A secretive group recruited far-right candidates in key US House races. It could help Democrats

DES MOINES, Iowa (AP) — Joe Wiederien was an unlikely candidate to challenge a Republican congressman in one of the nation’s most competitive House districts.

A fervent supporter of former President Donald Trump, Wiederien was registered as a Republican until months earlier. A debilitating stroke had left him unable to drive. He had never run for office. For a time, he couldn’t vote because of a felony conviction.

But he arrived last month at the Iowa Capitol with well over the 1,726 petition signatures needed to qualify for the ballot as a conservative alternative to first-term Republican Rep. Zach Nunn. After filing the paperwork, he flashed a thumbs up across the room at an operative he knew only as “Johnny.”

Several other unorthodox candidates have emerged across the country — all backed by the same shadowy group, the Patriots Run Project.

For the past year, the group has recruited Trump supporters to run as independent candidates in key swing districts where they could siphon votes from Republicans in races that will help determine which party controls the House next year, an Associated Press review has found. In addition to two races in Iowa, the group recruited candidates in Nebraska, Montana, Virginia and Minnesota. All six recruits described themselves as retired, disabled — or both.

The group's operation provides few clues about its management, financing or motivation. But interviews, text messages, emails, business filings and other documents reviewed by the AP show that a significant sum has been spent — and some of it traces back to Democratic consulting firms.

While dirty tricks are as old as American elections, the efforts this year could have profound consequences in the fight to control Congress, which is expected to be decided by a handful of races. It's also not an isolated example: allies of Trump have been working across the U.S. to get liberal academic Cornel West on the ballot in hopes he could play spoiler in the presidential election.

“At that time I was thinking, well, it would be nice to be in Congress and get to work with President Trump,” Wiederien, 54, reflected in an interview outside the Veterans Affairs hospital in Des Moines, where he was seeking treatment for a leaking incision on his head from previous brain surgery. “It looks like it’s a dirty trick now.”

Wiederien withdrew his candidacy last month after he says it became clear he'd been manipulated into running against Nunn. Now he wants an investigation to uncover the motives of those who made his candidacy possible.

Nunn on Monday called the effort a plot “to steal this election.”

“I am outraged to see anyone prey on hardworking Iowans or deceive voters,” he said.

As with other recruits, Wiederien's story begins with Facebook, where the Patriots Run Project operated a series of pro-Trump pages and ran ads that used apocalyptic rhetoric to attack establishment politicians in both parties while urging conservatives to run in November.

“We need American Patriots like YOU to stand for freedom with President Trump and take back control from the globalist elites by running for office,” one such ad states.

Some candidates say they were contacted because of their political posts on Facebook. Two others said the group reached out after they completed an online survey.

Once recruited, they communicated with a handful of operatives through text messages, emails and phone calls. In-person contact was limited. Patriots Run Project advised them about what forms to fill out and how to file required paperwork.

In at least three races, petition signatures to qualify for the ballot were circulated by a Nevada company that works closely with the Democratic consulting firm Sole Strategies, according to documents, including text messages and a draft contract, as well as the firm's co-founder. In Iowa, a different Democratic firm conducted a poll testing attacks on Nunn, while presenting Wiederien as the true conservative.

Despite the ties to Democratic firms, there is a scant paper trail to determine who is overseeing the effort.

Patriots Run Project is not a registered business in the United States and it is not listed as a nonprofit with the IRS. It has not filed paperwork to form a political committee with the Federal Election Commission. The only concrete identifying detail listed on the group's website is a P.O. Box inside a UPS store in Washington, D.C.

Messages left at email addresses and phone numbers for the group’s operatives went unanswered.

A spokesperson for the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, House Democrats' campaign arm, said the organization had no knowledge of or involvement in the effort. House Majority PAC, the Democrats' big spending congressional super PAC, was also not involved, a spokesman said.

Jason Torchinsky, a prominent Republican election lawyer and former Justice Department official, said investigators should take interest. “Given what is described, there could be a wide variety of federal and state criminal violations,” he said.

Rick Hasen, a law professor at the University of California, Los Angeles, said the effort “looks shady and unethical,” but added “it is hard to say whether any laws have been broken, which would depend not only on the facts, but also the statutes and precedents under state law.”

