Republicans Bring Shadow Network Of PACs Manipulating Dem Primaries To New York

Tuesday’s primaries in New York, Maryland and Utah can tell us a lot about the direction of the Democratic Party. But one race in particular is set to have major implications for November’s election.

The Democratic primary in New York’s 17th Congressional District is set to be a fresh test of whether Republicans can manipulate Democratic primary voters with sneaky attack ads.

Republicans are worried about Rep. Mike Lawler (R-N.Y.) being able to win reelection in November, so they’ve been meddling in the Democratic primary with an ad targeting Cait Conley, one of five Democrats vying to be the party’s nominee.

A group called Progressive Champions PAC claims in a TV ad that Conley — an Army officer who has deployed to combat zones and holds a significant lead in the Democratic primary — consulted for a firm that partnered with an Immigration and Customs Enforcement contractor.

“Conley pocketed over $300 grand from firms supporting the apparatus weaponized by ICE,” the ad’s narrator says.

But Progressive Champions PAC isn’t really a progressive organization — it was created last month within minutes of another shadowy PAC, and campaign finance records suggest both have ties to the Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC controlled by House Republican leadership. Progressive Champions PAC and the CLF did not respond to requests for comment.

The attack ad against Conley indicates Republicans would rather have someone else go up against Lawler, one of only three House Republicans representing a district carried by Kamala Harris in 2024.

“It is very clear that Mike Lawler is terrified to face me in November, and he is willing to go to any length to try to prevent that from happening,” Conley told JS.

Conley said she’d be a better opponent against Lawler than her nearest Democratic rival, Beth Davidson, a member of the Rockland County legislature, because Lawler has previously beaten “Democratic politicians” who served in government.

“He has never had to face someone like me before,” Conley said.

A network of sham Republican PACs has meddled in other Democratic primaries, with mixed results. One group put up ads last month backing Maureen Galindo, an unsuccessful Democratic primary candidate in Texas, who suggested turning an ICE detention center into “a prison for American Zionists.” Another group backed Matthew Dunlap over Joe Baldacci in the Democratic primary to face former Maine Gov. Paul LePage in a race to replace retiring Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine). National Democrats backed Baldacci, but Dunlap won when the race was called over the weekend.

Here are four other things to watch in Tuesday’s primaries.

New York City Mayor Zohran Mamdani has endorsed three progressive candidates in contested congressional primaries. The first looks like a sure thing: Brad Lander, a former city comptroller, is expected to easily defeat incumbent Rep. Dan Goldman in a Manhattan-based district Goldman was always too moderate for.

The second is a fight in the city’s so-called “Commie Corridor,” a stretch of neighborhoods in Queens and Brooklyn full of young, left-leaning voters. Here, Mamdani backed Assemblywoman Claire Valdez over Brooklyn Borough President Antonio Reynoso to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velazquez. Velazquez is backing Reynoso, making the battle a test of wills between two powerful groups of progressives in the city.

But it’s the third race where Mamdani has truly put his political capital on the line. He endorsed political organizer Darializa Avila Chevalier over incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, in a district stretching from Harlem into gentrifying neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Espaillat is a powerful enough figure to cause future problems for Mamdani if he sticks around, regardless of the mayor’s current high levels of popularity, and backing a primary challenge to the incumbent has also reportedly angered House Minority Leader Hakeem Jeffries.

“The Democratic Party must change,” Mamdani said at a rally with all three candidates over the weekend, explaining why he decided to stick his neck out with endorsements.

President Donald Trump, who takes pride in having his endorsed candidates win but has suffered losses in the Iowa and Georgia governors’ race primaries as of late, will be able to claim credit Tuesday night regardless of who wins the runoff to become the Republican nominee for South Carolina governor.

Trump likes to claim his endorsement is all but a guarantee of success, but that record is largely built by endorsing incumbents facing little or no serious opposition and by waiting to see who is likely to win a contested primary and then endorsing that person.

In South Carolina, for instance, Trump had endorsed the sitting Republican lieutenant governor, Pamela Evette, ahead of the June 9 primary. She finished first with just under 29 percent of the vote, well short of an outright majority and barely ahead of Alan Wilson, the state’s attorney general and son of former GOP Rep. Joe Wilson.

Subsequent surveys, however, have Wilson simply dominating in the runoff. Public polling gives him leads of anywhere from 7 to 28 percentage points.

So what has Trump done? Gone ahead and endorsed Wilson, too.

“I can’t hurt one of them by only Endorsing the other, so, therefore, I am going to Endorse, for Governor of South Carolina, both Pam Evette and Alan Wilson! It’s a Wealth of Riches – With either one you can’t go wrong. Vote for Pam or Alan,” he wrote in Friday social media post.

There are, by definition, only two candidates in a runoff.

One of Tuesday’s oddest races will be in Baltimore, where social media influencer Bobby LePin has put a scare in one of the state’s most powerful Democrats. LePin is challenging Maryland Senate President Bill Ferguson, best known nationally for stubbornly standing against redrawing the state’s congressional lines. Ferguson recently flipped his position on the matter, suggesting the lines could be redrawn — and one GOP-held seat could be eliminated — before the 2028 elections. Many Democrats in the state link the flip-flop directly to LePin’s challenge.

LePin’s chances of victory are seen as low, but even a remotely threatening challenge will highlight how fired up Democratic voters are in the redistricting wars. While Republican-led redraws have been top-down affairs dictated by the White House and powerful governors, Democrats have faced bottom-up pressure from their grassroots to respond. LePin could turn into a particularly vivid example.

Progressives may find themselves on the losing end of two key primaries in open seats because of a familiar problem: too many like-minded candidates.

In Maryland’s 5th District, where former Majority Leader Steny Hoyer is retiring, a raft of candidates championing progressive policies provides the opportunity for big-money super PACs to get their chosen candidate.

Del. Adrian Boafo, Hoyer’s chosen successor and former campaign manager, is backed by more than $11 million in spending by crypto and pro-Israel super PACs. That big money boost, along with the endorsements of Hoyer, Gov. Wes Moore and Sen. Angela Alsobrooks, will likely help Boafo, who has taken pro-crypto and pro-Israel stances in the Maryland legislature, best a crowded field of 23 candidates that includes former Prince George’s County Executive Rushern Baker, former Capitol Police officer and Jan. 6 figure Harry Dunn, state Sen. Arthur Ellis and Prince George’s County Councilmember Wala Blegay, among many others. But he is unlikely to do so with anything approaching a majority of the votes.

Across the country in Utah, former Rep. Ben McAdams, who lost reelection in a swing seat centered on Salt Lake City in 2020, is running again for a new safe Democratic seat created by a state court under Utah’s anti-gerrymandering laws. McAdams, a moderate Democrat, faces competition from his left from state Sen. Nate Blouin, who is endorsed by Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, and former tech worker Liban Mohamed, who won the delegate vote at the Utah Democratic convention.

Both Blouin and Mohamed argue that McAdams, who opposes abortion rights and was the most conservative Democrat in his one term in the House, is not a good fit for this solidly Democratic seat. But McAdams, who is boosted by a super PAC funded by artificial intelligence companies, has establishment support and can count on his competitors on the left to split the vote on Tuesday.