Sources & methodology

Every number, traced back to the FEC filing it came from.

The main point of this site is verifiable. Corporate PAC and mega-donor money is reaching Callie Barr's campaign through a leadership-PAC network. Her own filings show no direct corporate PAC receipts. But the money is arriving. Every dollar on this site is in a public Federal Election Commission filing. This page lists every committee cited, links to the specific filings we pulled numbers from, defines every term we use, and lays out the limits of the analysis.

Data pulled July 15, 2026. The same day the Q2 2026 quarterly reports (coverage period 04/01/2026 to 06/30/2026) were filed with the FEC.

Provenance. The underlying research on Callie Barr's Q2 2026 receipt structure was compiled by independent Michigan volunteers working from public FEC filings. This site verifies that research against the FEC's own records and presents it publicly. No campaign or campaign vendor directed or funded the research.

Principles

Every committee cited on this site

The FEC gives every registered federal political committee a nine-character ID that starts with C. The IDs below tie every claim on this site to the public record. Click any ID to see that committee's full filing history on docquery.fec.gov.

The candidates

CommitteeFEC IDRole
Callie Barr for Congress C00837054 Democratic candidate, MI-01 primary. Barr's principal campaign committee.
Blomquist for Congress C00914523 Democratic candidate, MI-01 primary. Kyle Blomquist's principal campaign committee.
Wayne for Congress C00897959 Democratic candidate, MI-01 primary. Wayne Stiles's principal campaign committee.
Bergman for Congress C00614214 Republican incumbent. Rep. Jack Bergman's principal campaign committee.

The officeholder PACs writing checks to Barr in Q2 2026

CommitteeFEC IDRole
Motor City PAC C00507574 Sen. Gary Peters (D-MI) leadership PAC. Wrote Barr $5,000 in Q2 2026. Corporate-PAC-heavy funding.
Mitten PAC C00832147 Sen. Elissa Slotkin (D-MI) leadership PAC. Wrote Barr $10,000 in Q2 2026. Funded by Majority Fund JFC.
Fight Like Hell PAC C00842104 Gov. Gretchen Whitmer (D-MI) federal Carey hybrid PAC. Wrote Barr $5,000 on 06/10/2026.
A Pleasant Peninsula PAC C00841908 Rep. Hillary Scholten (D-MI) leadership PAC. Referenced in crossover analysis.
Democracy Summer LPAC C00664318 Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) leadership PAC. Wrote Barr $2,000 on 12/03/2025 and $2,000 on 05/12/2026.
PURPOSE PAC C00696450 Sen. Cory Booker (D-NJ) leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.
Midwest Values PAC C00390567 Sen. Al Franken (former, D-MN) leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.
SUMMIT PAC C00538991 Rep. Angie Craig (D-MN) leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.
Michigan Independent PAC C00799735 Michigan-focused leadership PAC. Contributed to Barr in the 2026 cycle.

The joint fundraising committees (JFCs): donor pools feeding those PACs

CommitteeFEC IDRole
Majority Fund C00904607 JFC that pooled $3.05M from 30 wealthy individuals in the 2026 cycle (zero corporate PACs) and routed $108,220 to Mitten PAC.
Democracy Summer JFC C00898486 JFC paired with Democracy Summer LPAC (C00664318). Pooled six-figure checks from individual mega-donors.

Selected corporate/industry PACs referenced upstream

These are examples of the corporate PACs one line out of sight from Barr's Q2 checks. Every one shows up on a Schedule A filing for the officeholder PACs listed above. All filings live on docquery.fec.gov. Full lists in the "See the evidence" section on the home page.

