shaheen: $0 from pro-Israel PACs on record. We checked direct contributions and conduit (earmarked) transfers from AIPAC's PAC, United Democracy Project, DMFI, Pro-Israel America, NORPAC, RJC PAC, To Protect Our Heritage, and J Street against her committee's $2.2M raised. Nothing. That's the number on her card.
• Maura Sullivan has lobby money on the record: $1,000 directly from DMFI PAC (Democratic Majority for Israel) plus $382 in DMFI independent expenditures supporting her this cycle, and $13,805 in J Street-routed money across her career. Her database total remains $40,107 from the July dataset.
• The dark-money layer, side one: a hybrid PAC called "Article One PAC" — registered December 23, 2025 — has spent $80,291 supporting Shaheen. Its $2.3M in itemized funding comes almost entirely from entities that disclose no donors: "Article One Action Fund" ($877,100), "Guzman Foundation" ($550,000), "Servant-Leader Fund Inc." ($500,000), and "Opportunity Forward Alliance" ($250,000). Its other beneficiaries this cycle include Valerie Foushee and Ben McAdams — both of whom appear in our database with pro-Israel PAC money.
• The dark-money layer, side two: Servant-Leader Fund Inc. — the same no-donor-disclosure nonprofit that put $500K into Article One PAC — has ALSO spent $184,864 directly supporting Sullivan. The same hidden money is playing both sides of this primary.
• Heath Howard: no outside spending, no lobby money, on our clean list.

To be clear about what we can and can't prove: we cannot trace where Article One PAC's or Servant-Leader Fund's money originates, because that is the point of routing it through nonprofits. We do not count any of it in database totals. But when brand-new committees funded entirely by donor-hiding entities spend six figures in a New Hampshire primary, and their other beneficiaries skew heavily toward lobby-backed candidates, voters deserve to see the wiring before they vote. This is the same structure we documented in Michigan and Chicago.

Caveats: processed FEC aggregates and itemized receipts as of August 24, 2026; primary-season filings post daily and these numbers grow. Verify at fec.gov/data under committees C00906446, C00658724, and C00931774.

KY-04: the $15.5 million operation to replace Thomas Massie

Checked August 20, 2026 · Source: FEC independent-expenditure aggregates for Thomas Massie (H2KY04121) and Ed Gallrein (H6KY04171), 2026 cycle, and FEC Schedule A receipts for MAGA KY (C00908723)

Our database lists challenger Ed Gallrein at $15,982,406 in Israel lobby money (rebuilt September 4, 2026: $15,617,645 from the three committees below plus $364,761 in direct mega-donor gifts; the August figure was $15,544,205), the largest candidate figure we track. We reproduced that number from raw FEC aggregates. Three committees account for it:

• United Democracy Project (AIPAC's super PAC): $3,575,107 opposing Massie plus $579,319 supporting Gallrein, $4,154,426 total.
• RJC Victory Fund (Republican Jewish Coalition): $3,515,615 supporting Gallrein plus $362,844 opposing Massie, $3,878,459 total.
• MAGA KY: $6,200,914 opposing Massie plus $1,283,199 supporting Gallrein, $7,484,113 total.
• Combined: $15,516,998 in independent expenditures, matching our database figure within 0.2% (the remainder is direct donations).

"MAGA KY" doesn't sound like an Israel lobby committee. So we pulled its FEC donor filings. Its largest itemized receipts: $1,000,000 from Paul Singer of Elliott Management, among the Republican Jewish Coalition's most prominent backers; $750,000 from Preserve America PAC, the super PAC founded with Adelson money; over $5 million from America 21 PAC across repeated transfers; and $500,000 from MAGA Inc. Judge the label by the funders.

For the record, Massie has his own outside support: Kentucky First PAC ($1.5M for him), Kentucky 4th PAC ($6.7M against Gallrein), Make Liberty Win ($1.1M), and Defeating Communism PAC ($952K). Massie's own career total from pro-Israel PACs remains $0.

Caveats: figures are FEC processed independent-expenditure aggregates as of August 20, 2026, and grow as new filings post. Verify at fec.gov/data: search either candidate under "independent expenditures," and MAGA KY's receipts under committee C00908723.

Michigan Senate: how the $30M primary actually flowed

Checked August 20, 2026 · Source: FEC independent-expenditure aggregates for Haley Stevens (S6MI00426) and Abdul El-Sayed (S6MI00418), 2026 cycle, and FEC Schedule A receipts for A Stronger Michigan (C00952259)

CBS News reported AIPAC spent roughly $30 million to lift Haley Stevens over Abdul El-Sayed in the August primary. The FEC filings show how the pipeline worked, in two channels:

• The disclosed channel: United Democracy Project (AIPAC's super PAC) spent $8,437,449 supporting Stevens and $2,346,358 opposing El-Sayed. $10.8M, all under AIPAC's own name.
• The laundered channel: a super PAC called A Stronger Michigan spent $9,649,850 supporting Stevens. Its FEC receipts show $10.9 million — effectively all of its funding — came from Center Forward, a nonprofit that does not disclose its donors. Center Forward also spent $999,999 directly supporting Stevens.
• The other side of the ledger: every committee supporting El-Sayed combined, National Nurses United ($490K), Fighting for Michigan PAC ($1.1M), Common Defense ($290K), American Priorities ($154K), and MoveOn ($39K), spent about $2.1M. The pro-Stevens outside money outgunned it roughly 10 to 1.

