Early-state money: Khanna’s campaign leads Democrats in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada spending, FEC records show

By Graham Ostrander

WASHINGTON — Rep. Ro Khanna’s campaign committee has put more money into the four states that traditionally open the presidential nominating calendar than any other Democrat’s committee reviewed by The Washington Inquisitor, a review of Federal Election Commission records shows. Ro for Congress reported $543,065 in itemized payments to vendors, staff and party committees with addresses in Iowa, New Hampshire, South Carolina and Nevada from Jan. 1, 2025, through Oct. 14.

Only Nikki Haley’s leadership PAC, Stand For America, reported more, at $559,620, nearly all of it to South Carolina payees in her home state. Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear’s In This Together PAC was third at $399,566, most of it to an Iowa digital firm.

The Inquisitor reviewed 19 federal committees tied to 16 people widely discussed as possible 2028 presidential candidates, using the FEC’s bulk disbursement files and the electronic reports the committees filed through Oct. 22, including pre-general reports covering Oct. 1 to Oct. 14. Nobody on the list has declared a 2028 run, and campaign money moves to midterm candidates and parties in an election year for reasons that have nothing to do with a future primary. But spending in the early states is one of the few hard, public measures of who is laying groundwork there.

The Inquisitor asked all 19 committees, or the offices of the officials they are tied to, for comment on Sunday. None had responded by publication.

How the money breaks down

The numbers count only itemized disbursements, the payments committees must list one by one, and they sort them by the payee’s address. That is an imperfect measure: a consultant with a South Carolina address can do work elsewhere, and a national vendor based in Washington can run ads in Iowa. Leslie Dewees, a consultant to Haley’s PAC, received $38,200 at a South Carolina address and $138,500 at a Tennessee address over the same period, for example. Refunds and voided checks are netted out, and memo entries, which repeat payments already counted, are excluded.

The committees fall into two groups. Some, like Khanna’s campaign and Haley’s and Beshear’s PACs, are paying people and companies on the ground. Others, like the leadership PACs of Vice President JD Vance, Sen. Chris Murphy and Sen. Amy Klobuchar, are giving to candidates and parties in those states, which builds goodwill with local officials but pays for no infrastructure of their own.

Khanna: staff and consultants in three states

Khanna, a California Democrat in his fifth term whom many in the party regard as a likely 2028 contender, has built the broadest early-state footprint in the data. His campaign paid Nevada payees $284,917, South Carolina payees $131,638, New Hampshire payees $109,217 and Iowa payees $17,293.

In Nevada, the largest payee was Momentum Partners NV, a Las Vegas firm paid $121,000 for political strategy consulting between January 2025 and this month. NReal Media Strategies received $49,114 for communications consulting, Six One Four Strategies $36,436 and El Faro Consulting $26,000. Smaller payments went to radio advertising, interpreters, event equipment and a Washoe County School District facility rental. The pattern matches his travel: The Nevada Independent’s tracker of potential presidential candidates’ visits lists Khanna with seven Nevada visits and 16 events, more than anyone else it follows. On Oct. 23 he brought his “Students for Solidarity” college tour, joined by journalist Don Lemon, to the University of Nevada, Reno.

“We want to encourage young people to get out and vote, but we also want to speak to the issues they care about,” Khanna told KOLO-TV, citing free college, “ending this war in Iran that’s driving up prices” and the cost of living. The station noted that he helped drive the Google-supported TechWise software-engineering program at UNR.

In South Carolina, Khanna’s campaign paid Aaron Greene of Blythewood $85,354, mostly for political strategy consulting, and spent on event equipment, caterers, a Missionary Baptist church rental and a canvassing firm. In New Hampshire, it paid Northbridge Strategies of Bedford $41,224 and consultant Sebastian Fuentes about $15,500 for strategy work and travel, bought lists from two Democratic campaigns, Urrutia for NH for $26,294 and Maura Sullivan for Congress for $13,687, and gave $10,000 to the state Democratic Party. Most of the Iowa figure is health insurance premiums paid to Principal, a Des Moines insurer, rather than political activity in Iowa.

The campaign had $16.6 million in cash on Oct. 14, according to its pre-general report, far more than any leadership PAC in the review.

