Texas-based dark money group that once attacked Sherrill wades into N.J. politics again

The Florence Avenue Initiative, a mysterious organization that attacked Mikie Sherrill for her Israel stance during last year’s governor’s race, is now getting involved in New Jersey’s 2026 congressional elections – though just like its anti-Sherrill campaign, the group’s broader motives are very opaque.

Voters in the state’s 12th congressional district, where 12 candidates are running to succeed retiring Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman (D-Ewing), recently received a mailer from the Florence Avenue Initiative criticizing carpetbagging: “When politicians move to new districts just to run for office… who are they really doing it for?” the mailer asks. “And who pays the price?”

Oddly, the mailer does not mention any candidate by name, instead simply urging voters to call main U.S. Capitol phone number and “demand [Congress] support legislation to ensure lawmakers live in the communities they represent.” (Such legislation, for what it’s worth, would likely be unconstitutional.)

But there may be reason to believe it’s targeted at Sue Altman, who was the Democratic nominee for a neighboring congressional district in 2024. The mailer includes a graphic singling out the towns of Hamilton, Camden, Lambertville, and Bridgewater, the latter three of which are towns that Altman has called home at various points in the last few years; Bridgewater, where she lives now, is split between the 12th and 7th districts. (Altman’s petitions were also challenged last month by a phantom group called the “Concerned Citizens’ Coalition Against Carpetbagging,” which seemed to be a front for one of her opponents, Sam Wang.)

Without any kind of direct reference to Altman, though, it’s hard to imagine many voters making those kinds of byzantine connections. At least two other Democratic candidates, Jay Vaingankar and Squire Servance, are originally from towns outside the 12th district as well.

Nor is it clear that voters actually have much of a problem with district-hopping; plenty of successful New Jersey politicians, from Sherrill to former 3rd district Rep. Tom MacArthur (R-Toms River), either lived outside their districts when they first ran or had only just moved into them.

Florence Avenue Initiative is also behind another mailer that attacks members of Congress who traded stocks in the tech company Nvidia in 2025, linking the trades to ICE raids. Once again, outside of a demand to “call Congress,” there’s not much linking the mailer to any specific New Jersey candidate or issue.

The New Jersey Globe reviewed copies of each mailer sent to a voter who lives in the Somerset County portion of the 12th congressional district; it’s not yet clear whether either mailer is going to voters in other parts of the state, too.

According to IRS filings, the Florence Avenue Initiative is a Texas-based 501(c)(4) nonprofit organization, which means it doesn’t have to disclose its donors and expenditures in the same way that, say, a super PAC would. Its 2024 IRS filing listed $1.5 million in expenditures for the purpose of “social welfare services advocating for fairness and equality.”

The group burst onto the national political scene in 2024, when it spent $2 million on ads accusing then-Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer of blocking a vote on an antisemitism bill pending in the Senate.

A year later, it touched down in New Jersey with a mailer claiming that Sherrill, who was then locked in a competitive primary for governor, was insufficiently pro-Israel and had “stood against Jewish New Jersey families all too often.” It was never clear what Florence Avenue Initiative’s stake in the race was, however, and whatever its goals may have been, it didn’t succeed: Sherrill won both the primary and general elections by double-digit margins.

It’s now become one of the first groups to start spending money in the 12th district, where there’s a widespread expectation that well-funded super PACs may try to boost or tear down certain candidates after doing the same in other Democratic primaries around the country. Per FEC filings, one other group, the veterans-focused Servant-Leader Fund, has spent around $90,000 on mailers in support of Somerset County Commissioner Shanel Robinson (D-Franklin).