If you’ve contributed to a political campaign in the last decade, you are no doubt getting inundated with emails and texts from shady political organizations.
Some are campaigns, which have given up all pretense of “opt-in” consent and are buying lists of past political donors en masse, not giving a rat’s ass whether you gave them direct permission or not.
And some are scammy political action committees that are pretending to raise money for Democrats but are wasting vast quantities of that cash on things like consultants and even more fundraising.
Let’s take a look at a couple that have solicited me in the past few days.
This is from Retired Dems 2024, an organization whose purported purpose is “electing leaders who will stand up for older Americans,” its website says. Retired Dems 2024’s parent organization is the Retired Americans PAC, which has raised $4,631,102 as of June 30, according to OpenSecrets. A good deal of that fundraising is from small-dollar donations, many under $10.
So how much has this super PAC spent in the 2024 cycle to help federal candidates like Kamala Harris, whom they name-drop in their fundraising appeal? Zero, according to OpenSecrets. So far, the PAC doesn’t appear to have spent any money to boost Democrats or attack Republicans.
And yet somehow it has spent $3,340,511 this cycle. On what?
The PAC has paid the Democratic consultantship Mothership Strategies over $1.3 million so far this cycle, according to OpenSecrets. It’s paid Message Digital, which provides email and text services, nearly $300,000, and Tatango, a service for text-message-based fundraising, over $265,000. In all, the PAC has spent $1,465,320 on fundraising.
In all, it spent just $765,738 on “campaign events and activities,” a stunningly poor return on investment. Is that what donors signed up for?
Here’s another one:
The Defend Democracy Now PAC wants to confirm whether I’ll endorse Harris. So helpful of them to be on top of that! Their website screams at me that “Our Democracy is under attack.” It claims, “Defend Democracy Now PAC is committed to protecting our Democracy by supporting strong Democrats in flippable districts.” Their site has no obvious tie to helping Harris. It doesn’t even mention her.
Open Secrets tells us that this PAC has raised almost $290,000, spent about $135,000, and has donated to zero federal candidates. In fact, its expenditures are focused on administrative functions and running fundraising ads, including paying $86,142 to Momentum Campaigns, a digital fundraising agency that comes up regularly in these FEC reports.
On Tuesday, I got unsolicited texts from three more of these PACs.
There’s this one, from Democratic Youth Wave, which claims to be “amplifying the voices of the younger generation in politics.”
Open Secrets notes the group raised a whopping $1,100, which means they are fresh off their legal filings, happy to feed off the energy around the Harris campaign to do … what exactly? With zero history or track record, there’s nothing about this filing that inspires confidence. But hey, they had enough money to purchase my phone number, so they can help Harris by “increas[ing] the young people and black men turnout in California.” Because Harris needs all the help she can get in California, right?
I also got this one, from Save American Education PAC, which claims it is “dedicated to supporting candidates & causes who defend American students’ freedom to learn.”
According to Open Secrets, this one is brand new. No history of anything. You might as well flush your money down the toilet.
And here is Mary Trump, getting in on the action with her Democracy Defense Fund:
The group was active in 2022, raising over $716,000, of which $143,000 made their way to federal candidates and committees. Consultants walked away with more than that. This year, the PAC has raised almost $600,000, most of which went to consultants: $202,000 for administrative; $81,000 for “strategy and research”; and $131,000 in “web ads” to a digital agency, more than likely for fundraising.
There are more efficient ways of funding great candidates.
Even supposedly respectable candidate-affiliated PACs can be problematic.
New Hampshire Rep. Annie Kuster is affiliated with the Democratic Turnout Project PAC, which sends unwanted texts like this one:
According to OpenSecrets, this PAC had raised $534,143 in the 2024 cycle, as of June 30. It donated $112,500 to federal Democratic candidates, $115,000 to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, and had just over $30,000 cash on hand. The rest of the money, though, appears to have been spent on advertising, fundraising, and things like paying consultants. The PAC also paid Momentum Campaigns at least $50,000 for “list acquisition,” which usually means buying up databases of email addresses and phone numbers to spam you.