Corporate/industry PACFEC IDSector
DTE Energy Company PACC00081547Michigan regulated utility
CMS Energy Employees for Better GovernmentC00113118Michigan regulated utility (Consumers Energy parent)
General Motors PACC00040998Automotive OEM
Microsoft Corporation PACC00227546Technology
BlackRock Inc. PACC00477136Asset management
Toyota Motor North America PACC00304202Automotive OEM
FedEx Corporation PACC00068692Transportation / logistics
Verizon Communications Good Government Club PACC00093054Telecommunications
National Association of Realtors PAC (RPAC)C00030718Real estate industry association
American Bankers Association BANKPACC00004275Banking industry association

More corporate PACs (Property Casualty Insurers, American Land Title Association, Airbnb, Alliance for Automotive Innovation, American College of Radiology, American Gaming Association, American Hotel & Lodging Association, and 20+ others) appear in the "See the evidence" section on the home page. Every row is checkable against the leadership PAC's Schedule A on docquery.fec.gov.

Key filings the numbers came from

These are the FEC filings we checked every top-level number against. Each link opens the raw Schedule A or Schedule B filing on docquery.fec.gov. That's the page showing every itemized transaction.

Barr's Q2 2026 receipts (the $26,250 in PAC checks)

Majority Fund: the $3.05M billionaire pool feeding Mitten PAC

Fight Like Hell PAC: the $102,500 Simon, $50,000 Stryker, $50,000 Samuelson checks

Democracy Summer: the $2,000 + $2,000 = $4,000 to Barr

Bergman receipts (crossover corporate PAC totals)

Why docquery, not fec.gov/data/?

The FEC's searchable database at fec.gov/data/ is the friendlier interface. But it runs behind the raw filing pipeline. Right after a filing deadline, numbers on fec.gov/data/ can be missing or out of date. docquery.fec.gov posts filings the moment committees submit them. When you want the primary record, use docquery.

Barr's on-the-record statements about corporate PAC money

Three separate public statements where Callie Barr says she does not take corporate PAC money. The first is a paid ad from her own campaign committee. The second is a local newspaper's coverage of a town hall. The third is a citizen recording of a local Democratic Party meeting. We list all three so readers can check her own words against her Q2 2026 filing.

1. Her own campaign ad (Instagram, July 10, 2026)

2. Marquette town hall (Mining Journal, June 26, 2026)

3. Local Democratic Party meeting (citizen video posted July 15, 2026)

Why we cite all three

The Instagram ad is enough on its own. The town hall coverage and the citizen video are corroborating evidence that Barr has made the same claim in different settings. Paid media. Press-covered public event. Unscripted party meeting. Readers do not need to trust any one source. The pattern is the point.

Definitions

Leadership PAC (LPAC)

A political action committee set up, funded, or run by a candidate or officeholder. Corporate PACs can't give money straight to federal candidates. But they can give money to leadership PACs. Those leadership PACs then give money to candidates. That is the mechanism this site documents. See the FEC's own definition.

Joint fundraising committee (JFC)

A committee formed by two or more political committees (candidate committees, party committees, PACs) to raise money together in one transaction. A donor writes one big check to the JFC. The JFC then splits the money out to member committees within the legal limits for each one. The result: one $134,000 check from a single donor can support 15 committees at once. And none of the receiving candidates has to show that donor's name on their own filing. See the FEC guidance.

Carey hybrid PAC

A political action committee with two accounts. One traditional account gives money to candidates within federal limits. One non-contribution account (a "Super PAC" account) can raise unlimited money for independent spending. Named after the 2011 D.C. Circuit case Carey v. FEC. Fight Like Hell PAC (C00842104) is a Carey hybrid.

Schedule A / Schedule B

Schedule A lists receipts: money coming into a committee, listed by contributor. Schedule B lists disbursements: money going out, listed by recipient. Every FEC filing includes both. A check from Committee X to Committee Y shows up on both committees' filings: on X's Schedule B as money out, on Y's Schedule A as money in. The site cross-checks both sides where possible.

Corporate PAC / industry PAC

A separate fund set up by a corporation, labor union, or trade association. Federal law bars corporations from giving candidate money from their treasury. But corporate PACs, funded by voluntary employee and member checks, can give candidates up to $5,000 per election. When this site says "corporate PAC" or "corporate industry PAC," it means these SSF-type PACs plus the trade association PACs (Realtors, Insurance, Bankers, and so on) that work the same way.

