A congressional ethics disclosure shows Rep. Haley Stevens of Michigan traveled in business class with her mother to Lisbon in 2024 on a trip covered by Center Forward, a pro-corporate think tank. Two years later, Center Forward and a related super PAC have sp
When Rep. Haley Stevens’ campaign is trying to prove it can win a Senate seat, it’s also being forced to answer a different kind of question: who paid for the relationships that shaped the trip, and who later paid to shape the message.
In June 2024, Stevens, a Democrat from Michigan, flew with her mother, Maria Marcotte, to Lisbon. Marcotte. a retired advertising executive. posted a selfie taken at an international terminal of Detroit Metropolitan Airport and captioned it. “Lisbon. here we come!” The congressional ethics disclosure form says Stevens and Marcotte boarded a plane seated in business class.
The following day, the pair checked into The Ivens, a luxury hotel. They spent the next four days there with other members of Congress attending a conference featuring panels with a cryptocurrency industry executive. bankers and other corporate leaders. The event was hosted by the centrist, pro-corporate think tank Center Forward.
Center Forward covered the full $27,779.86 trip for Stevens and her mother.
Now. as Stevens enters a contested three-way race for a vacant United States Senate seat. Center Forward and its super PAC are backing her with heavy television advertising in Michigan. An AdImpact advertising data review reviewed by MISRYOUM finds $2.4 million in TV ad spending tied to the group in Michigan. where the only campaign the group is known to be backing is Stevens’.
The group’s first round of purchases totaling $855,000 was reported last week by State Affairs, while Center Forward Committee has also bought at least $50,000 in online ads for Stevens over the past two weeks, according to Google’s ad transparency tracker.
One commercial. which has aired on broadcast. cable and streaming services across Michigan starting May 12. shows Stevens “standing up to Trump” and “standing up for Michigan.” It points to bills she has promoted on the House floor—calling for accountability for ICE agent misconduct and seeking to prevent the Trump administration from deploying the U.S. military domestically. “I answer,” Stevens says in a clip from the House floor, “to the people of Michigan.”.
Stevens’ campaign spokesperson, Arik Wolk, repeated a similar message when asked about the spending and the relationship to Center Forward.
“Haley fights for Michigan and only Michigan,” Wolk said. “She’s spent her time in Congress working to bolster Michigan’s manufacturing economy, Michigan innovation and Michigan jobs — and as Michigan’s most effective Democrat in Congress, she’s got a track record of doing just that.”
Her opponents say that explanation doesn’t hold up.
Both of Stevens’ rivals—Michigan state Sen. Mallory McMorrow and Dr. Abdul El-Sayed—have sworn off corporate contributions, a decision they have made a core part of their attacks on Stevens.
The 2024 conference in Lisbon sponsored by Center Forward included panels led by executives from banks and holding companies such as Bison Bank and Bay Street Capital Holdings. One panel. titled “Blockchain Regulation in Portugal (EU). ” included the CEO of crypto company Q Blockchain. alongside bank executives and other boosters of the crypto industry. Before that panel. a business school professor gave a lecture on “what the EU’s approach to digital asset and blockchain regulation looks like” and “how the U.S. may be falling behind comparatively.”.
At the time, Portugal had one of the most tax-friendly systems for cryptocurrency investments, and the European Union had installed its newly approved crypto regulatory system known as MiCA.
A supplement to the congressional disclosure form described the Lisbon trip as intended to “bring a bipartisan group of pragmatic policymakers and influencers from various industries and organizations to focus on common-sense solutions” by discussing “foreign direct investment. healthcare. renewable energy. data privacy” and economic ties between the U.S. and Portugal. The group’s stated mission was “to provide centrists” with information needed to “craft common-sense solutions and provide support in turning those ideas into results.”.
A critic of corporate political influence said the timing is part of what makes the story hard to separate.
“It’s common for congressional delegations to go on international trips paid for by third parties. ” said Jeffrey Hauser. director of the Revolving Door Project. “But Stevens attending a trip sponsored by a pro-corporate group and then receiving significant campaign support from the group two years later raises concerns.”.
Hauser said the concern isn’t just about the travel itself.
“I am worried about what it says. that an institution that has been created to look after corporate interest in Washington had their staff spend a ton of time with the congresswoman. and they came away convinced that she would be loyal to their funders. ” Hauser said. “The travel and the campaign finance expenditure in tandem are worse together than on their own.”.
