# Principled Patriots PAC **Principled Patriots PAC** is a political committee registered in Los Angeles on **3 September 2026**. It has received $250,000 in its entire existence, from a single source, and on **30 October 2026** it spent most of it on an advertising program with an unusually legible shape: in nineteen different contests across thirteen states, it paid to **promote a long-shot candidate** and, for the identical sum to the cent, to **oppose the leading Republican** in the same race. Where the FEC's register gives the promoted candidate's party, it is usually **Libertarian**. ## Why it's on the map Boosting a long-shot candidate to pull votes from a major one is an old tactic and a legal one. What makes this committee worth a page is that its filings show the tactic executed as a **single, deliberate, nationally coordinated template** — the same pairing, the same vendor, the same day, nineteen times — and that unlike most committees doing this in 2026, **its money can be traced**. It also arrives in the same week as a [[CNN]] investigation into a different set of committees running the same play in Alaska and Ohio with donors that will not be disclosed until after the election. The two sets of committees appear to have nothing to do with each other, and between them they show that in 2026 this tactic was not one operation's idea. ## The program One Form 24 notice, **file 2045186**, received **31 October 2026 at 19:01:34**, covering expenditures dated **30 October 2026**. It carries 38 Schedule E lines totalling **$310,937.96** — 19 matched pairs, with no line left unpaired. The eleven Senate pairs, largest first. Party labels are the FEC's own for the candidate ID on the row. | Race | Promoted | Opposed | Each side | |---|---|---|---| | TX-Sen | Theodore E. Brown Jr. (Libertarian) | [[Ken Paxton]] (R) | $24,894.41 | | KS-Sen | David Graham | [[Roger Marshall]] (R) | $24,328.13 | | IA-Sen | Thomas Laehn (Libertarian) | [[Ashley Hinson]] (R) | $18,786.56 | | SC-Sen | Mark Hackett | [[Darline Graham]] (R) | $15,241.54 | | NC-Sen | Shannon Bray (Libertarian) | [[Michael Whatley]] (R) | $11,672.10 | | OH-Sen | [[William Redpath]] (Libertarian) | [[Jon Husted]] (R) | $10,435.58 | | MI-Sen | Lydia Christensen (Libertarian) | [[Mike Rogers]] (R) | $10,085.85 | | MN-Sen | Rebecca Whiting (Libertarian) | [[Michele Tafoya]] (R) | $5,430.15 | | NE-Sen | Charles Conboy (other) | [[Pete Ricketts]] (R) | $4,997.59 | | AK-Sen | Gerald L. (Jerry) Heikes (R) | [[Dan Sullivan]] (R) | $3,657.45 | | NH-Sen | Edmond Laplante | [[John E. Sununu]] (R) | $1,189.58 | The remaining eight pairs are House races in North Carolina, Ohio, Colorado and Nevada, between $803.59 and $5,747.06 a side. They are left out of the table because **the district numbers on those rows do not reliably match the candidate IDs on the same rows** — several Nevada lines carry one district in the text field and a different one in the candidate ID — so the money is certain and the district is not. > [!note] Alaska is the exception that shows what the program is for > Every opposed candidate in the table is a Republican, and most of the promoted ones are Libertarians. > **In Alaska both are Republicans.** Gerald L. (Jerry) Heikes is registered with the FEC as a > Republican, and the point of promoting him is not that he might win — it is that Alaska counts its > votes by [[Ranked-Choice Voting]], where lifting a fourth candidate's first-choice share and lowering > the incumbent's push the same way. So the pattern is not "boost third parties"; it is **split the > Republican vote by whatever candidate is available.** Every line names the same payee, **[[Movement Labs]]**, a Chicago-based digital firm, and every line is dated 30 October — four days before the election. By chamber the money runs **$261,437.88 to Senate races and $49,500.08 to House races**. > [!warning] One name on the filing is not the name you know > The Texas row reads **"Paxton, Warren"**, which is not a different Paxton: the FEC's register gives > the candidate behind that ID as *Paxton, Warren Kenneth Jr.