Outside spending is currently 8.7% of what the candidate's own committee has raised. The election is in 73 days. Major outside-spending groups typically deploy in the final 4–8 weeks; a small total now does not mean a small total in the end. The skill should be re-run closer to election day.
There's a race for MI Senate 2026 Democratic primary. One of the candidates is Haley Stevens. This report tracks the outside money in the race — money spent on TV ads, mailers, and digital ads by groups that aren't Haley Stevens's own campaign. Those groups are called Super PACs.
Super PACs can spend unlimited money on ads, as long as they don't coordinate directly with the candidate. They have to report every dollar to the federal government — which is what makes investigations like this possible.
The biggest spender is CENTER FORWARD COMMITTEE, which spent $647,586 — about 84% of all the outside money in this race. That group is funded by: CENTER FORWARD ($2.1M, 91%), CHEVRON ($100K, 4%), PMI US CORPORATE SERVICES ($100K, 4%). So when you see an ad supporting Haley Stevens, there's a real chance these donors paid for it.
AIPAC is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — a lobby group that has a Super PAC arm called UDP (United Democracy Project) known for spending huge sums to defeat candidates it considers too critical of Israel. Pro-Israel money has been a defining factor in Democratic primaries since 2022.
AIPAC-aligned money is in this race. The detector found: DMFI PAC ($2,250,000). These are pro-Israel PACs that coordinate with AIPAC's targeting but aren't AIPAC organizational subsidiaries. Published findings should call this 'AIPAC-aligned' rather than 'AIPAC.'
It's still 73 days until the election. Outside-money pushes typically deploy in the final 4-8 weeks. If this race is competitive, expect the totals below to grow significantly between now and election day. Re-run this report in 6-8 weeks for the updated picture.
The 6 groups doing the outside spending often share back-office infrastructure — the same treasurer, the same office address, the same political vendors. That doesn't mean they're 'the same group' — it means a handful of political operatives run multiple Super PACs out of the same office. It's legal and common, but worth knowing: when you read about 'six different groups' supporting a candidate, they often share the same plumbing behind the scenes. The detailed analysis tab shows exactly which.
Outside-spending committees disclosed $771,167 in independent expenditures supporting Haley Stevens in the MI Senate 2026 Democratic primary. 6 committees filed; the largest, CENTER FORWARD COMMITTEE, accounts for 84% of that total.
| Donor (and employer/city hints) | Into this chain | Recipients in the chain | Roster relationship |
|---|
Roster: skills/_shared/aipac_network.json (last updated 2026-05-23).
Detector: skills/_shared/aipac_detect.py. Negative and positive findings are both auditable —
running these checks against the same trace will reach the same conclusion. Match confidence on individual
donors is medium (name-only); analysts should verify employer/location to rule out homonyms before publication.
Each ribbon shows a disclosed money flow. Donors and parent committees on the left → spending committees in the middle → the candidate on the right. Width is proportional to dollars.
| Vendor | Paid | # | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| UNITED HEALTH GROUP | $16,410 | 1 | IN-KIND - EVENT TICKETS, MEALS, LODGING, TRANSPORTATION |
| CENTER FORWARD | $9,190 | 1 | IN-KIND - TRAVEL AND TRANSPORTATION EXPENSES |
| KATZ COMPLIANCE | $3,478 | 13 | COMPLIANCE CONSULTING |
| CAPLIN & DRYSDALE | $1,225 | 1 | LEGAL SERVICES |
| Vendor | Paid | IEs | Other candidates targeted |
|---|---|---|---|
| AD BEAT STRATEGIES | $1.86M | 7 | CRAIG, ANGIE |
| WATERFRONT STRATEGIES | $393,221 | 1 | STEVENS, HALEY |
| AL MEDIA | $225,000 | 1 | STEVENS, HALEY |
| DIXON / DAVIS MEDIA GROUP, LLC | $29,365 | 1 | STEVENS, HALEY |
