UPDATED: $1 million Super PAC backing Kelli Stargel attacks DeSantis' secretary of state on "secure elections"

Apologies for the double send. But this one updates and refines speculation on who/what's behind the anti-Laurel Lee attack mailers that hit Lakeland houses this weekend.

UPDATE: Apologies for the double send, but this article has changed enough from the original. I’ve cut the speculation at the end because a campaign finance expert suggested a more prosaic and plausible answer to me. Rather than a big one-time infusion of money from one donor, this is most likely Kelli Stargel/allies converting state level political committee money into one big federal Super PAC, which is then attacking Laurel Lee based on “election integrity.”

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A Lakeland Republican voter received these mailers over the weekend and sent pictures to me.

Laurel Lee is running against Lakeland state senator Kelli Stargel in the crowded GOP primary for the newly-redrawn 15th Congressional District, one of the most competitive in Florida and the country. Trump narrowly won the district in 2020.

It could determine control of the U.S. House of Representatives.

Lee was secretary of state for DeSantis, meaning that election oversight rolled up to her office. That’s the root of this attack by the “Conservative warriors” Super PAC.

If you go to the "Conservative Warriors” website, you find Kelli Stargel — and nobody else. She’s their “spotlight politician.”

And “Conservative Warriors” says it has spent $336,000 already to support Kelli Stargel, according to FEC records.

Who is “Conservative Warriors” and “Limited Government for a Stronger Florida?”

“Conservative Warriors” was born on June 2, 2022, with a Herndon, Virginia address.

However, its treasurer is Brett Doster, a long-time GOP operative in Florida. Together with his brother Matt, who I know, Brett Doster runs a campaign consulting shop called “The Frontline Agency” with a Tallahassee address.

Four days after it formed, on June 6, 2022, “Conservative warriors” received its one and only contribution — $1 million from a Florida political committee called “Limited Government for a Stronger Florida.”

[Update: My thanks to the awesome Jason Garcia who points out “Conservative Warriors” is likely a vehicle for Kelli converting state-level political committee into federal Super PAC money.]

But the record keeping is still very weird.

“Conservative Warriors” is very clear that its only donor is “Limited Government for a Stronger Florida”

Florida state elections records identify a “Limited Government for a Stronger Florida” as a “committee of continuous existence” — but with a status of “revoked.” The last record of any transaction is in 2013. And never anything close to $1 million.

There is also, however, a “Limited Govt for a Stronger Florida,” which is full of big contributions. It could have donated $1 million to a Kelli Super PAC. However, records say “Limited Govt … ” disbanded on May 19th; and there’s not an online record of a $1 million transfer/donation to anything.

It could be that the records just didn’t show up yet.

Interestingly, the records for both Limited Government for a Stronger Florida and “Limited Govt for a Stronger Florida,” list an Eric Robinson of Venice, Florida as the committee’s treasurer/chair/agent.

I do not know if that Eric Robinson is the same Eric Robinson who is “treasurer for numerous Republican candidates and political committees in Florida” and former Sarasota County school board member. It seems likely.

The latter Eric Robinson was recently investigated and cleared of wrongdoing over accusations of election finance-related violations. The Eric Robinson running “Limited Govt for a Stronger Florida,” was fined $750 for not filing the committee’s records in a timely fashion in 2020.

I don’t know why there is no record of any donation in or out of “Limited Government …” I’m not alleging any legal wrongdoing. I doubt anyone would be brazen enough to do something openly illegal with $1 million political contribution that’s likely to attract attention.

I just can’t account for the lack of records.

Good news for people who don’t want Republicans to win — but not a Dem op

When I started writing this, I thought I was looking at a Democratic party political op designed to elevate Kelli Stargel. If I’m a Democratic strategist, I very much want a GOP primary in district 15 fought out on who went in hardest on fake 2020 election fraud. And I want Kelli to narrowly win that primary.

That’s because Kelli is a weak and vulnerable general election candidate in a district that DeSantis won by less than a point in 2018. Among Kelli’s weaknesses:

• Vicious, open advocate of forced birth, including forced birth by rape and incest victims.

• Rabidly anti-teacher and anti public education.

• A daughter urging people to vote against her Tik Tok.

• Not well-liked in her home base, even among her voters.

• A lazy campaigner, who has her position because of nepotism and the basic partisan make-up of Polk County.

• Based in Polk County in what is now, largely, a Hillsborough district.

Kelli is nasty, but ineffective, as a legislator. In Congress, she’d be nasty, but totally insignificant — subject to whatever leadership told her to do, just like everybody else in her primary. There is no real downside to elevating her in the primary — and a lot of potential upside in denying that seat to a broken and corrupt, Jan. 6-supporting GOP.

But my “this is a Dem op” analysis changed when I saw Brett Doster listed as treasurer for Conservative Warriors. Brett Doster has been in Republican politics for 20 years. See his bio here.

It’s unlikely he would participate in Dem or anti-GOP chicanery. But he might as well be with the Kelli PAC and election denier-adjacent attack on Lee.