Published July 13, 2026 · Updated with each build
Red Box Watch

A public ledger of red‑boxing — campaign‑site signals to super PACs

← Back to the index

Finding House · Illinois Democrat

Friedman, Jason FINDING

Seat
H-IL-07
Party
DEM
Universe reason
contested_primary
FEC receipts
$2,507,058 FEC
Campaign site
https://www.friedmanforcongress.com/ (unverified)
Pages scanned
20 · last 2026-07-09

Posted public messaging guidance consistent with red-boxing

Detected on https://www.friedmanforcongress.com/media  · classifier confidence 0.95 · model fireworks/deepseek-v4-flash

The page is titled 'Media' but contains directive language targeting a specific voter demographic with explicit channel and message guidance. This is not a standard press kit or voter-facing content; it instructs an outside spender on whom to reach, where, and with what message, meeting the definition of red-box guidance.

Quoted evidence — verbatim spans from the page

  • Likely Democratic primary voters - especially those who live downtown, on the Near North and Near West sides, and in similar communities outside the City of Chicago - need to read in the mail and see in digital ads and on YouTube with unskippable ads
    Segmented audience paired with specific channel directives (mail, digital ads, YouTube) that only make sense as media-buy instructions to an outside group.
  • Specifically, they need to learn that: He has experience solving tough problems...
    Prescribed message themes written as instructions for what the ads should convey.
Archived screenshot of https://www.friedmanforcongress.com/media
Archived at detectionFull-page screenshot of https://www.friedmanforcongress.com/media · Raw HTML preserved

Independent-expenditure corroboration

FEC Schedule E · 32 filings

Sequence. Messaging guidance was present on the candidate's site when detected (by us) on 2026-07-09; $685,806 in supporting independent expenditures is on file for this candidate, and $121,533 opposing.

Committee AmountFilingsDate range
S STRONGER ILLINOIS PAC $685,806 24 2026-02-03 – 2026-03-17
O UNITED DEMOCRACY PROJECT ('UDP') $119,497 4 2026-03-10 – 2026-03-10
O THE PEOPLE'S LOBBY $2,037 4 2026-03-10 – 2026-03-16

S Supporting O Opposing

Schedule E is corroboration, not the trigger — a filed expenditure is late evidence, and our detection timestamp reflects when we crawled, which can lag the actual posting. Supporting IE dated on or after our detection day: $0. Dates are FEC expenditure dates.