1861 Initiative

A primary FEC filing provides a useful behavioral comparator for the reconstructed Way Back→Western Futures Fund $75,000 in-kind research-services transaction. Fight for Nebraska PAC's Apr. 15, 2026 Q1 Form 3X reports Western Futures Fund twice in the same filing: a $100,000 cash contribution on March 18 and a $12,522 'In-kind - Polling' receipt dated March 3. The filing also reports a corresponding $12,522 Western Futures Fund Schedule B entry for 'In-kind - Polling' and a Schedule B line 23 entry labeled 'In-Kind Polling' tied to the 2026 primary. Thus WFF is not merely a cash grantmaker/donor in federal PAC records; it has directly supplied or borne the value of polling treated by a recipient PAC as an in-kind contribution. This materially strengthens, but does not by itself prove, the separate high-confidence reconstruction that Way Back PAC's sole $75,000 'Non-Federal In-Kind - Research Services' item in its Apr. 1–Jun. 3 filing corresponds to its $75,000 Western Futures Fund payee entry. The raw Way Back Schedule B row remains necessary for direct verification. The Fight for Nebraska filing also does not show who physically performed the polling, what vendor WFF used, whether WFF purchased the work and transferred it, or whether the recipient participated in commissioning it. Separately, recent Inside Elections reporting says WFF provided the 1861 Initiative with a $10,000 donation plus roughly $59,000 worth of polling in 2026; that second example is useful context but is not upgraded here to primary verification because the underlying FEC row has not yet been reproduced.