A screenshot from a digital ad from Your City Your Future, a super PAC supporting Josh Kraft for mayor and opposing incumbent Michelle Wu.

ON A TREE-LINED STREET in Medford, tucked away inside a strength training gym, there’s an office that’s been doing some heavy lifting in the Boston mayor’s race.

The office is the registered home of CP Campaigns, a company that didn’t exist until this past March. But it has received roughly $425,000 to handle digital advertising from the super PAC Your City Your Future, a powerful outside group supporting Josh Kraft’s bid to topple Mayor Michelle Wu, according to Office of Campaign and Political Finance records. 

CP Campaigns shares the office with Liberty Concepts, a separate company that did work on Kraft’s mayoral campaign website. CP Campaigns and Liberty Concepts exist as separate companies, but as Joan Vennochi of The Boston Globe first reported, they both work on digital advertising and share Jonathan Karush, who currently works for the Kraft mayoral campaign. 

In an emailed statement, Karush acknowledged he is the president of Liberty Concepts, a company he created 25 years ago, and he is also the principal owner of CP Campaigns. But he said there is a “firewall” in place at CP Campaigns, which “prevents coordination, even if they share the same addresses.” 

Super PACs, which can raise and spend unlimited amounts of cash to support candidates, are not legally permitted to coordinate with campaigns, which in Massachusetts are limited to donations from individuals of $1,000 per calendar year. That two entities – Liberty Concepts and CP Campaigns – share a roof raises questions about their conduct, said Geoff Foster, the head of Common Cause Massachusetts, a nonpartisan advocacy group that promotes transparency in government and voting reforms.  

“While the proximity might be technically legal, it does raise concerns and important questions about what the firewalls are that are actually in place,” he said of the entities involved in the Boston mayoral race. 

Last Thursday, the Kraft campaign, which is paying Liberty Concepts for website work, initially declined to make Karush available in response to CommonWealth Beacon questions about him and his two companies. The following day, a reporter visited the office of Liberty Concepts and CP Campaigns in Medford. 

The office, inside a squat, stucco building that shared a pothole-marked parking lot with a construction firm, was empty, but the owner of the adjacent gym shared the business card of a Karush co-worker at Liberty Concepts. Shortly after the reporter left, a Kraft campaign spokesperson, Eileen O’Connor, who also serves as a board member of MassINC, the publisher of CommonWealth Beacon, reached out to the reporter to say Karush would soon be in touch. 

Asked to explain how the firewall works, Karush said, “The firewall has always been in place and it means that no one is in contact with me about the work being done on/for the PAC” – essentially, there are others at CP Campaigns handling the work. Karush added he has “no personal involvement with the operations of the Super PAC whatsoever, according to the firewall.” 

Your City Your Future has taken in $2.9 million, much of it from Jim Davis, the chairman of athleticwear company New Balance who has opposed Wu through super PACs in previous election cycles. Michael Rubin, the CEO of Fanatics, a sports merchandising retailer, and a friend of New England Patriots owner Robert Kraft, Josh Kraft’s father, has also contributed to it. Davis and Rubin have each donated $1 million. 

Rebecca St. Amand, the chairperson of Your City Your Future, said Karush has “no affiliation” with the super PAC. The group “is working with two independent, firewalled staff members of CP Campaigns that cannot and do not coordinate with anyone associated with anyone affiliated with any Boston mayoral campaign,” she said in an email. “We have no dealings with Jonathan Karush, and have no knowledge of any work he is doing for any campaign.” 

When she was asked why she picked CP Campaigns to handle digital advertising, St. Amand said she was not directly involved in hiring the companies the super PAC is working with. 

The door that leads to the office of Liberty Concepts and CP Campaigns, on Winchester Street in Medford, Mass. (Photo by Gintautas Dumcius)

“When we were writing up contracts, I was told that they had done some previous work with another vendor, which is pretty common,” St. Amand said. She did not elaborate after being asked how a company that launched four months ago had done previous work. 

Liberty Concepts has previously worked on websites and online advertising for ballot campaigns and Maura Healey during her time as attorney general, as well as an anti-Wu super PAC, Real Progress Boston, in 2021, according to publicly available campaign finance records. During that mayoral election, the anti-Wu super PAC pulled in money from some of the same donors now supporting Your City Your Future, including New Balance’s Davis.