Conservatives spent heavily in key Democratic primaries, filings show

(CNN) — An influential conservative nonprofit covertly funded a series of super PACs with names suggesting liberal provenance as the groups injected hundreds of thousands of dollars into key nominating Democratic contests across the country.

A new round of Federal Election Commission filings Saturday confirmed national Democrats’ suspicions that Lead Left PAC, Real Change PAC and Blue California PAC were purposefully boosting candidates perceived as weaker contenders in a general election in hopes of engineering more favorable matchups for Republicans.

In the most striking example, Lead Left PAC spent more than $750,000 on advertisements in the Democratic primary in Texas’ 35th District, according to AdImpact data, boosting Maureen Galindo, a sex therapist and housing advocate whose use of antisemitic tropes in criticizing Israel drew national attention and widespread condemnation from members of both parties. Galindo denied that her remarks are antisemitic.

“She’s the only candidate who will stop Trump and ICE,” says one of the group’s ads – which ultimately proved unsuccessful, as Galindo lost in the primary runoff by nearly 30 points to Johnny Garcia.

Despite the group’s name and messaging, filings show that Lead Left PAC received more than $3 million in May from Conservative Americans PAC — itself funded by American Prosperity Alliance, the influential Republican nonprofit.

In a statement, Conservative Americans PAC acknowledged its role in seeking to shape the Democratic primaries...

...Quirks in campaign finance reporting deadlines allow for outside groups like these super PACs to register with the FEC in the weeks leading up to an election and spend unlimited amounts before they are required to file their first reports detailing fundraising and spending. Timed strategically, those reports won’t reach voters until the election is over.

That’s allowed groups like Lead Left PAC to mask the source of their funding, and intervene aggressively in primaries without tipping their hands to voters.

In addition to Texas’ 35th, Lead Left PAC spent $1.4 million in Pennsylvania’s 7th District opposing Bob Brooks, a top Democratic recruit who went on to win the primary anyway, and $300,000 in Nebraska’s 2nd District, another key battleground, targeting state Sen. John Cavanaugh, who lost to Denise Powell....

So it doesn't appear to work, just like the pool cleaning, and Iran.<--ME

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