In Iowa, it is a crime to deprive or defraud voters of “a fair and impartially conducted election process," while in Virginia ”conspiracy against rights of citizens" is a felony.

It's not the first time Patriots Run Project has drawn attention.

In June, the Center for Strategic Dialogue, a London-based watchdog, issued a report that found the network of Patriots Run Project pages on Facebook were likely controlled by a small number of people, deceiving users and violating Facebook’s policies on “coordinated inauthentic behavior.” The ads also violated the site's standards because they did not include disclaimers showing who was responsible.

Facebook took down the pages. But by then, the mystery operatives running the group were already working to get recruits on ballots.

Meta, Facebook's parent company, didn't respond to a request for comment. The company reported receiving $48,000 for the group's ads.

Unlike Wiederien, other candidates said they believed the group had done nothing wrong.

Thomas Bowman, 71 and disabled after a kidney transplant, said he believes he likely was recruited to run against Democratic Rep. Angie Craig of Minnesota to split the conservative vote and help Craig win reelection in the suburban Minneapolis district. But the self-described constitutional conservative expressed gratitude for free help getting signatures.

“They got me on the ballot,” Bowman said. “If I had to do that all by myself, I couldn’t do it.”

In Montana, Dennis Hayes was recruited to run as a Libertarian against GOP Rep. Ryan Zinke. The group found a donor to give him $1,740 to cover his candidate filing fee, Hayes recalled. The donor, whom Hayes would not identify, went to Hayes’ bank with him to deposit the check, which Politico previously reported.

“I told them I didn’t have the money to run or I would. They got me a donor so I could run for Congress,” said Hayes, 70.

Robert Reid, a widowed retiree running against Republican Rep. Jen Kiggans in southeastern Virginia, said he was contacted by Patriots Run Project after posting his views to Facebook. His sole in-person contact was when a man drove to his home in a Mercedes SUV to drop off his completed petition signature paperwork.

“They seem to be nice people,” said Reid, a Trump supporter who will appear on November’s ballot for the swing district seat. The thought, however, did cross his mind that “these guys want me to run to draw votes away from” Kiggans.

In Nebraska, Army veteran and Trump supporter Gary Bera said he was asked to run as an independent against Rep. Don Bacon, a Republican who is facing a challenge. The district, which includes Omaha, is the state's most competitive.

Bera was a truck driver and engineering draftsman before disability forced him from work. After he was recruited through an online survey, Bera said the group instructed him to open a business checking account, a requirement for declaring a federal candidacy. Because his car wouldn’t run, an operative agreed to pick him up to file paperwork with the state.

But plans changed abruptly last month when he was informed that the group had not collected enough signatures for him to qualify. “Now I’m putzing around,” Bera said.

In Iowa, the group recruited longtime GOP activist Stephanie Jones to run as an independent against Republican Rep. Mariannette Miller-Meeks, even though Jones does not live in that eastern Iowa district. Jones said the group paid to gather signatures for her but fell short.

Jones, a Trump supporter who is on disability due to post-traumatic stress disorder, then unsuccessfully sought the Libertarian Party nomination with an operative's encouragement. She said she believes those behind the effort are genuine but desire anonymity because “they don’t want to be targets of the deep state.”

Wiederien, however, thinks the group had ulterior motives. The Iowa district he was recruited to run in has been fiercely contested in recent years. Nunn won by roughly 2,000 votes in 2022, while the Democrat who held the seat, Cindy Axne, eked out victories in two prior races that drew third-party candidates.

The Patriots Run Project identified Wiederien through Facebook last fall, and an operative calling himself “Knox” urged him to run: “God bless you. You’re a true patriot. We are gonna save our country!”

Wiederien, who has a collection of Trump merchandise and attended several Trump rallies, had text and phone conversations over the ensuing months with operatives who identified themselves as “Will Haywood” and “Johnny Shearer.”

The AP was unable to confirm whether Haywood and Shearer were real identities. A John Shearer who Wiederien said was involved said he would not confirm or deny any participation. “If I were in this covert political organization I wouldn’t really admit to it, would I?” he said.

The operatives convinced Wiederien to change his party affiliation from Republican to unaffiliated so he could qualify. They assured him his 2013 felony conviction for his third operating while intoxicated offense, which cost him his right to vote and run for office until 2016, wasn’t disqualifying.

