The Final Week for WA-5: Billionaires, Dark Money, and Nate Powell's Campaign

By Grant Fredericks — The LeClaire Report

Independent Nate Powell’s campaign for Congress positions him as a working-class guy promising to take on billionaires on behalf of the district. “Billionaires, corporate interests bought both political parties,” he insists.¹ His primary pitch: money corrupts.

But while his public rhetoric repeatedly accuses the two major parties of being beholden to the rich, his own campaign has quietly welcomed massive financial support from the ultra-wealthy.

Citizens United & the Independent Beneficiary

In just 7 months, Powell’s candidacy has been backed by $1.13 million in direct contributions and independent expenditures, much of it from outside Washington State.²

Speaking to a small group of would-be supporters in December of 2025, Powell cautiously described a dark money network that recruited him with a pledge to provide significant financial support. “There’s two sides to the money,” he explained. “There’s the hard side, that’s the actual donations to the campaign, and then there’s the soft side, that’s the Citizens United independent expenditure stuff. And they have some soft side money that they’re putting into it and helping me get started.” Powell then identified the dark money network and named Dan Osborn. Osborn founded the Working Class Heroes Fund,³ and Powell himself tied his backers to “the same organizations behind” Osborn’s Nebraska campaign. Much of the funding is untraceable dark money. At the December meeting, Powell whispered the truth about who is supporting his campaign: “they’re very quiet about that,” he said.⁴

Independent Expenditures

The majority of financial support directed to Powell’s candidacy do not appear in his campaign disclosures to the Federal Election Commission (FEC), but they do carry his message through the primary.

Independent Expenditures are a product of the Citizens United Supreme Court ruling allowing corporations and unions to spend unlimited money independently to support a political candidate.⁵ “Independently” means the spending must occur without any coordination with the candidate: the outside entity and the candidate cannot consult, share strategy, or communicate about how, when, or where the money is spent.⁶

“The challenge is the money of politics. It costs a ton of money,” Powell explained. “The numbers I’m hearing about what it’s going to cost to run this campaign are wild. They tell me it’s going to cost 2 million bucks to run to the primary, and it’s going to cost more than that in the general.”⁷

The Money Flow

Powell is more than halfway to his primary election target. His campaign has raised $322,821.25,⁸ but it’s the dark money and the Independent Expenditures that have pushed him forward. To date, the network of Super PACs, hybrid PACs, labor PACs, and 501(c)(4) organizations has invested an additional $806,913 in support of Powell’s candidacy. The money has been spent mostly on digital advertising, with glossy mailers and some television.⁹ And almost all of it from outside the state.

The dark money network’s independent expenditures supporting Powell can be tracked on the government’s FEC website, and much of it flows through the Fire House PAC. The primary conduit is the Independent Candidates Action PAC. Supported by a $200,000 contribution by crypto billionaire Michael Novogratz, who is worth over $5B according to Forbes Magazine,¹⁰ the ICA also received $800,000 from Contours Inc., a dark money group.¹¹ ICA also received $400,000 from Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, a 501(c)(4) that does not have to disclose its donors.¹² ICA, in turn, passed $400,000 to Fire House PAC. Notably, Contours Inc. donated another $300,000 directly to Fire House PAC.¹³ Of the $700,000 in pass-through donations, Fire House PAC has so far spent $614,902.27, almost all of its money, on independent expenditures in the WA-5 race: $407,500.89 supporting Powell directly, $183,445.88 opposing Republican Michael Baumgartner, and $23,955.50 opposing Democrat Carmela Conroy.¹⁴

Between July 2 and July 22, 2026, Powell was the beneficiary of an additional $188,560.73 in Independent Expenditure spending from an FEC-registered super PAC called Together for Working People (TWP). The organization also spent $3,450 on behalf of Powell in May.¹⁵

The FUSE Connection

FUSE Washington operates and controls a Super PAC called Together for Working People, according to TWP’s FEC Statement of Organization.¹⁶ FUSE publishes the Progressive Voters Guide for Eastern Washington.¹⁷ Both FUSE and TWP share the same staff, office space and e-mails. FUSE Washington staff directed how the $192,010.73 in Independent Expenditures supporting Powell were spent.¹⁸

On July 10, 2026, the Spokane Firefighters Union PAC, the political committee affiliated with IAFF Local 29, Powell’s own firefighters’ union, contributed $100,000 to Together for Working People.¹⁹ The next day, FUSE Washington released its Progressive Voters Guide, recommending Powell as its only congressional pick in WA-5.²⁰

Money Talks

Powell’s campaign mantra vilifies the two main parties for what he describes as their dependence on big-dollar donors. His most frequent complaint is that the billionaire class is destroying the country. “I’m running for Congress as an independent,” he says, “so Eastern Washington has a representative that isn’t owned by dark money and corporate interests.”²¹

As voters in the Fifth District go to the polls between now and August 4, they are asked to judge this man by his word.

