# Stad 1.5M to New Leadership Now August 2026 On **August 18, 2026**, **Elisa Stad** of Santa Barbara, California gave **$1,500,000.00** to [[New Leadership Now]], a super PAC spending against the incumbent Democratic congressman **Mike Thompson** in California. It is her **second** contribution of that exact size to the committee, and it was first disclosed on **October 15, 2026**. ## Terms | Item | Detail | |---|---| | Contributor | **STAD, ELISA**, 1590 E Mountain Dr, Santa Barbara, California; occupation and employer both given as **Self** | | Recipient | **NEW LEADERSHIP NOW**, FEC committee **C00900993**, 455 Market Street Suite 1400, San Francisco; treasurer **Matthew Alvarez** | | Committee type | Super PAC (independent-expenditure only), unauthorized; first filed **2025-03-31** | | Amount | **$1,500,000.00** | | Contribution date | **2026-08-18** | | Schedule / line | Schedule A, line **11(a)(i)** — contribution from an individual | | Transaction ID | `IA282` | | Disclosed | **Form 3X**, file **2027242**, `F3XA` (amended Q3 report), coverage **2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30**, received **2026-10-15** | | Aggregate on the filing | **$3,500,000.00** | | First contribution | **$1,500,000.00** dated **2026-02-17**, file **1990249** | ## How this was resolved — and why it was nearly recorded as a restatement This row arrived on an **amendment form** (`F3XA`), which under this site's method normally marks money already on the record. Two separate tests failed to resolve it, and a third did. | Test | Result | |---|---| | **Amendment form code** | `F3XA` → presumptively a restatement. **Inconclusive**; an amendment can disclose money for the first time. | | **Processed-index file number** | The index returns one Stad row: $1,500,000.00, file **1990249**, dated **2026-02-17**. Lower file number → reads as "restatement". But the **date differs by six months**, which makes the comparison uninterpretable. Re-queried at **T+2** on 2026-10-17 and the index had **still not absorbed** file 2027242, so the lag had not cleared. | | 🔴 **The amendment's own coverage period** | **Decisive.** File 2027242 covers **2026-07-01 to 2026-09-30**. A contribution dated **2026-02-17 cannot appear on it.** The February row the index reports is therefore a **different transaction on a different report**, and the August row is **first disclosure**. | The aggregate column corroborates: **$3,500,000.00** after this row. $1,500,000.00 (February) + $1,500,000.00 (August) = $3,000,000.00, leaving **$500,000.00** unaccounted — a contribution below the $1,000,000.00 reporting floor this site applies, and therefore outside this page's scope rather than missing from the record. The aggregate is internally consistent with three contributions. **The general point is worth keeping.** Comparing file numbers depends on the FEC's processed index, which runs one to three days behind, so on an amendment filed yesterday it cannot answer at all. The coverage period is printed on the amendment itself and answers the same question with no dependence on the index. Where a contribution falls outside the period a report covers, it is not the contribution that report is restating. ## What the committee is doing with it File 2027242 also carries the committee's Q3 independent expenditures: **$1,377,083.72** across **15 live Schedule E lines**, every one of them **opposing Mike Thompson** in the California House race, with expenditure dates running **September 8 to September 25**. The vendors are **Common Blue Strategies** ($1,349,083.72, 97.97%), HaystaqDNA LLC ($25,000.00) and Prospect Strategic Communications ($3,000.00). **A San Francisco super PAC, funded by a Santa Barbara individual, spending seven figures against a twelve-term Democratic incumbent.** The committee has no disclosed donor other than Stad at or above the $1,000,000.00 floor, which makes her contributions substantially the whole of it. This is an intra-Democratic contest fought with super-PAC money, which is the less-covered half of the outside-money story in 2026. ## See Also - [[Elisa Stad]] · [[New Leadership Now]] - [[Independent Expenditure]] · [[Super PACs]] · [[Dark Money]] - [[Deals Hub]]