They urged him to list his affiliation on the ballot as “America First." They arranged for a firm to gather signatures across the district, which includes Des Moines, its suburbs and rural southern Iowa.

Those signatures were gathered by Common Sense America, a Nevada limited liability company created in February. A company disclosure filing in Colorado, which requires signature gatherers to register, lists a phone number for a co-founder of the Democratic consulting firm, Sole Strategies.

“We work very closely with Common Sense America,” Zee Cohen-Sanchez, the co-founder, said when contacted. Lisa Cohen, the registered agent for Common Sense America who appears to be Cohen-Sanchez's mother, didn’t return messages.

Sole Strategies has earned nearly $1.8 million over the past four years working for Democratic candidates and causes, including numerous Democratic House members and candidates, records show. Jones said Common Sense America gathered signatures for her campaign.

A draft contract shows the firm was set to receive $3,300 for collecting signatures for Bera in Nebraska. A philanthropist listed on the document as the proposed buyer of those services is Carolyn Cohen of Nyack, New York, a registered Democrat who has a history of supporting liberal causes. “She doesn’t comment on her political donations,” her partner, Larry Miller, said.

Last month, a poll attacked Nunn as soft in his opposition to abortion, terrorists and Democrats — calling him “an errand boy for the uniparty elite”— while painting Wiederien as the pro-Trump conservative in the race.

A spokeswoman for the firm that operated the poll, Dynata, said that its client was Patinkin Research, which says it “has worked to elect dozens of Democratic candidates.” The spokeswoman later said she identified Patinkin in error and urged AP not to publish its identity. Patinkin’s founder didn’t return messages.

When it was time to submit his petitions, Wiederien said “Johnny” agreed to drive him the 75 miles to Des Moines and arrived in an electric car. The car needed to be charged before they could make the trek, so Wiederien said he entertained the operative with video clips of Trump while they waited.

Later, he said they met a man wearing a suit in an office near the Iowa Capitol who gave them paperwork and a binder full of his signatures. All Wiederien had to do was sign a form.

Wiederien’s statement of candidacy was notarized by a Des Moines paralegal whose firm has done some campaign-related work for Democrats. Firm representatives didn’t return messages.

Wiederien said he found it suspicious “Johnny” appeared to avoid a Capitol surveillance camera and declined to have his picture taken with him. Afterward, the group paid for an Uber to drive Wiederien home.

Soon, he heard from Republicans who convinced him he’d been tricked into thinking the Patriots Run Project had Trump’s support and withdrew his name from the ballot.

Slodysko reported from Washington.

Stephanie Jones speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in De Soto, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Stephanie Jones speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in De Soto, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Stephanie Jones speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in De Soto, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Joseph Wiederien speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Joseph Wiederien wears a Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump t-shirt as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Joseph Wiederien shows a text exchange with a political operative he knew only as "Johnny" as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Joseph Wiederien wears a Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump t-shirt as he speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Joseph Wiederien speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

Joseph Wiederien speaks during an interview with The Associated Press, Friday, Sept. 6, 2024, in Des Moines, Iowa. (AP Photo/Charlie Neibergall)

WASHINGTON (AP) — Vice President Kamala Harris on Wednesday criticized Republican Donald Trump 's promise to deport millions of people who are in the United States illegally, questioning whether he would rely on massive raids and detention camps to carry it out.

Harris, the Democratic presidential nominee, told the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute’s annual leadership conference that the nation can find both a pathway to citizenship for those who want to come and at the same time secure the border.

“We can do both, and we must do both,” she said.

Trump, for his part, held a rally in Uniondale on New York's Long Island as both candidates took a break Wednesday from campaigning in the toss-up states that will likely decide the Nov. 5 election. The former president drew a large, roaring crowd, giving him a chance to show deep support even in a blue state.

He ripped into Democratic leadership in New York City and state, blaming them for homeless people living in what he called “horrible, disgusting, dangerous, filthy encampments,” and even the conditions on the New York City subway, which he called "squalid and unsafe” and promised to renovate.

“What the hell do you have to lose?" he said in asking for their votes.

Before heading out to the suburbs, Trump stopped at a Bitcoin cafe in New York City. Trump has recently embraced cryptocurrency and on Monday night helped launch his family's new cryptocurrency venture.

