Austin Horn of the Herald-Leader reports that Kentucky Senate candidate Nate Morris has some gnarly friends: On the same day, at the same time, three of America’s biggest conservative influencers all had the same thing to say about Kentucky U.S. Senate candidate Nate Morris’ immigration stance. Morris was showing “the bold leadership America needs” with his call for an immigration moratorium, Juanita Broaddrick posted on X at 3:28 p.m. on Jan. 9.

Morris is “leading the charge” on the issue, Ryan Fournier wrote the next minute. Morris was “dropping truth bombs,” Gunther Eagleman said, also at 3:29 p.m. All three were boosting a post from Morris campaign consultant Andrew Surabian touting the candidate’s position on immigration.

All three called on other Republican candidates to back the idea. And all three took a dig at Morris’ well-funded GOP opponent, Rep. Andy Barr, in the process.

Over the last 10 months — since Morris launched his campaign in June 2025 — the trio of accounts has posted near-simultaneously timed messages of praise about him 20 times. In the first three months of 2026, at least one of the three accounts reposted 56% of Morris’ posts. About 30% of the time, all three accounts reposted Morris, sharing his posts to their collective 4.8 million followers.

In a statement, Morris’ campaign denied any relationship with the accounts. None of the accounts have apparent ties to Kentucky, nor are the people behind them registered to vote in the state. Broaddrick is from Arkansas, and Fournier calls North Carolina his home state.

Gunther Eagleman, who by one count has the third-highest engagement of any account on X, is a pseudonym for David Freeman, a former Texas police officer. Scenes from the long-term grift that is right wing ideology in the United States: That record has led other users, people who have interacted with the accounts and some experts who study social media and politics to conclude their efforts are definitely coordinated and possibly a “pay to post” scheme linked to Morris campaign vendor X Strategies. Fournier has direct ties to X Strategies, which has received at least $150,000 from Morris and a supporting group during his campaign, according to Federal Elections Commission reports; the other users have a long history of praising one of X Strategies’ founders.

X Strategies is a West Palm Beach, Florida-based company founded by Derek Utley and Alex Bruesewitz, the ascendant young strategist credited with successful political maneuvers from Trump’s team like embracing podcasts and bringing the rapper Nicki Minaj into the “MAGA” fold. “Short of having the contract between the influencers and the firm, this is about as good of proof as you ever get of there being a coordinated campaign,” said Samuel Woolley, a communications professor at the University of Pittsburgh who has worked closely with political influencers in his studies and reviewed the Herald-Leader’s evidence.

“This has all the hallmarks of a top-down astroturf campaign,” he added. An “astroturf campaign” refers to a coordinated effort that mimics organic social media behavior to make a message appear more broadly supported than it is. Though traditional paid advertisements are subject to strict disclosure laws, and product endorsements must be disclosed, political social media posts like these fall into what experts describe as a legal loophole.

More on X strategies: Alex Bruesewitz, the founder of communications firm X Strategies and rising star on the American right, was the lead anecdote in a January Wall Street Journal story about the rise of influencers being paid by lobbying interests to post. In a since-deleted post, Bruesewitz hyped marijuana reclassification without disclosing X Strategies was paid $300,000 by a committee funded by legal marijuana industry giants. Morris and a political action committee supporting him have paid X Strategies more than $100,000 throughout Morris’ campaign to replace Sen.

Mitch McConnell in a crowded GOP primary. Bruesewitz has behaved similarly with Morris as he did on marijuana. In his 10 posts lauding Morris to roughly 670,000 followers, Bruesewitz has not disclosed the support his company has received from Morris and the PAC backing his campaign.

As of March 31, Morris’ campaign paid X Strategies $135,000, and a group supporting Morris paid it another $15,000, according to Federal Elections Commission records. I’m old enough to remember when it was a scandal that Hilary Clinton had coordinated with a group of 2016 twitter power-users who were already supporting her campaign… but then everything that Clinton did was by definition a scandal. It is incredibly depressing to watch Nate Morris and Andy Barr ads on my morning TV full in the knowledge that one of these chucklefucks is likely to soon be my Senator. Say what you will about Mitch McConnell and Rand Paul, the latter is weird enough to be appealing under certain circumstances while the former carries an odd sense of majes