Beyond the $27,779.86 trip covered for Stevens and her mother, additional Center Forward expenses for staff were disclosed. The supplement described $10. 844.33 for Stevens’ legislative director to attend the Lisbon trip and $7. 198 for Stevens’ staffers to attend other Center Forward conferences. including one in Mexico where attendees met with executives with Meta. Walmart. Amazon. 3M and General Motors Mexico.
The Lisbon delegation included conservative lawmakers who have supported pro-crypto legislation, including Rep. Earl “Buddy” Carter, R-Ga., a member of the Blockchain Caucus, and Rep. Andrew Garbarino, R-N.Y., who chairs the House Homeland Security committee. The group also included prominent Democrats, including Rep. Linda Sanchez, D-Calif., and then-Rep. Eric Swalwell, also a California Democrat who has since resigned amid sexual assault allegations.
Hauser said congressional delegation trips are often used to build relationships designed to persuade lawmakers of a worldview.
“Congressional delegation trips are designed to form relationships between advocacy groups and lawmakers with the goal of ‘persuading a politician of a worldview. ’” Hauser said. He cited the American Israel Public Affairs Committee’s annual congressional visits to Israel as a refined version of the model. adding that Stevens attended with her mother in 2019.
Rapport, Hauser said, can be easier to build in an international travel setting than in a lawmaker’s office.
“I think this trip should be seen more as a cultivation method that Stevens agreed to undertake,” Hauser said. “And the independent expenditure in 2026 as an indication that the 2024 travel was well executed.”
The financial record behind Center Forward adds fuel to that contention. Since 2022, Center Forward Committee has received $400,000 from Chevron, including $100,000 from the big oil giant during the current election cycle. It has also received $300. 000 from ConocoPhilips in 2023. $500. 000 in 2022 from former New York City Mayor and billionaire Michael Bloomberg. and $100. 000 from big tobacco company Philip Morris last July. In March, Center Forward Committee and its related PAC, Center Forward Initiative Inc., together received $31,000 from United Health Group.
Its nonprofit arm has also been tied to fights over drug prices. with Center Forward receiving $7.8 million in donations from the pharmaceutical lobby from 2016 to 2023. according to Sludge. with the bulk arriving during the Biden era. Center Forward spent those years. the reporting says. pouring money into candidates who opposed drug pricing reform under the Biden administration.
Stevens’ own legislative record cuts against the idea that she’s aligned with the most aggressive version of universal coverage policies favored by one of her opponents. She introduced a 2019 bill aimed at lowering prescription drug prices. She currently supports the expansion of Obamacare and the creation of a public option. but does not support Medicare for All.
El-Sayed has made Medicare for All a central part of his platform.
When Center Forward’s ad spending arrived in Michigan. it was paired with outside spending by another dark money group. the Center for Democratic Priorities. That group. which uses the same consulting firm as AIPAC does for other “pop-up” super PACs. bought $5 million in TV ads for Stevens this month.
Marcotte and Center Forward did not respond to MISRYOUM’s requests for comment on the relationship between the campaign and the organization.
Stevens’ opponents are trying to turn the connection between travel and money into a direct line for voters. McMorrow’s campaign spokesperson, Jackson Boaz, said the corporate backing is part of the story voters need.
“Big Pharma, Big Tobacco, Big Oil, and Big Insurance are spending millions to save Haley Stevens from her own record on ICE,” Boaz said. “That tells you everything about who she’ll work for in the Senate – and everything about how her campaign is going.”
El-Sayed’s criticism was sharper.
“Corporate candidate takes money from corporate lobbies to take corporate trips and do corporate dirty work in Congress,” he said.
With the August primary approaching and polling described as neck-and-neck among the three candidates, the battle over who paid—both for the Lisbon trip and for the ads now running in Michigan—has become one of the most tangible stakes in the campaign.
For Stevens, the defense is that her record is what matters. For her opponents and critics, the trip and the ad buys sit together like evidence that relationships built in private can show up in public, at the ballot box.
Haley Stevens Michigan Senate race Center Forward Portugal Lisbon conference congressional ethics disclosure dark money campaign ads Arik Wolk Jeffrey Hauser Revolving Door Project ICE cryptocurrencies MiCA