‘Dark Money’ Group Paid Democrat Janelle Stelson for Disappearing Podcast

Janelle Stelson, a former local news anchor who Democrats are hoping will unseat Republican Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania) this November in one of the nation’s hottest House races, was paid by a “dark money” group to produce a podcast that no longer exists online, federal records show.

Stelson was paid $45,000 between January 2024 and October 2025 by Voting for America to produce four episodes of “Voices of Central Pennsylvania With Janelle Stelson,” according to her 2025 financial disclosure report. Tax records show the organization, which has ties to Democrats, reported less than $50,000 in total income in 2025.

District of Columbia records show that Voting for America was founded in June 2024 and led by three alumni of the Democratic National Committee and House Democrats’ campaign arm, alongside a political lawyer.

Mara Kunin, a Democratic operative listed as the organization’s principal on its tax records, did not respond to a request for comment from NOTUS.

The podcast series appears on only one audio platform, Podchaser, and the four episodes taped by Stelson and published in 2025 are not playable due to an “error in episode file” or an “episode file missing.”

NOTUS obtained recordings of the four podcasts, which were each roughly 20 minutes long and featured interviews by Stelson with people with connections to Pennsylvania who were tackling issues such as Medicaid cuts and job losses among union workers.

“As an award winning anchor, Janelle had the opportunity in 2025 to record a short series of podcasts that once again gave her an outlet to uplift her own community and shine a light on the issues that people are facing,” a spokesperson for Stelson’s campaign told NOTUS.

A person familiar with Stelson’s work on the podcast told NOTUS that she is no longer paying the server’s fee to keep the podcast online.

The campaign did not answer questions from NOTUS about why Stelson did not list the podcast publicly on a free hosting site such as SoundCloud. But the campaign clarified that the podcasts were previously listed on Spotify and Apple.

Michael Beckel, the director of money in politics at Issue One, a nonpartisan political reform organization, told NOTUS that the circumstances behind the podcast and payment seem murky.

While Stelson is a respected former news anchor, and it’s not uncommon for a Democratic group to work with someone like her on a podcast series, a lack of information about the funding organization and its spending raises some questions, Beckel said.

“It’s certainly a stream of revenue that helps her continue to share news with fellow Pennsylvanians, or share information,” Beckel said. “But it’s very unclear from public records alone who was behind Voting for America and what types of pet policies they might be pushing for if she’s elected to Congress.”

This is Stelson’s second bid for Congress after she failed to oust Perry in 2024.

Rep. Scott Perry (R-Pennsylvania). Tom Williams/CQ Roll Call via AP

Her federal financial disclosure forms show the podcast was a meaningful portion of her income in 2025 –– her campaign committee also paid her about $19,000 and a political analytics group paid her about $15,000 in consulting fees. Stelson also reported earning around $45,000 from her retirement plan in 2025.

She disclosed no earned income other than her nearly $130,000 salary as a news reporter in the candidate report she filed ahead of her 2024 bid against Perry.

Beckel said that regardless of the podcast’s status, it’s important to understand “what other business relationships and background and pledges and priorities that candidate is bringing to the table.”