Cycle

The "2026 cycle" runs roughly from 01/01/2025 through the 2026 general election. The "2024 cycle" ran from 01/01/2023 through the 2024 general election. When the site cites cycle totals, they run through the Q2 2026 coverage cutoff of 06/30/2026 unless otherwise noted.

Direct check vs. routed check

Direct check: a PAC writes a check straight to a candidate's principal campaign committee. It shows up on the candidate's Schedule A. Routed check: the money reaches the candidate through an in-between PAC or JFC. The candidate's filing shows the in-between committee, not the original donor. Routing is legal on its face. This site documents that it happens, at what dollar amounts, and from which sources.

Methodology

How the numbers were compiled

  1. Start from Barr's own filings. Pull Barr for Congress (C00837054) 2026 cycle Schedule A. Take out every PAC and committee receipt. That gives you the list of in-between committees that wrote her checks.
  2. Trace one hop upstream. For every in-between committee (Motor City, Mitten, Fight Like Hell, PURPOSE, Midwest Values, SUMMIT, A Pleasant Peninsula, Democracy Summer, Michigan Independent), pull its Schedule A for the same cycle. Find every corporate PAC and mega-donor receipt.
  3. Trace two hops upstream where it matters. For committees fed by a JFC (Mitten via Majority Fund, Democracy Summer LPAC via Democracy Summer JFC), pull the JFC's Schedule A to find the individual mega-donors.
  4. Cross-reference Bergman. For every corporate PAC found upstream of Barr, pull Bergman for Congress (C00614214) Schedule A across the 2024 and 2026 cycles. Check for checks from the same PAC. That builds the crossover table.
  5. Cross-reference Blomquist. Do the same for Blomquist for Congress (C00914523). Every corporate PAC in the crossover table shows $0 to Blomquist.
  6. Check every figure against the raw filing. Every itemized dollar amount on this site traces back to a specific line on a specific Schedule A or Schedule B. Every total is the sum of those lines.

What "$202,000 into the LPAC network" means

The $202,000 in the crossover section is the total 2024 + 2026 cycle money from the 13 corporate PACs in the crossover table into three Michigan-Democrat leadership PACs (A Pleasant Peninsula, Mitten, Motor City). Those three are the LPAC pool feeding Barr. $202,000 is the network number, not the Barr-only number. Of that pool, $11,500 has reached Barr directly (Peninsula $1,500 + Mitten $5,000 + Motor City $5,000). The rest has gone out to about 30 other Democratic candidates. The four-column crossover diagram shows both.

What "$26,250 in PAC checks in Q2" means

This is the sum of Schedule A · line 11C entries on Barr's Q2 2026 report. All nine in-between PACs listed on the site show up on that page, at those amounts, on that filing. The math adds to $26,250.

What "$5,000 = the legal max" means

A federal PAC can give a candidate $5,000 per election. Primary and general count as separate elections. So a $10,000 PAC check this cycle is normally $5,000 for the primary and $5,000 for the general. If the candidate loses the primary, the general-election portion has to be refunded. See the FEC's contribution limits chart.

Limitations of this analysis

The site should be read with these caveats:

Disclaimer

MI-01 Money Trail is a citizen review of Federal Election Commission filings in Michigan's 1st Congressional District. It is not authorized by, endorsed by, coordinated with, or paid for by any candidate, candidate's campaign committee, political party, or political action committee.

The site does not ask for or take donations. It is not an independent expenditure or an electioneering communication under 52 U.S.C. § 30104. It does not tell readers to vote for or against any candidate.

Every dollar figure on this site comes from public filings made by candidate committees, political action committees, and joint fundraising committees with the Federal Election Commission. Any reader can check every figure at docquery.fec.gov.

Nothing on this site alleges illegal conduct by any candidate, committee, donor, or officeholder. Every transaction on this site is a legal contribution under current federal campaign finance law.

Corrections log

If you think a figure on this site is wrong, email corrections@followmi01.com with three things: (1) the specific claim, (2) the corrected figure, and (3) a link to the FEC filing that contradicts our figure. Confirmed corrections are published within 48 hours and logged below.

Corrections applied on 07/23/2026

Back to MI-01 Money Trail