While outwardly neutral, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer has been quietly putting his thumb on the scale in the Iowa Senate primary, with millions in PAC money flowing only toward the establishment-friendly candidate.

In the 2024 election cycle, the Schumer-aligned Senate Majority PAC gave liberally to VoteVets, a political action committee (PAC) focused on veterans advocacy. VoteVets shares many of the same go-to vendors as the various arms of Schumer’s spending operation and the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee.

Those include Waterfront Strategies and Trilogy — the favored media buying firms for Schumer’s PACs — and MPWR Media Strategies. MPWR was founded by Christie Roberts, the former director of the Democratic Senate Campaign Committee, and includes two alumni of Schumer’s office on its staff.

This election cycle, VoteVets has spent $8.2 million in the Iowa contest, the largest money dump in the race and more than half of the PAC’s current $15 million war chest. That outlay has gone to supporting Turek, even though he is not a military veteran. One prominent television ad blanketing the airwaves in Iowa features a military veteran supporting Turek and then quickly cuts to the candidate himself, who uses a wheelchair.