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….
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 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.”….