Harris Camp Warns Supporters: Don’t Get Duped by ‘Scam PACs’
Democrats for years have grumbled about shady operatives within their ranks. It’s bursting out into public right as the campaign heats up.
KAMALA HARRIS’S TEAM IS WARNING DONORS not to fall prey to “financial scams” from groups sending email and text messages that suggest they’re raising money for the vice president.
Those messages came rapidly last week as a constellation of seemingly innocuous political action committees tried to take advantage of the swell of donor enthusiasm around Harris. That fundraising push agitated some Democrats, who believe that these groups are being run by unscrupulous operatives rushing to grab grassroots funds meant for the presidential campaign. Even more remarkable is that one of the officers at these PACs also runs a firm helping the Harris campaign raise money, effectively working multiple sides of the same donor pool.
“Everyone in politics knows this whole operation is a scam designed to trick people who think they are donating to help a candidate they care about,” said one prominent Democratic digital operative. “They point to the fact they give a small percentage of the money they raise directly to campaigns, but that is just the cost of doing business for moments of scrutiny while siphoning the lion’s share into organizations they control.”
At first blush, the messages sent by these outside groups seem legitimate.
One recent text included a picture of Barbra Streisand, the famed singer, actress, and longtime Democrat, saying how “excited” she is “to support KAMALA HARRIS!” and offering a “700% MATCH ACTIVE” for donations to help “crush” Donald Trump.
But the text wasn’t from Streisand or the Harris campaign. It was from “Democratic Power,” a group started in October 2022 at an address that appears to be a UPS store in Southeast Washington, D.C.
Democratic Power has few traces online, save stray websites that contain records of its expenses or solicitations, like this one suggesting Hillary Clinton supports them while offering a “700% MATCH ACTIVE.”
That 700-percent match is almost certainly fake. As for the $2.2 million the group has raised since the start of 2023, federal records show that only a small portion ($363,000) was sent to candidate committees like the Biden-Harris campaign and its allied super PAC. Nearly $1.3 million went to operating expenses, often directed to entities with ties to Democratic Power.
Democratic Power is not some rogue operator. It’s part of a growing universe of entities that have taken advantage of loose campaign finance regulations and the proliferation of online giving to raise millions of dollars, which they then use to raise more cash.
While these practices have been around for years, they’ve become particularly visible recently. Democratic Power has sent solicitations citing George Clooney’s support for Harris. The group Democrats United has been mass-texting donation requests that leave the impression they’re filling up Harris’s coffers. Democratic Congress, another group, has offered—you guessed it—“700%” matches to donors to “help Kamala Harris and Democrats win!” The group Democratic Victory has put out emails saying “top donors . . . have just reactivated” a “600% MATCH to make sure Democrats have the resources to DEFEAT Donald Trump.”
The text and email campaigns have grown so widespread that the Harris campaign made the rare decision to send up a public flare, warning recipients not to be duped.
“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,” said Lauren Hitt, a Harris campaign spokesperson, in a statement last week. “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.”
While unaffiliated, exploitative outside groups have been a scourge to office-seekers for years, what sticks out about the current cohort is the infrastructure propping them up.
Many of the groups sending texts in the wake of Harris’s emergence as the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee have leaned on the data list acquisition firm PACtion, text and call platforms provided by Scale to Win, and consulting services through the shop Bluefoot Political, LLC. These entities receive more money from the PACs than the candidate committees themselves.
Bluefoot Political, LLC is a relatively obscure firm that appears to be based in Lake Oswego, Oregon while Scale to Win has partnered with major Democratic institutions.
PACtion, meanwhile, is a big player in D.C., with clients that include hundreds of Democratic campaigns and dozens of members of Congress. It also has done work for the Biden ticket, having earned more than $1 million for list acquisition from the campaign’s joint fundraising committee just this cycle.
When reached for comment, Ryan Morgan, who founded PACtion, declined to directly address whether there was a tension in assisting both a presidential campaign and the PACs that the presidential campaign is now accusing of scamming donors. Instead, he defended his work.
“That’s what I do. I provide fundraising data to Democratic and allied organizations,” he said. “We are absolutely integral to those groups in the same way we are integral to the Biden campaign.”
Morgan initially requested to speak off record. He then twice put The Bulwark on hold for several minutes at a time, explaining later that he was consulting with his communications and legal staff. Eventually, he asked to talk by phone the next morning. Half an hour before the scheduled talk time, he sent a text message acknowledging that in addition to his role at PACtion, he is “an officer” for Democratic Power.
“I’m certain that the Harris campaign isn’t referring to Democratic Power with the statement that you sent to me,” Morgan wrote, referring to Hitt’s comment. “And I fully expect that once this cycle is over and FEC reports are out, that will be abundantly clear.”
Morgan declined to answer followup questions, including about whether he was also involved in other groups—such as Democratic Victory, whose website, according to domain-registration records, was registered by Veracity Media, a firm that Morgan founded. He also declined to comment on whether PACtion continues to work with the Harris campaign.
Hitt also declined to comment on the current relationship between the Harris campaign and PACtion.
BRENDAN FISCHER, A LONGTIME campaign finance law expert, said neither PACtion nor the “questionable committees” with ties to it had crossed legal boundaries. PACs are not subject to the “personal use” ban, which prohibits the use of donor money for personal benefit. Democratic Power and the others “were using at least some portion of the funds raised to make contributions to federal and state candidates,” even if it was just a fraction of the money raised.
But Fischer also suggested PACtion was taking advantage of the central role it had come to play within Democratic circles. “Political committees will pay data firms top dollar for access to a dataset that can help them raise the funds needed to run a campaign,” he said, “but the firm’s executives might be tempted to use that same dataset to raise money for its own sake.”
Both parties have bemoaned the rise of groups like Democratic Power as well as the more fraudulent “scam PACs,” saying they’re preying on the politically uninitiated and cannibalizing donor lists.
Trump and his team have issued repeated warnings against groups that have tried to profit and fundraise off the misimpression that they’re directly helping the former president. Democratic operatives have spent years warning that their digital fundraising has been invaded (and, to a degree, ruined) by operatives who blitz petrified voters with pleas for more cash to help stop Trump’s impending rise.
But, in an odd way, for a politician to be a target of these groups is a signifier of status. They were less predatory during Biden’s campaign this spring and summer. But as Harris began raising tens of millions of dollars online, they sprang to life quickly, sending a barrage of text messages suggesting that they were working hand-in-hand with the campaign.
Democrats United has offered a “700%” donor match to “help Kamala Harris and Democrats win!” Democratic Congress has done the same. And in addition to touting Streisand, Democratic Power, Inc. has sent out texts explaining that—wouldn’t you know it—you can get a “7X-Match” to “defeat Trump!”