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[00:00:00] David Sirota: From The Lever's reader-supported newsroom, it's Lever Time. I'm David Sirota.

[00:00:03] WFSB Archive Clip: If we are gonna fix this mess that we're in, we need to build a Democratic Party that's bringing a whole new energy to this fight.

[00:00:10] David Sirota: Earlier this month, congressional candidate Luke Bronin won his Democratic primary in Connecticut by a landslide.

[00:00:16] WFSB Archive Clip: The former Hartford mayor denying incumbent John Larson a 15th term in Washington last night.

[00:00:22] David Sirota: Many media outlets have painted Bronin's victory as part of this year's insurgency of younger candidates defeating Democratic incumbents in primaries.

[00:00:30] WFSB Archive Clip: The primary was a test, whether voters want experience and seniority or a fresh face and new energy.

[00:00:37] David Sirota: Bronin is certainly a fresher face, decades younger than the 78-year-old incumbent Congressman John Larson.

But Bronin has few ideological commitments, offering up policy proposals with a populist sheen but that are hardly substantive. Larson, on the other hand, was the more progressive candidate in this race, a longtime champion of unions and Social Security. Behind the scenes, something else in this race was going on, and these two reporters have been peeling back the curtain.

[00:01:07] Katya Schwenk: I'm Katya Schwenk.

[00:01:08] Luke Goldstein: And I'm Luke Goldstein, uh, and we're reporters at The Lever.

[00:01:10] David Sirota: For months now, our reporters Katya and Luke have been investigating a new constellation of groups funded by big donors. These groups have built a secret political machine that aims to help corporate-aligned Democratic candidates crush more economically populist Democrats in key primaries across the country.

Today on Lever Time, we're taking a closer look at one of the biggest donors behind this whole battle, a billionaire who's put a dark money apparatus behind Bronin's Connecticut campaign. Who is Stephen Mandel? What exactly does he want? And how is he shaping the 2026 midterm election results? That's all coming up on today's episode of Lever Time.

Welcome back to Lever Time. I'm speaking today with The Lever's investigative reporters, Katya Schwenk and Luke Goldstein.

So a few months ago, the two of you did some digging and broke open this huge story about a constellation of groups aiming to help corporate-aligned Democratic candidates crush more economically populist Democrats in a bunch of primaries, and you exposed the big donors behind all of this.

So let's start by refreshing our memories a bit on all of that and who some of those big donors are.

Let's start with Luke.

[00:02:28] Luke Goldstein: Yeah. So for the piece that we did a couple months back, we were looking at two twin organizations that go by the name of The Bench and Majority Democrats. They funnel money between one another, share a lot of the same staff and donors. And they're these new players on the scene that made a huge splash, uh, in the Democratic primaries this year.

They've helped, um, boost, uh, Josh Turek to victory in his primary race for the Iowa Senate seat, James Talarico in Texas over Jasmine Crockett. And their handpicked candidate was Mallory McMorrow in the Michigan Senate race, who had to drop out actually before the primary date. They also backed Angie Craig, who lost to Peggy Flanagan in the Minnesota race.

And, you know, these, these new groups though have had a lot of success down ballot with congressional races, and they really offer two main kinda assets to candidates who are supported by them. They give them access to a really high-powered network of billionaire donors. Those include Tench Coxe, who's a, a venture capitalist, Michael Novogratz, who's a crypto AI investor, and another guy, Mark Heising.

But the big name that really sticks out is Stephen Mandel. Uh, and so, you know, what we really tried to do for our piece was kind of dig into who this, who this guy is, who's been the primary funder of this whole network, and try to dig into, you know, what the kinda ideological underpinnings may be of this project.

They tend to back more moderate candidates who are going up against progressives in Democratic primaries. The network has played a big role kinda putting their, their thumb on the scale in a handful of races, uh, launching them to victory.

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