Harris harked back to the Trump administration's immigration policies as she bid for Hispanic support.

“While we fight to move our nation forward to a brighter future, Donald Trump and his extremist allies will keep trying to pull us backward,” Harris said. “We all remember what they did to tear families apart, and now they have pledged to carry out the largest deportation, a mass deportation, in American history.”

“Imagine what that would look like and what that would be? How’s that going to happen? Massive raids? Massive detention camps? What are they talking about?” she said.

Former president Trump has promised to carry out “the largest deportation operation in the history of our country” if he's elected in November. He has offered no details on how such an operation would work.

Trump has leaned into immigration as a top campaign issue and made it a key focus of his remarks Wednesday.

“Look at what's happening,” he told his crowd in New York. "Businesses that are fleeing, money draining out of your state and hundreds of thousands of illegal migrants sucking your public resources dry.”

He has an advantage over Harris in opinion polling on whom voters trust to better handle the issue.

Meanwhile, the Teamsters labor union declined to endorse either Harris or Trump, saying neither had sufficient support from its 1.3 million members.

Harris had met on Monday with a panel of Teamsters, having long courted organized labor and made support for the middle class her central policy goal. Trump met earlier in the year with a panel of Teamsters, and its president, Sean O’Brien, spoke at his invitation at the Republican National Convention.

Trump's rally Wednesday night was in Uniondale, an area that could be key to Republicans maintaining control of the House. His party is trying to protect 18 Republicans in Democratic-heavy congressional districts that Joe Biden carried in 2020, particularly in coastal New York and California, and going on offense to challenge Democrats elsewhere.

Long Island in particular features one of the most closely watched races, between first-term Republican Rep. Anthony D’Esposito and Democrat Laura Gillen. D’Esposito is a former New York Police detective who won in 2022 in a district that Biden won by about 15 percentage points in 2020.

Trump posted Tuesday on his Truth Social platform that the GOP has “a real chance of winning” New York “for the first time in many decades." In that same post, Trump also pledged that he would “get SALT back,” suggesting he would eliminate a cap on state and local tax deductions that were part of tax cut legislation he signed into law in 2017.

The so-called SALT cap has led to bigger tax bills for many residents of New York, New Jersey, California and other high-cost, high-tax states, and is an important campaign issue in those states, particularly among those New York Republicans serving in districts Biden won.

Harris' speech to the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute marked the second day in a row that she has tended to constituencies considered key to the Democratic Party.

On Tuesday, she sat for an interview in Philadelphia with members of the National Association of Black Journalists. She decried Trump’s rhetoric and said voters should make sure he “can’t have that microphone again.” She has trips planned later in the week to Michigan, Georgia and Wisconsin.

Trump is attempting to return to his campaign cadence after Sunday's apparent assassination attempt as he golfed in Florida. On Tuesday, he traveled to Flint, Michigan, and has not appeared to alter plans for upcoming trips to the nation's capital and North Carolina later in the week.

His running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance, held an event in Raleigh, North Carolina, on Wednesday.

Meg Kinnard can be reached at http://x.com/MegKinnardAP

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Kinnard reported from Houston and Colvin reported from Uniondale, New York. Associated Press writers Darlene Superville in Washington and Michelle L. Price in New York contributed to this report.

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump arrives to speak at a campaign event at Nassau Coliseum, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in Uniondale, N.Y. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at Pubkey Bar and Media House, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris waves to the crowd as she leaves at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris arrives at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) leadership conference, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential nominee former President Donald Trump makes a campaign stop at Pubkey Bar and Media House, Wednesday, Sept.18, 2024, in New York. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris speaks at the Congressional Hispanic Caucus Institute (CHCI) Leadership Conference, at the Ronald Reagan Building in Washington, Wednesday, Sept. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris Vice is interviewed by National Association of Black Journalists members Tonya Mosley, and Gerren Keith Gaynor, with moderator Eugene Daniels, at the WHYY studio in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Matt Rourke)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump speaks during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)

Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris boarding Air Force Two, Monday, Sept. 9, 2024, near Philadelphia International Airport, in Philadelphia, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)

Republican presidential candidate former President Donald Trump on stage with Arkansas Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders during a town hall event at the Dort Financial Center, Tuesday, Sept. 17, 2024, in Flint, Mich. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)