This PAC may be less shady than the other two, but still, that’s a lot of money that doesn’t directly contribute to Democrats winning elections. And even if this PAC does get around to airing ads, it will soon pay a rate far higher than what a candidate’s campaign gets since candidates are guaranteed, by law, the lowest advertising rate offered by a media organization in the last 60 days of an election.
Unfortunately, the Democratic fundraising platform ActBlue—which does enormously good work to raise money for Democratic candidates (and we use it ourselves at Daily Kos to raise money for candidates we endorse)—enables the PACs above to funnel small-dollar donations into a network of consultants that has little obvious benefit to electing Democratic lawmakers. It’s something the platform clearly is aware of. In a recent email to its PAC clients, it notes platform’s term of services, including:
”All text and email fundraising solicitations must include the full name of the PAC. Abbreviations are not acceptable.” Every single example above fails this requirement.
“Fundraising solicitations must make it clear that the money is going to the PAC and not directly to a candidate.” Mary Trump’s PAC is the only one that doesn’t run afoul of this rule.
“Contribution forms must include a branding with the PAC logo or name, and the form link must not be misleading (i.e. the URL cannot be actblue.com/donate/support-kamala-harris).” Democratic Youth Wave violates this rule. Note in the screenshot above that its URL is “actblue.com/ donate/support-kamala-harris-for-president.”
Unfortunately, it would be difficult, if not impossible, for ActBlue to police what PACs do with the money they raise. The line between “legitimate” and “scam” PACs would be hard to draw. Even the legitimate ones spend a significant percentage of donor money on administrative and fundraising expenses. Who’s to say which is which?
But what Actblue can do is stamp out deceptive marketing language to try to eliminate donor confusion. It’s clear there’s plenty of that happening. Retired Americans PAC, for example, has issued nearly 7,000 individual refunds, according to FEC data. Over half of those refunds were for amounts of $10 or less, and over a thousand unique people and entities total were refunded.
PACs like this have become so parasitic that now the Harris campaign is warning donors.
“Voters have been inundated with text messages and other solicitations from political action committees claiming to support the Vice President or working to defeat Donald Trump,” Harris campaign said in a statement last week, according to The Bulwark. “In reality, these are financial scams from bad actors trying to take advantage of the urgency Democrats are feeling in this moment. We’re urging our supporters to be careful when they donate. The only committees raising money directly for our campaign are Harris for President, Harris Victory Fund, and Harris Action Fund.”
(That Bulwark article has many more examples of these scam PACs.)
You have two jobs:
Don’t donate to shady PACs. Really, there’s no reason for you to help fund any PAC, even legitimate ones, given how candidates can make better use of your dollars. Plus, you get to directly invest in candidates who best reflect your values.
Educate everyone in your network about these scams, explain that even legitimate PACs are a waste of their money, and guide them to the right places to donate—i.e., candidates and local parties.
For those hoping to directly influence an election, donating directly to candidates is by far the most efficient use of limited funds. Campaigns buy advertising at cheaper rates than political action committees, and they can spend the money on the field and on communication efforts that will benefit campaigns directly, as well as other Democrats up and down the ballot. Political parties use their funds on get-out-the-vote activities that benefit their entire slate on the ballot.
To be clear, PACs that purport to support specific candidates or slates of candidates are a completely different bucket than advocacy organizations that promote issues you might care about, many of which have an electoral component, like abortion-rights groups, environmental organizations, or ideological organizations like MoveOn, Run for Something, or Daily Kos. The former category is candidate specific—and you can support those candidates directly, far more effectively. The latter involves organizations that mobilize constituent audiences around specific issues.
Ultimately, all of us have limited funds to donate toward victory. Let’s do our part to make sure scam PACs do as little damage as possible.
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