In late May, a Washington-based political action committee (PAC) sent $315,000 to another Washington-based PAC. Within days, that second group poured that exact amount into digital ads attacking a candidate for Congress in Colorado.
On paper, it was a routine transfer. In practice, it was a masterclass in how political groups work around federal spending limits.
The money came from the Committee for Hispanic Causes PAC, the political and financial arm of the Congressional Hispanic Caucus, known as BOLD PAC. BOLD PAC recorded the contribution May 22. Within days, Nuestro PAC, a super PAC, reported receiving it May 26, then immediately spent the money against former state Rep. Shannon Bird (D, Jefferson County), who was running in the primary for Colorado’s 8th Congressional District. Bird lost that primary a month later to state Rep. Manny Rutinel, (D, Adams County).
Federal Election Commission records show BOLD PAC also gave Rutinel’s campaign money directly: $5,000, in November. The difference between those two figures is not an accident, but a result of campaign finance laws.
Federal law caps how much a PAC can give a candidate at $5,000 per election. It places no limit on what that same PAC can give a super PAC, so long as the super PAC spends the money independently. Routing $315,000 to a group that attacks an opponent accomplishes what handing $315,000 to the candidate cannot; it’s a legal workaround that lets big money bypass the $5,000 limit entirely.
BOLD PAC has contributed $936,693 to 57 recipients this cycle, its own FEC filings show. Most went out in $5,000 increments — 39 committees received the per-election maximum. Its two largest contributions went to super PACs instead: $350,000 to Bold America and $315,000 to Nuestro PAC. Those two accounted for 71% of its total contributions.
That transaction was one link in a longer chain. Outside groups have reported spending $5.9 million on the 8th District race, with $3.6 million reported in support of Rutinel before the primary — more than both nominees’ campaigns spent in the same period.
Tracing the mega-donors
Where that money came from is sometimes knowable, and sometimes not.
One mega-donor almost single-handedly funded an entire super PAC. Chris Larsen, co-founder of the cryptocurrency company Ripple, supplied $3,514,412 of the $3,515,912 raised by the super PAC You Can Push Back, which spent $976,944 supporting Rutinel. That is nearly all of the group’s funding from a single person.
The $976,944 Larsen and his group spent is more than ten times the median household income in Colorado of $95,470—spent on one House race.
The second-largest source is harder to trace. On the Democratic side, Somos PAC, which spent $1.16 million in the district, received $2 million on May 14 from Advocacy Action Fund Inc., an organization that is not a political committee and files no donor disclosures with the FEC. Somos then sent $900,000 to Nuestro PAC May 28. The people behind that $2 million cannot be identified in any public campaign finance record.
Dark money on both sides
The pattern is not confined to one party. For Republicans, ClearPath Action Fund, which has spent $89,515 supporting incumbent Republican Rep. Gabe Evans (R, Fort Lupton), raised $4 million — all from a single nonprofit, ClearPath Action for Conservative Energy Inc., which also discloses no donors.
Evans enters the general election with $3,880,463 in cash on hand to Rutinel’s $601,232. Since the primary, outside groups have spent $266,882 supporting Evans and $48,367 opposing him.
All figures are based on Federal Election Commission filings covering Jan. 1, 2025, through Aug. 4, 2026.
Totals for outside spending count each reported expenditure once. Groups sometimes file a single ad buy twice — once as supporting one candidate and once as opposing another — and Courier Colorado removed those duplicates.
