More than a month after the primary, the biggest spender opposing Senate leader Phil Berger finally filed a disclosure report listing its donors.
But the report leaves more questions than answers about who funded the Guilford-Rockingham Alliance’s $453,000 campaign to help Rockingham County Sheriff Sam Page.
The Guilford-Rockingham Alliance is a political action committee that formed in January, and it spent significantly more than Page’s campaign or another anti-Berger PAC, the Piedmont Accountability Alliance. The latter group spent about $350,000 and was funded largely by biotechnology executive Sheila Mikhail, who explained how a stalled breast cancer screening bill prompted her involvement in the primary on a recent episode of the WUNC Politics Podcast.
Efforts to reach the Guilford-Rockingham Alliance yielded no response. Patrick Sebastian, who worked for both anti-Berger PACs before becoming a “post-election adviser” to Page himself, did not respond to phone calls and emails. A number for the group’s treasurer listed on its campaign finance forms led to a busy signal, and emails to the group’s listed account have gone unreturned.
So here’s what we know about the Guilford-Rockingham Alliance from its April 15 FEC disclosure forms:
All of its funding came from four different groups, none of which are headquartered in North Carolina. Two of them list the same mailbox at a shipping store in Alexandria, Va., while another is based in Oklahoma City, and the fourth lists an address in Hyattsville, Md.
Since it’s a complicated web, let’s take the four groups one by one:
Leadership For America Fund: This group lists an address at an Oklahoma City shipping store mailbox and provided the majority of the GRA’s funding: $300,000.
“Leadership For America” isn’t a registered PAC with the FEC (while the other three funders are). A search for further information and public records about the group – Is it a nonprofit? Who’s leading it? – came up dry.
FEC records show no other contributions from “Leadership For America Fund” to any political committees at the federal level. A search of nonprofit and corporation filings in Oklahoma, North Carolina and the IRS database turned up no records for the group.
Safeguard Liberty PAC: Here’s the only other Oklahoma connection in the GRA finance report. This is one of the Alexandria-based groups, and it gave GRA $85,000 in late February, just days before the primary.
Its FEC report shows that contribution is the only money it’s spent over the past several years. Its reports show only two donors over its history: Oklahoma residents David Chaney and Benjamin Harris, both of whom contributed $375,000 each in 2022, long before Page mounted his challenge to Berger.
Chaney and Harris are the co-founders of a chain of virtual charter schools called Epic Charter Schools, and Oklahoma news outlets reported that the pair was charged in 2024 with embezzlement and racketeering – a case that’s still pending in courts there.
According to Oklahoma Voice, prosecutors say the men “engineered a complex scheme at Epic to pocket millions of taxpayer dollars intended for students.”
But Epic Charter Schools doesn’t appear to have any North Carolina connections. It operates primarily in Oklahoma; North Carolina lobbying records show no registrations related to the company here, and neither Chaney nor Harris has made donations to North Carolina political campaigns.
Safeguard Liberty PAC does, however, share the same listed treasurer as Guilford-Rockingham Alliance: Dustin McIntyre.
Fund For A Working Congress: This group contributed $60,000 to Guilford-Rockingham Alliance. It lists the same mailbox as Safeguard Liberty, and it also lists McIntyre as its treasurer.
It formed in 2025 and received all of its funding from another PAC called “Duty, Honor, Courage” with a headquarters in Wisconsin. That group’s funding was received in 2024 from six donors in Texas. Its largest contribution ($100,000) came from “Vacation Publications Inc.” of Houston, according to its FEC reports.
Business records show a company called “Vacation Publications Inc.” at the same Houston address. It is the publisher of a guide called “America’s Best Places To Retire,” which was edited by Texas journalist Annette Fuller, whose biography notes she is a native of Elkin, N.C.
American Advancement, Inc.: The smallest donor to GRA contributed $8,500 on March 19, after the primary was over. The Hyattsville, Maryland-based nonprofit lists its mission on IRS forms as “promote public policies aimed at removing barriers to economic growth and advancing economic opportunity for the American people.” It has funded a variety of conservative PACs, many of them based in the Washington, D.C., area.
It also shares an address and phone number with a group called “Indiana For Responsible Gaming LLC.” That phone number leads to a busy signal. And one of its financial backers listed on its latest IRS form is a group called “Teachers First LLC,” which lists the same Alexandria address as Leadership For America Fund and Safeguard Liberty PAC.
Who is Dustin McIntyre?
He’s listed as the treasurer for Guilford-Rockingham Alliance and for two of the groups that funded it, but little other information is publicly available about him.
The phone number listed on paperwork leads to a busy signal each time WUNC News attempted to call it.
A recent Washington Post article describes McIntyre as “a political operative who has served as treasurer for conservative political action committees around the country.” A series of internet searches for more information about McIntyre turned up no additional information, just more PACs where he’s listed as the treasurer.
What ads did GRA fund?
While the Piedmont Accountability Alliance focused on Berger’s unwillingness to allow a Senate vote on a breast cancer screening bill, the Guilford-Rockingham Alliance sought to paint Berger as insufficiently conservative.
One ad claimed he “acts like a Democrat” because of his support of a measure partially repealing the so-called House Bill 2 “bathroom bill,” and because of an immigration bill.
“Phil Berger claims he supports Trump,” the ad says, omitting the fact that Trump endorsed Berger in the race. “But in Raleigh, he acts like a Democrat.”
Another ad criticizes Berger for supporting a “crooked” casino deal and employing his wife in his Senate office, a common practice among state legislators of both parties.
How does the money compare to pro-Berger spending?
Even when you combine spending from both outside pro-Page groups and the sheriff’s campaign, supporters of Berger’s campaign spent significantly more on the race.
The outside pro-Berger group NC True Conservatives spent at least $6 million on ads attacking Page. The group is run by longtime Republican consultant Larry Shaheen, and the ads were produced by two political consultants who previously worked for Berger, Jim Blaine and Ray Martin.
Most of the group’s funding came from the “Good Government Coalition,” which in turn is primarily funded by the Republican State Leadership Committee, the national association for GOP state-level elected officials. Berger serves on the group’s executive committee.
An analysis by campaign finance watchdog Bob Hall found that most of the money flowing through the “Good Government Coalition” comes from “corporations and trade associations like PhRMA and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.”
Berger’s campaign raised about $3 million.
