How big money scrambled to support Espaillat in the final weeks

The super PAC Progressive Unity Fund solicited donations to support congressional candidate Antonio Reynoso in Brooklyn and Queens before pivoting to exclusively support incumbent Rep. Adriano Espaillat in Upper Manhattan and the Bronx, people familiar with the super PAC’s operations told City & State. 

Following that shift, donations originally earmarked for helping Reynoso were transferred to Real Fight NYC, a new super PAC created specifically to help him, and to the super PAC New York Fights - Luchando por Nueva York, according to Federal Election Commission records. 

Those new FEC filings, released nearly a month after the June 23 Democratic primary, shed some light on the confusing ways that money was shuffled among super PACs in the final weeks before the election – and revealed donors from the worlds of business, labor and advocacy that were throwing money behind the pair of New York Democrats running desperate, losing battles to candidates backed by the New York City chapter of the Democratic Socialists of America and Mayor Zohran Mamdani. 

Pivoting PUF

Progressive Unity Fund, or PUF, was formed on May 8. It began raising money the first week of June, bringing in $200,000 from the progressive advocacy group Make the Road Action; $200,000 from the American Federation of Teachers’ super PAC AFT Solidarity; $50,000 from real estate firm Two Trees Management; and nearly $40,000 from the pro-Reynoso super PAC New York Fights (which was primarily funded by unions 1199SEIU and 32BJ SEIU), among others.

Make the Road Action confirmed to City & State that its $200,000 donation was intended to support Reynoso, whom the organization endorsed in his race against Assembly Member Claire Valdez, to replace retiring Rep. Nydia Velázquez. “Our members decided to endorse Antonio Reynoso for Congress because of a deep history partnering with him to win progressive change,” the organization said in a statement. “MRA contributed to Progressive Unity Fund specifically to support Antonio Reynoso, our endorsed candidate, and our understanding is that is what the contribution was used for.”  

Make the Road remained neutral in Espaillat’s race, but many of Reynoso’s other supporters were also backing Espaillat, the chair of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, as he was getting challenged by Darializa Avila Chevalier. For much of the spring, much of that donor base felt that Espaillat was in a relatively safe position, while Reynoso faced a difficult race. But by early June, Espaillat looked to be in trouble. Mamdani had endorsed Avila Chevalier on May 28, and polls showed her and Espaillat virtually tied.

So PUF pivoted to focus exclusively on Espaillat’s race, ultimately spending over $1.8 million on pro-Espaillat and anti-Avila Chevalier ads. But it couldn’t spend money earmarked for Reynoso on pro-Espaillat ads. So the same consultants behind PUF created a new super PAC on June 10 called Real Fight NYC. 

PUF ultimately transferred $400,000 to Real Fight NYC, as well as $239,691.68 to New York Fights, another pro-Reynoso super PAC. (Since New York Fights had originally given $39,691.68 to PUF back when the latter was supposed to run ads for Reynoso, this transfer effectively returned that money, along with an extra $200,000.)

PUF continued raising money from other donors. The biggest donations, by far, came from a dark money 501(c)(4) group called Next NY Inc. That group, which appears to have ties to former Andrew Cuomo campaign manager Greg Goldner, donated a total of $1.45 million to PUF. In total, PUF raised over $2.7 million. Real Fight NYC, the dedicated pro-Reynoso super PAC, was not as successful. It only raised a total of $700,000.

Real estate and pro-Israel money

The identity of Real Fight NYC’s donors became an issue during the campaign, after Valdez  called on the super PAC to disclose its contributors and both she and her campaign consultant Morris Katz implied that the super PAC could be acting as a pass-through for the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, a pro-Israel group whose name has become toxic in Democratic primaries. 

At the time, City & State reported that about $200,000 of the money that Real Fight NYC raised had come from the American Federation of Teachers. While the rest of the money was unaccounted for, AFT President Randi Weingarten told City & State that she had received assurances that Real Fight NYC had not taken any money from AIPAC. In a very meta move, Real Fight NYC then produced a new ad that attacked Valdez for claiming that a pro-Reynoso super PAC had taken money from AIPAC when the money really came from the teachers union.

On July 15, Real Fight NYC finally revealed its only two sources of money: $400,000 from PUF – presumably that was the $200,000 from Make the Road Action and $200,000 from AFT Solidarity that had been earmarked to support Reynoso – and $300,000 from Next NY Inc., whose donors are unknown.

That political organization had an aligned state-level super PAC, the similarly named Next NYC PAC, that did disclose its donors. Major contributors included shopping mall magnate Peter Lowy, asset management firm Trilogy Advisors and Kind Bar billionaire Daniel Lubetzsky. But it’s not clear if those donors also gave to Next NY, and the organization did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Meanwhile, PUF revealed its full list of donors on July 20. Many had ties to the real estate industry: Eric Rudin and William Rudin, the two co-chairs of Rudin Management Co., gave $33,333.33 each, with Rudin Family Foundation President Beth Rudin DeWoody throwing in another $33,333.33, for a total of $100,000; Gary Barnett, president of Extell Development, donated $150,000; and Wendy Kelman Neu, chairwoman of the Hugo Neu corporation (and a major donor to the organization seeking to ban Central Park horse carriages), threw in $50,000. It also got another $200,000 from AFT Solidarity (in addition to the $200,000 earmarked for Reynoso that it sent along to Real Fight NYC) and $50,000 from investor Jeff Aronson, whose private equity fund Centerbridge Partners has come under criticism for its role in Puerto Rico’s debt crisis. 

PUF also received $100,000 from a collection of pro-Israel donors who were apparently interested in backing Espaillat over Avila Chevalier, who had made criticism of Israel a centerpiece of her campaign. Those donors included Lubetzky, Suffolk Construction CEO John Fish, Harbor Freight Tools President Allan Mutchnik, Brown Brothers Hariman retired partner Jeff Schoenfeld and investor Marc Spilker. And although PUF never received any money from AIPAC, it did receive a $26,139.05 contribution from NORPAC, a different pro-Israel super PAC, on June 23, the day of the primary election.