| Vendor | Paid | # | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLUE WAVE POLITICAL PARTNERS, LLC | $2,000 | 1 | COMPLIANCE CONSULTING |
| Vendor | Paid | IEs | Other candidates targeted |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACTIVATE CHANGE LLC | $78,200 | 9 | STEVENS, HALEY |
| BLUE ACTION INC. | $6,000 | 1 | STEVENS, HALEY |
| Vendor | Paid | # | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| ELIAS LAW GROUP | $46,668 | 3 | LEGAL CONSULTING |
| BLUE MICHIGAN PAC | $45,000 | 2 | NON-CONTRIBUTION ACCOUT: SUPERPAC CONTRIBUTION |
| BLUE BATTLEGROUND PROJECT | $33,000 | 1 | SUPER PAC CONTRIBUTION |
| BLUE WAVE POLITICAL PARTNERS, LLC | $19,024 | 9 | SOFTWARE RENTAL |
| NGP VAN | $1,497 | 1 | SOFTWARE RENTAL |
| Vendor | Paid | IEs | Other candidates targeted |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACTIVATE CHANGE LLC | $160,313 | 32 | CRAIG, ANGIE, BROOKS, BOB, STEVENS, HALEY, RIKER, BRANDON |
| BLUE ACTION, INC. | $43,000 | 6 | RIKER, BRANDON |
| Vendor | Paid | # | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLUE WAVE POLITICAL PARTNERS, LLC | $350 | 1 | COMPLIANCE CONSULTING |
| Vendor | Paid | IEs | Other candidates targeted |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACTIVATE CHANGE LLC | $17,650 | 12 | STEVENS, HALEY, POWELL, DENISE, PULIDO, BOBBY, RIKER, BRANDON |
| Vendor | Paid | # | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| THE BONNER GROUP | $679,150 | 6 | FUNDRAISING CONSULTING |
| THE MELLMAN GROUP | $349,800 | 4 | POLLING |
| DEMOCRATIC MAJORITY FOR ISRAEL | $264,082 | 12 | STAFF SALARIES, RENT AND FUNDRAISING EXPENSES |
| PERKINS COIE | $120,528 | 12 | LEGAL CONSULTING |
| SCHRAYER & ASSOCIATES, INC. | $45,000 | 4 | GENERAL STRATEGY CONSULTING |
| Vendor | Paid | IEs | Other candidates targeted |
|---|---|---|---|
| THEMATIC CAMPAIGNS | $1.75M | 4 | CAMPA-NAJJAR, AMMAR |
| STRATEGIC PLACEMENT MEDIA | $500,000 | 1 | VILLEGAS, RANDY |
| SISNEROS STRATEGIES LLC | $130,365 | 4 | GARCIA, JOHNNY, GALINDO, MAUREEN |
| CONVERGENCE TARGETED COMMUNICATIONS | $64,220 | 5 | WAY, TAHESHA |
| TRILOGY INTERACTIVE LLC | $44,050 | 36 | WAY, TAHESHA, PAPPAS, CHRIS, COOPER, ROY, CRAIG, ANGIE |
| Vendor | Paid | # | Category |
|---|---|---|---|
| BLUE WAVE POLITICAL PARTNERS, LLC | $275 | 1 | COMPLIANCE CONSULTING |
| Vendor | Paid | IEs | Other candidates targeted |
|---|---|---|---|
| ACTIVATE CHANGE LLC | $12,225 | 9 | STEVENS, HALEY, CRAIG, ANGIE, TUREK, JOSHUA, MILLS, JANET TRAFTON |
Committee receipts disclosed in prior election cycles — to show whether this is a long-running operation or a single-cycle vehicle.
This is the wider-audience summary. The full analyst-grade markdown report — with every endpoint, every caveat, the request-for-comment letter drafts, the PDF review queue, the FCC scaffold, and reproducibility instructions — lives at reports/MI_Senate_2026_Democratic_primary_Haley_Stevens_final_report.md in the same folder.
One flag is suggestive, not probative. Two or more flags together is publishable analysis. Zero flags is not a clean bill of health — it just means none of these specific fingerprints fired.
Every dollar figure comes from the FEC's public API. To re-run this trace end-to-end:
export FEC_API_KEY="<your_key>" python skills/fec-money-trace/fec_run.py \ --candidate "Haley Stevens" \ --cycle 2026 \ --race "MI Senate 2026 Democratic primary" \ --election-date 2026-08-04 \ --depth 3 \ --min-transfer 25000
Primary endpoints used: /candidates/search/, /schedules/schedule_e/ (independent expenditures), /schedules/schedule_a/ (receipts), /schedules/schedule_b/ (disbursements), /committee/{id}/ (Form 1 registration).
Named individuals are public donors of record under federal campaign finance law and appear in primary-source FEC filings. They are listed for disclosure transparency, not as accusation. Any narrative use of these names should give each individual an opportunity to respond before publication — request-for-comment letter drafts are already produced and live in followups/comment_letters/.