Democratic Majority for Israel, the pro-Israel super PAC, appears to have returned to Nebraska\u2019s Second Congressional District, where it canceled its spending only a week ago amid controversy that its intended beneficiary had disavowed support from all Israel-focused outside groups.<\/p>\n
This time, DMFI is using the guise of something called Pro-Choice Majority 2026, a political action committee quietly formed in December 2024. The treasurer of Pro-Choice Majority 2026 listed in its statement of organization<\/a> with the Federal Election Commission is Jay Petterson, who is also listed as the treasurer for DMFI PAC<\/a>. Both forms use the same email address for Mr. Petterson.<\/p>\n More from David Dayen<\/a><\/p>\n The ad buy in the Second District is approximately $242,000, split between support for Denise Powell and opposition to state Sen. John Cavanaugh. The spots were placed by Symmetry Media, the ad agency that is also working with Elect Democratic Women in the Second District. They began running yesterday, for the last week of the May 12 Democratic primary.<\/p>\n DMFI had planned to run ads in the district under its own name starting on April 27. But Powell has repeatedly<\/a> said<\/a> that she would not accept money from any PAC involving the issue of Israel, including in statements to the Prospect. Once those statements emerged, DMFI canceled its ad buy<\/a>, though $659 in spots did accidentally run on a small cable station. The ad campaign was transferred to New Democrat Majority PAC, which upped its ad buy at the same approximate level as DMFI\u2019s. Internal documents at local television stations said, \u201cCancel spending for DMFI PAC and moving money to New Democratic Majority.\u201d<\/p>\n But the canceled ad buy has now apparently been reinstated under a different name. The source of cash for Pro-Choice Majority 2026 will have to be disclosed, but not until after the primary is over. Some individual donations for the PAC have been disclosed<\/a>, but only through the end of March.<\/p>\n \u201cVoters across the district are being inundated with ads from Powell\u2019s Trump-backed allies trying to win this district for her,\u201d Katie Bartizal, campaign manager for John Cavanaugh, said in a statement. \u201cAnd because Powell promised not to take their money, they\u2019re doing it in secret and trying to trick voters \u2026 John is standing up to the billionaires and special interests who know his vote is not for sale.\u201d<\/p>\n The Powell campaign dismissed the link by noting that Petterson is a compliance consultant who serves as treasurer for a wide array of different Democratic entities. Petterson also did not respond to a request to clarify his role at both DMFI and Pro-Choice Majority 2026.<\/p>\n The use of shell PACs to hide support from pro-Israel groups was a feature of several House primary elections in Illinois<\/a>, where groups like Elect Chicago Women and Affordable Chicago Now stood in for United Democracy Project, the super PAC of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). In the end, four candidates received support from pro-Israel PACs, one directly and three through these shell PACs. AIPAC won two and lost two.<\/p>\n Outside groups have pummeled Cavanaugh and uplifted Powell in the Nebraska race, a swing seat in and around Omaha which Democrats see as winnable after five-term Republican Don Bacon announced his retirement. According to campaign finance documents, independent expenditures totaling $3.265 million have been spent supporting Powell and attacking Cavanaugh in the race. Cavanaugh has benefited only from a small ad buy from the Congressional Progressive Caucus PAC for $272,000.<\/p>\n Powell, a political strategist and small businesswoman who has the support of the centrist New Democrat Coalition, has been highly specific in calling for outside support in a \u201cred box\u201d on her campaign website<\/a>, including providing what looks like ad copy, dictating how much saturation the ads should have on broadcast television and radio, and explaining what demographics of Democrats should see them.<\/p>\n The talking points are all focused on Cavanaugh\u2019s alleged threat to the \u201cBlue Dot,\u201d which refers to Omaha\u2019s ability to send one electoral vote to a Democrat despite the state voting Republican. (Nebraska, like Maine, authorizes each of its individual congressional districts to cast one Electoral College vote for the presidential candidate who carries that district.) \u201cIf Cavanaugh wins, the governor would appoint his replacement to the legislature,\u201d one ad running in the district<\/a> states, \u201ccreating a MAGA supermajority to eliminate the Blue Dot, helping Republicans keep the White House, ban abortion, and gut voting rights.\u201d<\/p>\n Nebraska\u2019s unicameral legislature already has a Republican supermajority, yet has been unable to pass legislation eliminating the Blue Dot or banning abortion. Nebraska Democrats are contesting multiple winnable seats this year in the legislature with national funding support, and are likely to pick up at least one to offset a potential Cavanaugh departure in the expected Democratic wave.<\/p>\n UPDATE: This story has been updated after a response from the Powell campaign.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Democratic Majority for Israel, the pro-Israel super PAC, appears to have returned to Nebraska\u2019s Second Congressional District, where…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":100966,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[35296,2923,467,35297,1275,35298,35299,2924,37,1685,35300,1576,81,15270],"class_list":{"0":"post-100965","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-israel","8":"tag-advertising","9":"tag-campaign-finance","10":"tag-congress","11":"tag-dark-money","12":"tag-democrats","13":"tag-denise-powell","14":"tag-dmfi","15":"tag-election-2026","16":"tag-israel","17":"tag-israel-palestine","18":"tag-john-cavanaugh","19":"tag-nebraska","20":"tag-politics","21":"tag-super-pacs"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@iran\/116528849975195119","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100965","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=100965"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/100965\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/100966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=100965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=100965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/iran\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=100965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}