Endnotes

1. Nate Powell, remarks at an exploratory campaign event, Spokane, Washington, December 20, 2025,

2. Federal Election Commission, “Powell for Congress” (C00935866), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00935866/; “Fire House PAC” (C00948059), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00948059/; “Together for Working People” (C00926675), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00926675/.

3. Nebraska Examiner, “Nebraska’s Dan Osborn starts hybrid PAC for working-class candidates,” November 19, 2024, https://nebraskaexaminer.com/2024/11/19/nebraskas-dan-osborn-starts-hybrid-pac-for-working-class-candidates/.

4. Nate Powell, remarks at an exploratory campaign event, Spokane, Washington, December 20, 2025. See Endnote 1.

5. Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission, 558 U.S. 310 (2010), https://tile.loc.gov/storage-services/service/ll/usrep/usrep558/usrep558310/usrep558310.pdf.

6. 52 U.S.C. § 30116(a)(7)(B), https://uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?req=(title:52%20section:30116%20edition:prelim); 11 C.F.R. § 109.21, https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-11/chapter-I/subchapter-A/part-109/subpart-C/section-109.21; Federal Election Commission, “Coordinated communications,” https://www.fec.gov/help-candidates-and-committees/candidate-taking-receipts/coordinated-communications/.

7. Nate Powell, remarks at an exploratory campaign event, Spokane, Washington, December 20, 2025. See Endnote 1.

8. Federal Election Commission, “Powell for Congress” (C00935866), 2025–2026 financial summary, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00935866/?cycle=2026.

9. Federal Election Commission, “Fire House PAC” (C00948059), Schedule E independent expenditures, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00948059/; “Together for Working People” (C00926675), Schedule E independent expenditures, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00926675/.

10. Forbes, “Michael Novogratz,” https://www.forbes.com/profile/michael-novogratz/; Federal Election Commission, Independent Candidates Action (C00905067), April 2026 monthly report (filing 1970533), https://docquery.fec.gov/cgi-bin/forms/C00905067/1970533/.

11. Federal Election Commission, Independent Candidates Action (C00905067), 2025 year-end report (filing 1935696) and February 2026 monthly report (filing 1947459, amended 1959305), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00905067/; Sludge, “A new web of secret money is shaping Democratic races across the country,” April 30, 2026, https://readsludge.com/2026/04/30/a-new-web-of-secret-money-is-shaping-democratic-races-across-the-country/; Washington Free Beacon, https://freebeacon.com/democrats/meet-the-billionaire-funded-super-pac-doing-james-talaricos-political-dirty-work/.

12. Federal Election Commission, Independent Candidates Action (C00905067), June 2026 monthly report (filing 1999860), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00905067/; Internal Revenue Service, determination letter for Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, Inc. (EIN 92-0652730), https://apps.irs.gov/pub/epostcard/dl/FinalLetter_92-0652730_GLOBALIMPACTSOCIALWELFAREFUND_01202023_00.pdf; ProPublica Nonprofit Explorer, “Global Impact Social Welfare Foundation” (EIN 92-0652730), https://projects.propublica.org/nonprofits/organizations/920652730.

13. Federal Election Commission, “Fire House PAC” (C00948059), July Quarterly report (filing 1995129), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00948059/.

14. Federal Election Commission, “Fire House PAC” (C00948059), Schedule E independent expenditures, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00948059/.

15. Federal Election Commission, “Together for Working People” (C00926675), Schedule E independent expenditures, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00926675/.

16. Federal Election Commission, “Together for Working People” (C00926675), Statement of Organization, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00926675/.

17. Fuse Washington, “The Progressive Voters Guide,”

https://fusewashington.org/

; Progressive Voters Guide, “Spokane County,” Washington 2026 Primary, https://www.progressivevotersguide.com/washington/2026/primary/county/spokane/sample.

18. Federal Election Commission, “Together for Working People” (C00926675), Statement of Organization and Schedule E, https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00926675/.

19. Federal Election Commission, “Together for Working People” (C00926675), Pre-Primary report (filing 2001292), https://www.fec.gov/data/committee/C00926675/; IAFF Local 29, https://local29.org/local-29/; Washington Public Disclosure Commission, enforcement case 9063, https://www.pdc.wa.gov/rules-enforcement/enforcement/enforcement-cases/9063.

20. Progressive Voters Guide, “Spokane County,” Washington 2026 Primary (last updated July 23, 2026), https://www.progressivevotersguide.com/washington/2026/primary/county/spokane/sample.

21. Nate Powell for Congress, “America is on fire” campaign video, Instagram,