* — [[Ken Paxton]], the Texas attorney > general and Republican Senate nominee. FEC filings carry legal names, and reading one as a new person > is an easy and expensive mistake. An earlier and much smaller version of the same program ran in mid-October as text messaging, disclosed on the committee's pre-general report (file 2039460) in amounts between $58 and $1,371 per line, with the same payee and the same pairings. > [!note] Why the two halves are always equal > The matching figures are not a coincidence and not a doubling of the money. They are the convention > described at [[Mirrored Support Oppose Reporting]]: one advertising invoice entered on the form twice, > once as support for one candidate and once as opposition to another. The FEC counts the dollars once. > The notice really is $310,937.96 — not $621,875.92 — and the "50/50 split" the rows appear to show is > an artefact of the form. ## Where the money came from This is the part the committee's filings answer and most do not. | Step | Amount | Line | Date | Source document | |---|---|---|---|---| | [[Rapid Resist Action]] → [[Building America]] | $1,600,000.00 | `SA11AI` | 2026-08-27 | file 2022502 | | [[Building America]] → Principled Patriots PAC | $250,000.00 | `SA17`, memo "Non-Contribution Account" | 2026-09-23 | file 2022527 | That $250,000 is **100% of every dollar the committee has ever received.** Its third-quarter report shows receipts of $250,000.00 against an opening balance of zero, and its pre-general report shows **no further receipts at all** — $232,650.67 on hand at 14 October against $250,000.00 raised and $17,349.33 spent. Two details matter for reading it correctly. The transfer arrived on **Line 17, Other Federal Receipts**, not Line 11 — so it is a transfer into the committee's non-contribution account rather than a contribution, and the form says so in its own memo text. And [[Rapid Resist Action]] is a nonprofit, which means **the chain stops there**: who funds Rapid Resist Action is not on the federal record. Washington Post reporter Patrick Svitek described it publicly as a Democratic-aligned nonprofit on the same day the notice was filed. > [!warning] A shared treasurer is a vendor relationship, not evidence of direction > The FEC's register lists **Howie Stanger** as treasurer of both [[Building America]] and of > [[Abdul El-Sayed]]'s own Senate campaign committee in Michigan — the Democratic nominee running > against [[Mike Rogers]], one of the Republicans this program opposed. A conservative outlet reported > that connection in October as "El-Sayed's treasurer behind the super PAC," which is close but > misplaced: the shared treasurer sits at Building America, the funder, and Principled Patriots PAC's > own treasurer is Jennifer Tullis. > > **This site draws no inference of coordination from it.** Compliance treasurers sign for many > unrelated clients, which is the same caution this wiki applies to [[Thomas Datwyler]] on the other > side of the ballot, and an independent expenditure is by definition uncoordinated with any candidate. > What the paperwork establishes is form, not direction. ## Did it clear this site's threshold for a deal page? No, and the reasoning is worth stating because the dollar figure is small and the finding is not. A transfer from one FEC filer to another earns its own entry here only when it is at least half the recipient's receipts for the period **and** the payer's own funding is not on the federal record. The first test is met at 100%. The second is not: Building America's funder is itemised by name on its own report. So the transfer is recorded here and on both committees' pages with its file number, and the $310,937.96 of advertising is an order of magnitude below the $10 million bar for a single buy. ## Connections - [[Mirrored Support Oppose Reporting]] — why every pair in the notice matches to the cent - [[Alaska Values PAC]] and [[Buckeye Freedom PAC]] — committees with undisclosed donors running the same strategy in two of the same races, reported by [[CNN]] on 31 October 2026 - [[American Prosperity Alliance]] — the same tactic in reverse: Republican money behind super PACs branded as progressive to shape Democratic primaries - [[2026 Midterms Hub]] · [[Super PACs]] · [[Dark Money]] · [[Astroturfing]]