A newly registered super PAC tied to a corporate lobbying firm principal is bankrolling ads for Rep. Haley Stevens in Michigan’s hotly contested Democratic Senate primary.
The super PAC, called A Stronger Michigan, registered with the Federal Election Commission on Monday and started rolling its first ads one day later. The committee filed its first spending disclosure on Thursday, which totaled $1.2 million and shows three digital and TV ad buys, along with one ad production purchase, all to support Stevens’ campaign.
The organization does not list any affiliated committees in its FEC filings, but it appears to have ties to Jefferies Murray, the founder of the lobbying firm 535 Group and a board member of centrist “dark money” group Center Forward. The PAC lists a luxury single-family home in McLean, Virginia, as its mailing address on its FEC registration document. According to Fairfax County records, the house belongs to Murray, who has also provided the same address to the FEC for past campaign donations he has made.
Murray has been a Washington lobbyist since the late 90s, first with the American Gas Association, then with C2 Group and FTI Government Affairs, before founding his own firm in 2021. 535 Group’s clients include defense giant Northrop Grumman, Facebook parent company Meta, tobacco company Altria, quantum computing company D-Wave, and more. Northrop Grumman has been his longest-running client, picking them up in 2014 and bringing the contract with him to the new firm.
Murray has been a board member for Center Forward since its founding in 2010. The group is a dark money advocacy nonprofit run by lobbyists and funded by corporate lobbying groups that promotes centrist policies and has super PAC arms that back conservative Democrats and moderate Republicans. Center Forward Committee, the group’s Democrat-leaning super PAC arm, bankrolled largely by its own nonprofit arm and donations from large companies like Chevron, has poured nearly $1 million since May into ads for Stevens.
Center Forward Committee and A Stronger Michigan use the same compliance consultant, as well as Chain Bridge Bank. And in A Stronger Michigan’s first filing, it listed the same three vendors that Center Forward Committee has used for all of its pro-Stevens ad buys in this election cycle: AL Media, Dixon/Davis Media Group, and Waterfront Strategies.
Center Forward CEO Cori Kramer, asked about A Stronger Michigan, said in an email to Sludge, “The two organizations are not affiliated.”
A Stronger Michigan’s ad presents a generic anti-Donald Trump message. One part mimics a line on her campaign website, in what’s known as a “red box” section, which says that Stevens is “standing up to Trump’s attempts to cut Medicare and raid Social Security.” Red box website sections are used by candidates like Stevens to communicate their messaging goals to super PACs while circumventing legal prohibitions against direct coordination.
