Sep.07

electoral-vote.com

Dem 51

Ties 3

GOP 46

The DCCC Has Given Super PACs Detailed Plans--in Public

Candidates and super PACs aren't supposed to coordinate, although the Supreme Court is working hard to break down that barrier. That way (usually Republican) megadonors, who are legally banned from giving a candidate more than $3,500 per election, can give tens of millions of dollars to super PACs and have them act as virtual extensions of the campaign. Both parties try to get around this, but the way the DCCC is doing it is very open. Just go to dccc.org/races and scroll down to see the 55 races the DCCC sees as potentially competitive.

Clicking on a race gives a detailed game plan for that specific race to any super PAC that wants to help out, without any actual coordination. It even tells what media to advertise in and when. This gives super PACs specific oppo research without having to do it themselves, and specific plans and how to use the supplied material best, including whom to target (e.g., white women, small business owners, independents, Jews, Latinos, etc.). Reading a website and then using that information is not illegal.

Here are a few excerpts extracted from the write-ups. Each of the excerpts below is just a few sentences from a much longer writeup, but these give the general flavor:

• FL-13: Anna Paulina Luna: Anna Paulina Luna is a corrupt Washington politician who has enriched herself in office. She invested up to $500,000 in an oil and gas exploration company owned by a donor, while sitting on a committee overseeing the oil and gas industry, prompting allegations of conflict of interest. She voted eight times for tariffs that have raised prices for household items and groceries for families and hurt small businesses. She voted to allow corporations to charge hidden fees and junk fees. And she supports the war in Iran that has caused the cost of gas to skyrocket.
  
  
• IA-01: Mariannette Miller-Meeks: On the very same day Miller-Meeks opposed capping the price of insulin at $35/month for seniors on Medicare, she received a campaign contribution from a PAC for the largest insulin manufacturer in the country. As health care and drug prices skyrocket, Miller-Meeks has taken over $680,000 from the drug and insurance industries—while giving them over $8 billion in special handouts. Worse, Miller-Meeks did not disclose renting a Washington home owned by two Pharma lobbyists—using over twenty five thousand of our taxpayer dollars to pay for it.
  
  
• OH-07: Max Miller (R-OH): Miller voted for a $4 trillion giveaway to billionaires and corporations and paid for it by kicking almost half a million Ohioans off of their health care and driving our utility bills higher and higher. Now he's cheerleading an unnecessary war in Iran that isn't making us safer, all while driving gas prices through the roof. Max Miller has hundreds of thousands of dollars in investments in companies pushing AI data centers, and then voted to expand tax breaks for data center developers and reduce regulations on AI.
  
  
• NJ-07: Tom Kean Jr. (R-NJ): Kean is one of the most active stock traders in Congress, making nearly 200 stock trades worth over $3 million while in office. Kean even broke the law multiple times when he failed to disclose his trades. Kean owns millions of dollars in big drug and insurance company stock and has voted to protect their profits while New Jersey families pay more. Kean broke voters' trust by completely disappearing from Congress for 117 days with no explanation for his absence, leaving his constituents with no representation in Congress. While he was gone, he missed 140 votes, including on important issues like the cost of living and the war in Iran—yet he continued to trade up to $600,000 in stocks while he was missing.
  
  
• NY-17: Mike Lawler (R-NY): Lawler was a lobbyist for monopoly utility companies. He's taken tens of thousands of dollars from the utility industry, then voted to hike our utility costs. Lawler took nearly half a million dollars from Big Pharma and insurance companies, while voting to let them raise New Yorkers' monthly premiums by as much as 50% and jack up the cost of prescription drugs. And he's voted 100% of the time with Trump, even when it raised our costs.
  
  
• PA-10: Scott Perry (R-PA): Perry voted against the bipartisan law to lower housing costs and stop Wall Street from buying single family homes. He was the only member of Congress from Pennsylvania, Democrat or Republican, to vote against this law. Instead he sided with his Wall Street donors who gave him more than $300,000. Perry is a tool of insurance companies. He took more than $72,000 from the insurance industry and voted to kick more than 22,000 people from Central Pennsylvania off of their insurance. Perry took more than $180,000 from energy companies and voted for policies that caused our electric prices to skyrocket.
  
  
• VA-02: Jen Kiggans (R-VA): Jen Kiggans voted for the largest cuts to Medicaid in history, which cut nearly $44 million from local hospitals, and could kick more than 21,000 people from Hampton Roads off their health insurance. Kiggans voted against a bipartisan bill to extend ACA tax credits, which caused insurance premiums to skyrocket. Kiggans' support of Trump's reckless war with Iran has increased energy and gas prices for Hampton Roads families.

The instructions to the super PACs are to go heavily into the corruption aspect in many cases and how it affects the voters. A lot of the descriptions are of the form "Congressman [X] took $[Y] from [Z] industry lobbyists and then voted for a bill that increased your food/healthcare/insurance etc. costs to please his or her corporate masters." Voters in both parties are strongly against corruption, so tying corrupt Republicans to the higher prices Americans are experiencing could be a good strategy. In other races, the proposed attack is that the incumbent is ignoring his or her constituents and just doing what Trump has ordered.

Super PACs are also being advised to go all in on attacking Republicans for supporting data centers and giving them big tax breaks so they can ruin the local environment, drive electricity and water prices through the roof, and take away your job.

Many of the pages also note the positive qualities of the Democrat in the race and how to pitch that. In some cases, there is video footage linked to the page that the super PAC can edit and use. In other cases, there are links to other resources. In a few cases, the full oppo research report is made available—for example, here is the full 158-page oppo report on Jen Kiggans.

We imagine that the NRCC is doing the same thing, but we don't know where it is. On the other hand, Democrats are not in bed with big industries as much as Republicans, so the corruption aspect may not work well for the red team. The focus there is probably more on how the candidate is a socialist/communist who wants to take your rights away, but that is just a guess since we can't find the NRCC page (if there is one). (V)