Haley and Beshear

Haley’s Stand For America PAC paid Village Square LLC of Mount Pleasant, S.C., $354,500 for communications consulting and GWS Strategies of Columbia $92,500 for operations consulting. It also gave $5,000 each to Ashley for Iowa, the committee of Rep. Ashley Hinson, and to New Hampshire Republican John E. Sununu’s Senate campaign, $15,000 to Rep. Ralph Norman’s House and Senate committees in South Carolina and $5,000 each to two other South Carolina Republican House candidates. The PAC had $1.57 million in cash on Oct. 14.

Beshear’s In This Together PAC paid GPS Impact, a Des Moines firm, $307,706 between February 2025 and June 2026 for digital consulting, advertising and list acquisition. On Oct. 14 it sent $15,000 each to the New Hampshire Senate Democratic Caucus and the New Hampshire House Democratic Victory Committee, and it gave $5,000 each to Democratic congressional candidates in all four states. It reported $407,319 in spending for the first two weeks of October and $2.08 million in cash.

Contributors, not builders

Sen. Mark Kelly’s Senate campaign moved $30,000 each to the New Hampshire and South Carolina Democratic parties, plus smaller gifts to the Iowa and Nevada parties and to Democratic candidates including Rep. Chris Pappas, Nevada’s three House Democrats and Dr. Annie Andrews in South Carolina. Kelly’s campaign held $26.5 million at the end of September, the most of any committee in the review.

Vance’s Working for Ohio gave $50,000 in early-state contributions, all to Republican candidates: Sen. Chuck Grassley, Hinson and four House candidates in Iowa; Sununu and House candidate Anthony DiLorenzo in New Hampshire; Sen. Tim Scott in South Carolina; and Marty for Congress in Nevada. The early-state gifts were part of a broader wave; on Oct. 3 alone the PAC gave $5,000 to dozens of Republican House candidates nationwide.

Murphy’s American Mobilization PAC gave $60,000 to Democratic candidates and parties in all four states. Pete Buttigieg’s Win the Era PAC gave $5,000 to each state party, rented event space in Rochester and Concord, N.H., and bought the Sullivan list for $13,363 on Oct. 13. Former Vice President Kamala Harris’s Fight for the People PAC reported a $95,142 payment for printing and copying to PDQ Gill’s Printing of Las Vegas in December 2025; the filing does not describe the job. Harris’s PAC reported no other early-state payments in the period apart from a small refund.

Several names often mentioned for 2028 barely register. California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s PAC reported $7,784, Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer’s $5,000 and Sen. Ruben Gallego’s campaign $1,362. The Cruz-aligned Truth and Courage PAC, Sen. Ted Cruz’s campaign and Sen. Josh Hawley’s campaign reported none. Illinois Gov. JB Pritzker, Pennsylvania Gov. Josh Shapiro and Maryland Gov. Wes Moore have no federal committees, so their spending does not appear in FEC records.

Biggest early-state payees

Money in the bank

The committees’ latest reports show how much each has left to spend. The campaign committees of sitting senators and House members dwarf the leadership PACs, though that money was raised for each member’s own race.

What the data do not show

FEC records do not capture spending by state-level committees, nonprofits or super PACs that do not coordinate with a candidate, and they do not show travel paid for by a host party or an official’s government office. Unitemized payments of $200 or less are not listed by payee. Committees filing quarterly, including Harris’s and Whitmer’s PACs and the Kelly, Gallego, Hawley, Cruz and Murphy campaigns, have reported only through Sept. 30.

The Inquisitor’s figures can be checked against each committee’s filings on the FEC website. The analysis will be updated after the post-general reports, due Dec. 3, are filed.

Methodology

The Inquisitor combined the FEC’s bulk files of operating expenditures, contributions to candidates and other disbursements, updated Oct. 18, with the raw electronic filings for every report each committee filed after the bulk update. Records were deduplicated by committee, payee, date and amount. Payments to the four states were identified by the payee’s state on the filing. Contributions include gifts to federal and nonfederal candidates, parties and PACs; everything else is counted as vendor and other spending. Amendments filed after Oct. 22 are not reflected.

Photo: Rep. Ro Khanna, official portrait, 115th Congress. U.S. Congress / Wikimedia Commons, public domain (cropped).