On Friday, I sent a special message to our free subscribers. It highlighted how Popular Information’s work shines a light on stories that powerful people would rather keep in the shadows. In the last month, Popular Information has uncovered a network of fake news sites run by GOP operatives, revealed the dangers of Elon Musk’s votesafe.org, and caught Trump’s nominee for Labor Secretary selling access to American welfare to Chinese nationals. With the midterms fast approaching, we have even more ambitious plans to follow the money and root out corruption. Although Popular Information has 543,000 readers, only a small fraction support our work as paid subscribers. We could put up a paywall to encourage more people to pay, but we believe access to crucial information shouldn’t be limited by income. To keep Popular Information available to everyone, we set a stretch goal of 225 new paid subscribers — and we need 43 more to hit it. To help get us over the top, we’re offering 20% off subscriptions for one more day. President Trump has amassed over $400 million through his super PAC, MAGA Inc. This is an unprecedented figure, dwarfing the largest cash piles collected in previous midterm elections. With Trump’s approval ratings hitting all-time lows and many Republican candidates in swing races struggling, Trump has finally begun spending some of this money. Television advertising funded by Trump’s operation has gone on the air. The clearest sense of the scale of the spending is through advertising that has been reserved in key races. While these reservations can be changed, they offer the clearest view of both the scale of Trump’s efforts and his priorities. With the exception of Texas, this money is being routed from MAGA Inc. through a new Trump super PAC, No Going Back. Since August 31, MAGA Inc. and No Going Back have reserved over $81 million in advertising. According to FEC filings, the same groups are spending millions more on direct mail, text messages, and other activities. The fact that the Trump operation felt it necessary, outside of Texas, to route public communications through a new super PAC called No Going Back illustrates the current unpopularity of the MAGA agenda. (Ads paid for directly by MAGA Inc. must include the line “MAGA Inc. is responsible for the content of this advertising.”) The same dynamic is also found in the ads themselves. Some ads inaccurately accuse Democratic candidates of supporting MAGA policies. Other ads, in an effort to find an effective attack, simply use false or fabricated claims. Trump, not Pappas, cut funding for rural hospitals in New HampshireIn New Hampshire, Trump’s No Going Back PAC is running an ad attacking Congressman Chris Pappas, the Democratic Senate nominee, for voting “against vital funding for rural and vulnerable hospitals.” This is false. Pappas voted against H.R. 1, Trump’s signature reconciliation bill, which cut Medicaid spending in rural areas by $137 billion over ten years, according to an analysis by KFF. About one-third of that cut was offset by a $50 billion fund distributed to states. But H.R. 1 left rural healthcare, including rural hospitals, much worse off. Pappas said he voted against the bill in July 2025 for that reason. In an August 2025 statement, Pappas said he opposed H.R. 1 because it “will have severe repercussions across New Hampshire communities, from our hospitals to our rural health care centers to our nursing homes.” Now the Trump political operation is spending millions running an ad accusing Pappas of supporting cuts to rural health care spending because he opposed a Trump-backed bill that dramatically cut rural health care spending. Ossoff did not vote to increase “taxes on working families” by $16.7 billionIn Georgia, a No Going Back ad accuses Senator Jon Ossoff (D) of voting “to raise taxes by over $16 billion on working families like yours.” This isn’t true. The ad cites Ossoff’s vote for the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) in 2022. The IRA did not increase individual income tax |