BETHLEHEM, Pa. — In the closing days of one of the country's most watched congressional primaries, TV spots and mailers from a mysterious super PAC are flooding into Pennsylvania's 7th Congressional District.
In a bid to influence the outcome of the four-way Democratic primary, Lead Left PAC since its organization in late April has poured more than $1 million into three closely watched Democratic primaries across the country, FEC filings show.
More than half that money has gone into the Lehigh Valley's congressional race to promote former Northampton County Executive Lamont McClure and denounce firefighter union boss Bob Brooks and former federal prosecutor Ryan Crosswell.
"We stand for truth, democracy, and the American Dream — for ALL Americans. We will stop at nothing to keep Donald Trump from stealing our country from us."Lead Left PAC website
The timing of the ads and the PAC's organization mean that voters won't know the source of the funding until after Pennsylvania's May 19 primary.
The PAC's website offers a place for people to sign up for text alerts and few other details.
"We stand for truth, democracy, and the American Dream — for ALL Americans," the site reads. "We will stop at nothing to keep Donald Trump from stealing our country from us."
But Lead Left PAC may not be what it seems.
Punchbowl News reported last week that metadata in its website linked it to WinRed, the fundraising platform endorsed by the Republican National Committee.
Brooks, Crosswell and McClure have decried the ads, calling them an unwanted intrusion into their primary.
"There should be no dark money in our politics at all," McClure said Friday. "This kind of unregulated super spending is what’s poisoning our politics."
'They didn't stand up to Trump'
The Lean Left PAC ads — whether on TV, online or in print — follow the same basic theme.
They attack Brooks for funding "election deniers and anti-abortionist extremists" while noting Crosswell's time as a registered Republican and as a federal prosecutor working for the U.S. Justice Department under President Donald Trump.
The attacks on Crosswell are familiar ones that his opponents have raised throughout the campaign.
He left the Republican Party in December 2024 and resigned as a federal prosecutor months later when the Trump administration ordered corruption charges be dropped against then-New York City Mayor Eric Adams.
Crosswell served in the Marine Corps during the Bush and Obama administrations before being hired at the Justice Department during Obama's second term.
The attacks on Brooks are less clear. He has come under fire in recent weeks because his union, Pennsylvania Professional Fire Fighters Association, endorsed Treasurer Stacy Garrity in her 2024 re-election campaign.
Garrity, who now is running for governor, has been criticized by Democrats as an abortion extremist who lent her voice to efforts to overturn the 2020 election results.
However, LehighValleyNews.com could not locate any political donations by the union's PAC to Garrity.
Crying foul
The ads promote McClure as a progressive Democrat capable of fighting Trump, echoing McClure's own stump speeches.
"Transparent. Proven. Progressive. Nothing to hide. See clearly. Vote McClure," reads a 9-by-12 inch mailer with skeletal figures of Brooks and Crosswell on the opposite side.
The three men all have cried foul over the hit pieces while trying to use them to their own advantage.
Brooks and Crosswell have offered them as proof that Republicans don't want to see them advance to the November general election and take on U.S. Rep. Ryan Mackenzie, who is running unopposed in the PA-7 Republican primary.
"Ryan Mackenzie's allies didn't spend half a million dollars on a candidate they consider weak," Crosswell campaign manager Nick Mattes said in a statement.
"Crosswell has led the Democratic field in fundraising every quarter and is the only candidate in this race who has directly confronted Trump's corruption under oath."
Brooks, in his own statement, said, “Republicans are targeting me because I’m the candidate they fear the most. They don’t want to face me in November because they know this firefighter will smoke Ryan Mackenzie, flip this seat, and stop Donald Trump’s cruel agenda.
“This is exactly what’s wrong with our broken and corrupt political system. A MAGA super PAC can parachute in at the final hour and spend millions of dollars in Republican dark money to spread lies about me and my record of service to the Lehigh Valley."
'Didn't need this help'
McClure cautioned that it's not clear if Lead Left PAC is a Republican campaign effort but used the case as an opportunity to renew his call for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United v FEC.
The 2010 Supreme Court ruling found that federal limits on corporate and labor campaign spending violate the 1st Amendment, and campaign spending has skyrocketed in the years since.
McClure accused the Brooks campaign of relying on super PAC funding from other organizations to get his message out to voters.
The super PAC Stronger Together PA has spent more than $700,000 championing Brooks this cycle, including recent ads underlining his endorsements from Gov. Josh Shapiro and U.S. Sen. Bernie Sanders.
The group has drawn funding from firefighter unions, organized labor and The Bench, a group that promotes centrist Democrats.
"I am calling for a dark money suspension in this race," McClure said. "I didn’t need this help. I was going to win anyway."
Political meddling
PA-7's status as one of the nation's few battleground districts has drawn outsized spending from outside groups in recent years.
The national parties, single-issue groups and their allies increasingly have targeted the Lehigh Valley in their political messaging in hopes of persuading voters whose votes could determine the House majority.
Democratic voters this year will chose from among Brooks, Crosswell, McClure and energy engineer Carol Obando-Derstine.
Candidate spending already is outpacing the 2024 race, which saw a record $30 million spent as Mackenzie edged out Democratic incumbent Susan Wild by a single percentage point in the general election.
While most of the 2024 spending was tied to established organizations such as the Americans For Prosperity and Emily's List, a pair of pop-up super PACs dropped more than $92,000 in the Lehigh Valley's Republican primary that year to attack Mackenzie.
Its website and emails to local Republicans criticized Mackenzie for voting in favor of an abortion shield law as a member of the Pennsylvania House.
The legislation forbids Pennsylvania officials from sharing information about women who traveled to Pennsylvania to have an abortion with states that prosecute people residents that seek abortions elsewhere.
Because of the late timing of the PACs' filings, voters didn't know until days before the primary that the money was coming from Sid Hawach and Victoria Lahoud, a Bethlehem Township couple.
If Lead Left PAC is a Republican operation in sheep's clothing, it's adopting a similar strategy on a grander scale.
Filings with the FEC show that Lead Left PAC pumped $556,881 into the PA-7 race over two days last week. The money has paid for campaign commercials in the expensive Philadelphia market, digital ads and mailers.
Lead Left has also dropped $435,000 to attack John Cavanaugh in the crowded Democratic primary for Nebraska's 2nd Congressional District, a prominent swing district centered around Omaha.
Also, $42,000 went to support Maureen Golindo, a housing advocate who advanced to the Democratic runoff in Texas's 35th Congressional District that includes a part of San Antonio.
