A super PAC supporting Democrat Manny Rutinel—who is attempting to distance himself from his far-left past as he vies for Colorado's competitive Eighth Congressional District—is bankrolled by a longtime professional and political ally of Saikat Chakrabarti, "Squad" member Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's firebrand former chief of staff.
The Trust Brigade, which launched last year, is engaged in door-to-door canvassing exclusively in the eighth district, a seat that could determine which party controls the House, and targets "voters who would otherwise not vote in 2026." It's legally allowed to coordinate with Rutinel's campaign and cooperates with other left-wing groups working to oust the Republican incumbent, Rep. Gabe Evans.
It also has deep ties to the far-left flank of the Democratic Party. More than a third of its nearly $408,000 war chest came from Ross Boucher, a close ally of Saikat Chakrabarti, Ocasio-Cortez's former chief of staff, campaign finance records show. He gave another $525,000 to the LGBTQ Connection PAC, a group focused on flipping swing districts for Democrats, which in turn contributed $60,000 to the Trust Brigade.
Boucher has been a top supporter of Chakrabarti's political pursuits, including his efforts to push the Democratic Party farther to the left. When the San Francisco Chronicle endorsed Chakrabarti's primary opponent in his failed bid earlier this year to replace former House speaker Nancy Pelosi, Boucher defended his friend by touting Chakrabarti's left-wing bona fides. He wrote in a letter to the editor that Chakrabarti "co-founded Justice Democrats, ran the campaign that took down the No. 3 House Democrat and helped author the Green New Deal." Boucher also volunteered with Chakrabarti's campaign and donated $7,000, the maximum amount allowed.
Their friendship dates back to 2011, when Boucher and Chakrabarti were among the earliest employees of Stripe, an online payments platform. The pair "would work 70-hour weeks, eat dinner every night in the office, then go work out," the Washington Post reported.
For years, Chakrabarti has accused the Democratic establishment of being too moderate. He formed two PACs intended to shift Democrats to the left—and faced a federal campaign finance investigation after they were accused of directing almost $1 million in donations from those groups into two of his private companies. In May, Chakrabarti said he's been leading an "insurgent sort of takeover" of the Democratic Party.
"I've been leading or I've been pushing for kind of an insurgent sort of takeover of the party, not by just progressives and leftists, but just by people who aren't bought out, by people who actually want to do something, by people who want to, you know, push for real change, for these problems that people are, that most people are facing in the country," Chakrabarti told Columbia Political Review.
Boucher has dumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into far-left candidates and organizations this election cycle. Recipients include the Working Families Party and A Fight Worth Having, which backs left-wing candidates challenging establishment Democrats and is headed by another Ocasio-Cortez alumnus, Denver socialist congressional candidate Melat Kiros, and disgraced former Maine Senate candidate Graham Platner.
As Boucher works to elect Rutinel and other left-wing Democrats, Rutinel is working to distance himself from his left-wing past as he aims to flip a seat that was decided by less than 2,500 votes in 2024. Rutinel published blog posts in 2014 with headlines like "What Would Jesus Do? Socialism" and "Why a More Socialistic Society Is Superior" and for years called to eliminate animal agriculture. Since launching his bid for the eighth district, which relies heavily on ranching, Rutinel has changed his tune, saying he's not a socialist and gave up his crusade against animal-based farming.
Rutinel, whose father is part of a socialist political dynasty in the Dominican Republic, supported other left-wing causes before launching his congressional bid. As a state representative, he sponsored legislation requiring health insurers to cover "gender-affirming health care," including sex changes, with no age restrictions, and backed a bill that ordered courts to consider whether a parent uses their child's preferred pronouns when ruling on custody battles. Rutinel also supported a program providing taxpayer-funded health care to illegal immigrant "pregnant persons" and children, which cost seven times more than expected.
He has, however, struggled to sever his left-wing ties entirely. He was set to join an event hosted by an anti-police and anti-ICE group alongside Arizona congressional candidate JoAnna Mendoza, who has called to defund the police, but it was abruptly canceled after the Washington Free Beacon submitted a request for comment.
The Trust Brigade's connections to left-wing actors go beyond its financial backing. An upcoming training for the PAC is being organized and promoted by Indivisible, the George Soros-funded group that has offered to pay for protests and organized unruly demonstrations at town halls in red districts.
The Trust Brigade's staff also boast experience from a litany of far-left groups, such as the ACLU of Colorado, Planned Parenthood, and ACORN, a now-defunct network that sparked controversy after its workers were convicted of submitting fraudulent voter registrations. Its "trainer" and organizer, Dave Fleischer, is widely credited with pioneering deep canvassing, an approach he's used to "get more voters to stand against Trump and anyone like him" and to sway public opinion on transgender-related issues.