El-Sayed's own career total from pro-Israel PACs: $0. Stevens' career total in our database is $16.8M (rebuilt September 4, 2026: UDP $15.0M across her 2022 House race and this primary, AIPAC PAC $1.17M in bundled checks, $378K in direct mega-donor gifts, and smaller PACs). The $36.2M figure published in August double-counted amended Schedule E filings and has been corrected.

Caveats: "A Stronger Michigan" totals reflect itemized FEC receipts through the pre-primary filings; Center Forward's own funders are not disclosed anywhere, which is precisely the point. Verify at fec.gov/data under each candidate's independent expenditures and committee C00952259's receipts.

Ohio Senate: Sherrod Brown is J Street's biggest candidate, and half of it was filed under a retired committee number.

Checked September 5, 2026 · Source: FEC Schedule B disbursements from JStreetPAC (C00441949) and 20 other tracked PACs to Friends of Sherrod Brown (C00264697, 1992–2024; C00916288, 2026) and Ohio Grassroots Victory Fund (C00578609); FEC committee history for C00264697; FEC Schedule A receipts for C00916288, 2026 cycle

Brown is the largest recipient of J Street money in our database, which is what you would expect for a three-term senator J Street has endorsed since 2012. Two things about the number are worth showing.

• JStreetPAC bundled $1,399,889 to him across five campaigns: $131,097 in 2012, $188,289 in 2018, $478,374 to his campaign in the 2024 cycle, $348,694 so far in the 2026 cycle, $246,300 through Ohio Grassroots Victory Fund, his joint fundraising committee, across 2024 and 2026, and $7,135 in the cycles between. Every dollar is an earmarked check from a J Street donor that the PAC forwarded to his campaign.
• The filing quirk. His campaign committee from 1992 through 2024, Friends of Sherrod Brown (C00264697), was renamed "Dignity of Work PAC" and re-designated as a nonconnected PAC after he lost in 2024. The FEC's current record therefore says that committee is a PAC, not a campaign, and our September 4 build refused to count $351,051 of 2024 J Street checks to it. The FEC's cycle-by-cycle history shows what it was when the checks arrived: his principal campaign committee. We now attribute by the designation in force that cycle, for every committee in the database (the same fix added money to Bonnie Watson Coleman's card).
• The 2026 quirk is stranger. His 2026 campaign registered a new Friends of Sherrod Brown (C00916288) on August 18, 2025. JStreetPAC's own filings list 578 earmarked checks totaling $348,694 to "Friends of Sherrod Brown" from August 2025 through July 2026, but under the old committee number. The new committee's receipts show the same checks: 754 receipt lines earmarked through JSTREETPAC. The money went to the 2026 campaign; the PAC's treasurer used the old ID. We count it, and the override is documented in the pipeline (tools/career/recipient_overrides.json) so the next automated refresh does not lose it again.
• Everything else is small: JACPAC $74,194 over the years, Heartland PAC $25,000, Friends of Israel PAC $10,500, NATPAC $8,500, and sixteen smaller PACs. No tracked committee has ever run an independent expenditure for or against him. Mega-donor direct gifts: $21,000.

Why this matters beyond one card. Candidates who leave office and later come back, or who convert a campaign committee into a PAC, are common. Until September 5 our pipeline read only a committee's current status. It now reads its status in the cycle the money moved, so a retired committee number never hides campaign money again, and a leadership PAC that used to be a campaign committee is still not counted for the years it was a PAC.

Chicago: AIPAC's super PAC wired $5.3M into two "local" PACs on the same day

Checked August 20, 2026 · Source: FEC independent-expenditure aggregates for IL-08 and IL-02 candidates, and FEC Schedule A receipts for Elect Chicago Women (C00936724), Affordable Chicago Now! (C00935049), and Chicago Progressive Partnership (C00935809)

In Illinois' open-seat primaries, no pro-Israel committee spent a dollar under its own name. Instead, the FEC filings show this:

• On February 2, 2026, United Democracy Project, AIPAC's super PAC, wired $4,011,200 to a brand-new PAC called "Elect Chicago Women" and $1,320,000 to another called "Affordable Chicago Now!". Same day, both transfers.
• "Elect Chicago Women" then spent $3,985,698 electing Melissa Bean in IL-08. "Affordable Chicago Now!" spent $4,379,243 electing Donna Miller in IL-02. Both PACs share the same repeat mega-donors on top of the UDP money.
• The part you should read twice: "Elect Chicago Women" also transferred $1,000,000 to a third new PAC named "Chicago Progressive Partnership", which spent $663,879 attacking Junaid Ahmed, the actual progressive in the IL-08 race. An AIPAC-funded committee named itself "Progressive" to run ads against a progressive.
• Our database figures reproduce: Miller's $4,393,893 matches Affordable Chicago Now's spending plus direct donations almost to the dollar; Bean's $4,716,060 is consistent with Elect Chicago Women's spending plus the affiliated committees.

