Chotiner arranged for stories in local papers alleging that Voorhis had been endorsed by "the PAC", hoping that voters would take that to mean the Congress of Industrial Organizations's Political Action Committee (CIO-PAC). The CIO was a labor federation which later merged with the American Federation of Labor to form the AFL-CIO. It had been organized in 1943 and took left-wing stands; its PAC was seen as a communist front organization by some.