A political action committee (PAC) which backed Kamala Harris’s campaign appears to have scrubbed its website after it was caught soliciting donations via a text mentioning Alex Pretti, just hours after Border Patrol agents fatally shot him in Minneapolis.
Multiple X accounts posted screenshots of a fundraising text message sent from a toll-free number Saturday beginning with the words, “Alex Pretti is the limit,” and calling on recipients to “Stand with us! Donate $50 for 200% MATCH.” The message appeared to have linked to a donation landing page for Democratic Youth Wave PAC hosted by leading Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue. Both the page and the PAC’s website, however, were taken down at the time of publication.
By Sunday morning, hours after screenshots of the text went viral on social media, the link in the text led to a page which stated, “This fundraiser is not currently accepting any donations.” It also included a link to the PAC’s website, which while live at the time, was not allowing contributions through its “donate” button. Democratic Youth Wave’s site was later taken down and its URL, at the time of publication, led to a Wix.com error page stating, “Looks like this domain isn’t connected to a website yet.”
In addition to explicitly soliciting $50 donations, the text message also urged Democratic Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz to “END THE OPERATION,” appearing to back various Democrats’ calls to remove federal immigration enforcement agents from the fraud-plagued blue state.
If you work for an organization or consultant that had anything to do with this you need to quit your job today. pic.twitter.com/lzM6W4yyTh
— John Hagner (@JHagner) January 24, 2026
John Hagner, a Minneapolis-based partner at an analytics and polling company which supports Democratic candidates and left-wing causes, brought the fundraising message to attention on social media Saturday afternoon, captioning a screenshot of it, “If you work for an organization or consultant that had anything to do with this you need to quit your job today.”
Is it unclear whether the fundraising effort linked in the text was still accepting donations at the time of Hagner’s post.
Before the PAC scrubbed its website, the Daily Caller News Foundation reached out to Democratic Youth Wave for comment and to clarify whether the donation link was changed after the fundraising text was sent. The contact form on the PAC’s website, however, appeared to have been broken at the time.
ActBlue’s X account responded to Hagner’s post about two hours after he had made it, stating it is “a tech platform” which does “not write or approve what campaigns and causes are sending.”
“But we hear you, please know our team is listening and is exploring ways to address exploitative practices,” ActBlue’s account wrote in its reply.
Hi @JHagner. ActBlue is a tech platform, so we do not write or approve what campaigns and causes are sending. But we hear you, please know our team is listening and is exploring ways to address exploitative practices.
— ActBlue (@actblue) January 24, 2026
Should political action committees avoid fundraising linked to tragedies?
“The damage done by users of your platform to reputable and important fundraising is immense and ongoing,” Hagner replied. “The time for exploring options was over a long time ago, friends.”
An ActBlue spokesperson told the DCNF in a statement sent post-publication that the platform had “immediately contacted” Democratic Youth Wave when it had become “aware of the text message exploiting Alex Pretti’s death.”
“The associated fundraising campaign is no longer active, and we are proactively refunding anyone who donated to it,” the spokesperson added. “When we say we are exploring options to prevent this kind of exploitation, we mean it. We are committed to ending this type of behavior on our platform.”
Another X user replied to Hagner’s original post with a screenshot appearing to show that Democratic Youth Wave misspelled Walz’s name as “Waltz” in an August 2024 text.
Open Secrets lists a total of $196,714 for Democratic Youth Wave’s “independent expenditures, communication costs and coordinated expenses” for the 2024 cycle, all for Harris’s failed presidential bid. The PAC does not list any expenditures for any other election cycle dating back to 2000, according to Open Secrets.
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) lists $19,770.00 in total federal receipts for Democratic Youth Wave in the two-year period of 2025 to 2026. It also lists $292,137.48 in total federal disbursements for the same two-year time period. The PAC had $1,077,777.79 in cash on hand at the end of the reporting period concluding on Sept. 30, 2025, according to the FEC.
The PAC lists its mailing address in Alpharetta, Ga, and names its treasurer as Nantambu Foley, according to the FEC.
A man with this name served as an intern, and then a fellow for Democratic Illinois Rep. Jonathan Jackson between 2023 and 2024, according to LegiStorm. This same individual also appears to have hosted a political podcast called “What’s the Context?” While episodes of the podcasts no longer appear available online, its website was still live at the time of publication, and listed Foley as Jackson’s former “body man.” Foley’s LinkedIn profile, linked on LegiStorm, appears to have been recently taken down.
The DCNF reached out to Foley using an email address on his podcast’s website in order to confirm he was the same individual listed as Democratic Youth Wave’s treasurer, but did not immediately receive a response.
The PAC’s now-scrubbed website stated it “empowers young Democrats by boosting youth voter turnout to create a strong voter’s blue wave nationwide,” and “is committed to increasing youth voter turnout and creating a strong blue wave across all 50 states.”
Democratic Youth Wave also has a YouTube channel — seemingly with only four subscribers — which was still active at the time of publication. The channel lists four videos which, at the time, had had 33, 13, 72,000, and 18,000 views, respectively.
The channel’s most-viewed video by far was a 48-second ad titled, “Did 71 million people really believed [sic] the lies,” in which a voice, appearing to belong to a young male, narrates over a series of stock images and videos. A donation quick response (QR) code appeared on screen for about 10 seconds at the end. Comments on the video were disabled.
Editor’s note: This story has been updated to include an updated statement from ActBlue that was sent post-publication.
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