Put the receipts together across states and the 2026 playbook is unmistakable: in high-profile races the lobby spends as itself (UDP in Michigan, Kentucky, Maryland), and in quieter primaries the same money arrives wearing a local costume: "MAGA KY" in Kentucky, "Bold America" in California, "Elect Chicago Women" and "Affordable Chicago Now!" in Illinois. Different names, same wire transfers, all traceable in the filings.

Caveats: processed FEC aggregates and itemized receipts as of August 20, 2026. Verify at fec.gov/data under committees C00936724, C00935049, and C00935809.

MD-05: $5.7M from AIPAC's super PAC for Steny Hoyer's open seat

Checked August 20, 2026 · Source: FEC independent-expenditure aggregates for Adrian Boafo (H6MD05321), 2026 cycle

Our database lists Maryland state delegate Adrian Boafo at $5,752,013. The FEC aggregates reproduce it: United Democracy Project spent $5,734,013 supporting Boafo in the primary for Steny Hoyer's open seat, plus small direct PAC donations (DMFI's direct spending shows $382). One committee, one candidate, nearly $6 million, in a safe-blue district where the primary is the election.

• Boafo's other outside support: $5,259,858 from Protect Progress (the crypto-industry PAC, which we do not count as Israel lobby money), $600,000 from AmeriPAC, which is Hoyer's own leadership PAC, and smaller committees.
• For scale: rival Harry Dunn's entire outside support was about $173K. No committee we found spent six figures for any other Democrat in the race.

Caveats: processed FEC aggregates as of August 20, 2026; totals grow as filings post. Verify at fec.gov/data under Boafo's independent expenditures.

CA-14: the shell chain, and a correction to our own database

Checked August 20, 2026 · Source: FEC independent-expenditure aggregates for Melissa Hernandez (H6CA14163) and FEC Schedule A receipts for Bold America (C00854299) and Project 218 (C00871368)

Our database listed Hernandez at $6.4M, a figure published by an outside tracker. We tried to reproduce it from FEC filings and could not. Here's what the filings do show, and it's a story of its own:

• Total outside spending supporting Hernandez: about $1.83M, from committees named Bold America ($664,921), Project 218 ($500,000), SD 2026 ($373,773), Pro-Choice Majority Action ($200,000), and For Our Values PAC ($86,447). No pro-Israel committee appears under its own name.
• But follow the funding: Bold America took $1,000,000 directly from United Democracy Project, AIPAC's super PAC, in two transfers (May 1 and June 2, 2026), alongside money from intermediaries called "Democrats 2026" and "Proximo Action."
• Project 218's money, $5.6M of it, came from a single entity called "Democracy Matters", which has no public donor trail we can find. Where that money originates, nobody can say from the filings.

So the honest statement is: at least $1M of AIPAC money reached the Hernandez race through a renamed intermediary, the full picture is deliberately obscured, and the $6.4M figure can't be confirmed from FEC records alone. Until it can, our database now lists Hernandez as "not listed" rather than repeat a number we can't stand behind. That's the standard: when we can't prove it, we don't print it, and when we got it wrong, we say so.

Caveats: PAC-to-PAC transfers make district-level attribution genuinely hard; more may surface in post-primary filings. Verify at fec.gov/data under committees C00854299 and C00871368.

Matt Dunlap (ME-02): is he taking Israel lobby money?

Checked August 13, 2026 · Source: FEC filings for Dunlap for Congress (C00922377), all reports through the July 2026 quarterly

Dunlap launched his primary run attacking Jared Golden's AIPAC endorsement and Israel weapons votes. So we checked whether his own money is clean. We verified line by line, not inferred.

• $0 from AIPAC, J Street, DMFI, Pro-Israel America, NORPAC, or any pro-Israel PAC or conduit.
• Total raised cycle-to-date: ~$1.21M, overwhelmingly individual and ActBlue small-dollar money.
• Total from ALL PACs and committees: $13,500, all five itemized: Free and Fair Democracy PAC ($5,000), National Nurses United ($3,000), Sara Gideon for Maine ($2,000), Pingree for Congress ($2,000), and Puget PAC ($1,500).
• Conduit scan of every itemized individual receipt (~4,100 entries across four reports): only conduits are ActBlue and one Zinc Collective PAC earmark bundle ($12,233, a Democratic donor collective, not pro-Israel). Zero AIPAC or J Street earmarks.
• Context: AIPAC money in ME-02 was on Golden's side ($1,071,069 career, per our database). Golden retired in November 2025. No United Democracy Project independent expenditures found in Maine this cycle.

Caveats: itemized data only covers donors over $200; small-dollar donors aren't traceable by anyone. Key filings at docquery.fec.gov: FEC-1993910 (Q2 2026), FEC-1989809 (pre-primary, amended), FEC-1961614 (Q1 2026), FEC-1939144 (Q4 2025).