Tag: independent expenditures

A field guide to green: the outside groups that will be spending tens of millions in Minnesota this election season

Debates over the 2018 midterms have centered on whether there will be a so-called “blue wave” that sweeps Democrats into power, but one phenomenon is crystal-clear: there will be a tidal wave of political spending by outside groups hoping to influence key races for U.S. House and Senate.

Call it the “green wave,” if you like — and there’s no question it’ll be crashing down hard on Minnesota. The state is home to four top-tier House contests and a nationally-watched Senate race, making it one of the country’s biggest battlegrounds as Democrats and Republicans fight for control of Congress. It’s possible no single media market in the country will be saturated with more political communication than that of the Twin Cities, where TV and radio stations reach voters in virtually every competitive race.

Many of those ads will inform you that they’re paid for by a group you may not recognize: maybe their political bent will be clearly identified, like with the National Republican Congressional Committee; other times, they’ll have a generic name like “House Majority PAC.”

View the complete September 14 article by Sam Brodey on the MinnPost.com website here.

 

Paulsen Campaign Manager’s PAC Money Hypocrisy

As we noted in a post earlier this month, Erik Paulsen’s campaign has benefitted from a large outside expenditure (that’s what this type of purchase is called in campaign lingo) by the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund.  That early buy for television commercials was $2.3 million.  Here’s the link to the Roll Call article citing the expenditure amount.

What happens after Dean Phillips holds a forum on campaign finance reform?  We just found out.

In the August 28, 2018, morningtake email, we found the following:

CD3: via press release from Erik Paulsen’s campaign, VERBATIM: “Dean Phillips is hosting an issue forum tonight focused on getting money out of politics with a PAC that has over $500,000 of TV ads reserved for him. While Phillips has spoken out against PAC money, he’s silent on PAC money being spent on his behalf, and is now campaigning with PACs despite his opposition to them…While Dean Phillips claims not to take PAC money, he gladly allows PAC money to be spent on behalf, and he even campaigns with them. End Citizens United, whose President is attending Phillips’ event tonight, is just one PAC slated to spend big money for Phillips. Nancy Pelosi’s House Majority PAC, a SuperPAC, has millions reserved on TV to spend on Phillips’ behalf.  YATES: “Dean Phillips is a campaign finance fraud who wants to put our economy as risk by raising taxes and implementing massive new spending schemes” said John-Paul Yates, Paulsen’s campaign manager”