Some election integrity researchers are expanding their investigation of politicians who benefitted from questionable “Smurfing” campaign contributions and discovered that Senator Ruben Gallego (D-AZ) received many of them. Smurfing refers to using straw donors to make campaign contributions; usually, elderly and unemployed people are unaware their identities are being used for money laundering. Many contributions are made under one name, sometimes thousands of them, and they are usually small amounts, often around $10 each, to escape detection.
Peter Bernegger, one of the key researchers who discovered the Smurfing phenomenon, posted on X on Tuesday, “Arizona @SenRubenGallego caught Smurfing, i.e. criminally laundering money into his campaign! Note that this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a ‘quick’ data run of the top Smurfs found to have had their identities stolen by Gallego’s campaign. Smurfing found by Chris Gleason @immutablechrist Phillip Allison @TheTVConsPiracy , myself and others exposing Smurfing. This is another form of election fraud. We are running all 100 US Senators, Tom Cotton and Jon Ossoff already ran – see the tweets below.”
Georgia US Senator Warnock caught Smurfing, i.e. criminally laundering money into his campaigns! @TeamWarnock
Note that this is just the tip of the iceberg. This is a “quick” data run of the top Smurfs found to have had their identities stolen by his campaign.
Smurfing found… pic.twitter.com/S4pk4WhVyQ
— Peter Bernegger (@PeterBernegger) February 25, 2025
He included screenshots of campaign finance records showing a list of 20 individuals who had contributed an extremely large number of donations to Gallego, averaging around $10 each. Most of the contributors did not live in Arizona. Stephen Pilder of Pennsylvania contributed the most, 2,004 times, averaging $6.37 for each donation.
In another post revealing Smurfs who donated to Senator Patty Murray (D-WA), Bernegger asked, “Where is the FEC?” In a follow-up comment, he accused the agency, “The FEC is in on it, big time.”
The Smurfing appears to be usually run through ActBlue, the Democrats’ fundraising platform, although it has also been spotted on the Republican side in recent years through their WinRed fundraising platform.
Experts say they believe Democratic operatives are conducting the Smurfing to hide illegal donations from foreigners, corporations, unions, or individuals who have exceeded contribution limits. Investigative journalist James O’Keefe took videos of himself talking to some of the Smurfs, mostly elderly and retired people of modest means who admitted they did not know about the large numbers of campaign contributions in their names.
Last fall, Tyler Bowyer of Turning Point USA revealed that Massachusetts donors gave Gallego more than twice as much money as Arizonans did last March. The $8 million from Massachusetts donors came through ActBlue, with Gallego receiving $17 million in total. Carolyn Wren, a senior advisor to his Republican opponent Kari Lake, found other oddities, including unemployed Virginia Smith donating to Gallego 57 times.
Gallego significantly outraised Lake in the Senate race. The vast majority of his funding came from out of state, and much of it appears to have been laundered through ActBlue. He raised approximately $36 million in 2024, while Lake raised approximately $17 million.
Congress is investigating ActBlue and Smurfing. Then-Senator Marco Rubio sent a complaint letter to the FEC regarding ActBlue’s failure to require CCV numbers to process credit card donations. ActBlue agreed to require them. In October 2024, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton petitioned the FEC to take immediate action to “close fundraising loopholes that jeopardize American election integrity” following his investigation into the Democrat fundraising platform ActBlue. In August, South Carolina Attorney General Alan Wilson sent a letter to the CEO of ActBlue about the Smurfing allegations. Last fall, 19 state attorneys general began investigating ActBlue.
According to Chronicles, “Tens of thousands of people across the country are victims of this form of identity fraud in every election cycle, and thousands of candidates (whether knowingly or not) have benefited from these types of illegal contributions.” The activity appeared to have started after the 2014 election cycle and now encompasses 2 percent of all donations, Chronicles found.
Although many members of Congress appear to have benefited from Smurfing — including Republicans — with the Trump administration overseeing the FEC, there may finally be some enforcement to stop the practice. Bernegger has compiled the research from his group, Election Watch, on a website. In the Arizona section, the Smurf with the most donations is Janet Campbell of Sun Lakes in Chandler, who is retired yet contributed 18,906 times for a total of $44,522. Her average contribution was $2.35.
Vote Your Vision set up a website to search for the most prolific donors by zip code or state. House Speaker Mike Johnson (R-LA-04) told individuals to visit checkmydonation.org to search for their names to spot any Smurfing.
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Rachel Alexander is a reporter at The Arizona Sun Times and The Star News Network. Follow Rachel on Twitter / X. Email tips to [email protected].
Photo “Ruben Gallego” by Ruben Gallego.
Have you all investigated under Tennessee on that Vote Your Vision website?
I spent 15 mins on there and saw numerous instances where “donors” who had no prior FEC records suddenly started making thousands of small donations per year to ACTBLUE and Democrats in exceedingly safe districts that were not running at a national level or in Tennessee at all.
ActBlue’s offices must be raided. The entire enterprise is a criminal conspiracy to launder money and interfere in our elections.
Al appear to be very old, living in apartments or even dead in so e cases. Seems like that would be a god story to call on thw top 15 or so. There was a guy named Kapelinski in Chattanooga who has an obituary listing for April 2021 who suddenly started giving thousands of small donation starting in 2021 to ActBlue, Corey Booker, the DSCC,
cant wait for nothing to happen to them