Pete's reunion, and other revelations

As I previewed last week, this past Saturday was the end-of-year FEC filing deadline – America’s favorite non-Christmas holiday. I promised you thrilling insights from my deep dives, and now the thrill is upon us.

In all seriousness though, I found some good shit that hasn’t been reported… But first, here’s a new word:

In a historic Trump-pumping, MARK KELLY raised a record-setting $12.5M in Q4. That more-than-tripled AOC’s $3.7M, with nobody else on my list topping $1.7M. Kelly sent a bunch of that money to fellow Dems.

Elsewhere, CORY BOOKER & RO KHANNA continued stockpiling cash. JB PRITZKER dropped a cool $5M into the PAC backing his Lt. Gov’s IL-Sen bid – an understated preview of his potential 9-figure 2028 self-funding. Crypto PAC Fairshake disclosed a $193M war chest to unleash against industry foes – and that wasn’t even the most alarming crypto sheikh story of the week!

Here’s an updated snapshot of top Dems’ finances – including new PAC data you won’t find neatly aggregated anywhere else – followed by notable findings:

Traverse City dad PETE BUTTIGIEG has made clear he’s planning a more active 2026, with lots of campaigning for Dems in key races – and new FEC filings paint a clearer picture of that up-revving.

Pete’s Win The Era PAC raised over $4.5M in the back half of 2025, spent over $1M on digital ads (after not advertising in H1), and now has at least nine Pete 2020 alums on payroll, most of whom also worked for him at DOT. You can draw your own conclusions about whether they’re likely to run it back in 2028, but it’s worth appreciating how rare it is for a politician to engender that level of professional loyalty over the better part of a decade; this industry is extremely transient, campaigns are a young person’s game, and losing ones tend to end bitterly. Speaks highly of Pete.

In September 2025, KAMALA HARRIS reconstituted her campaign account as Fight For The People PAC, which just reported raising (and spending) over $8.4M – a surprisingly large sum. Upon closer investigation, the numbers started to make more sense – and also, less sense, in a sense. Let me explain:

The vast majority of the intake came from selling Kamala’s email list to the DNC for $6.5M, reported in two transactions dated Nov. 28 & Dec. 29. 

The full context here is important. The Harris campaign ended in significant debt, and over the past year, Kamala has been tapping her email list to raise money for the DNC to pay that off – a fact not readily shared with the small-dollar donors footing the bill, who were often led to believe they were financing critical work ahead. “Every donation the DNC receives will be used to stop Trump's push to pass tax cuts for billionaires and to elect Democrats up and down the ballot,” one such email read.

To be fair, it’s not on the candidate to micromanage campaign finances, nor is Harris the first nominee to incur debts that weigh on the DNC; the 2012 Obama campaign struck a deal in 2015 to give the DNC his list as they helped clear his last $2.4M in debt. And once you’re that deep in the hole, there are few *good* options.

Anyways, between Dec. 2024 & Sept. 2025, the DNC – buoyed by Kamala’s fundraising – paid over $22M in outstanding Harris campaign bills, per FEC filings. Then, they paid Harris’s PAC $6.5M for the list. The money didn’t stay there long, as the PAC reported ~$7M of expenditures in December; I can’t tell how much of that went toward paying off additional debts versus supporting new endeavors.

The DNC, meanwhile, entered 2026 $3.5M in the red, trailing the RNC by nearly $100M. But hey, nothing a few urgent emails can’t fix, amirite?

The other ~VERY FUN~ Saturday event I had previewed was the DNC rules panel considering applications from states vying to hold early primaries. The upshot from that 3-hour meeting is they voted to give all 12 states the chance to present their case to the panel, likely in April or May. 

The one thing I wanted to highlight was this helpful rundown from panel member Frank Leone of the feasibility for each state to actually hold an early primary, which he broke into three buckets:

Base-ically aligned. Even as the Dem base bristled at leaders giving DHS another penny without major reforms, half the Senate Dem caucus backed last week’s Trump-Schumer gov’t funding deal, which included a 2-week CR for DHS + 5 bipartisan appropriations bills. But nearly every prospective 2028er voted against it, including Sens. KELLY, GALLEGO, SLOTKIN & WARNOCK, all of whom voted for the Laken Riley Act last year. Notably, JON OSSOFF – the only swing state Dem up in 2026 – voted for the deal. There were real arguments on either side on this one, but it nonetheless struck me as a good illustration of both the massive immigration vibe shift and the growing gulf between Dem primary & general election politics.

AOC’s reemergence. AOC – who, to the best of my knowledge, hadn’t done a podcast or YouTube show since Feb. 2025 – joined The Don Lemon Show to condemn Trump’s attacks on the free press. It’s just one example of her expanding public presence, which the NYT reports will include a progressive foreign policy speech at next week’s Munich Security Conference. Perhaps the most underrated story in Dem politics of 2025, much of which AOC spent out of the spotlight, was the way her embrace of Zohran Mamdani solidified her position as heir to the Bernie movement, should she run in 2028. And she should run; I do not think there will be another opening quite like this one for her.

I am behind on updating the Big, Beautiful Tracker, so I’ll have to give you a double dose of highlights next week.

Here’s an incredible montage of a young PETE BUTTIGIEG asking the most Buttigiegian questions imaginable at various public events from his Harvard days: