Nearly $678 million was raised by scam PACs during the 2024 election cycle, yet less than $11 million of that sum went to Democratic candidates or the party’s national committee. That devastating finding, from data scientist Adam Bonica, makes it clear: This is theft—pure and simple—bleeding the progressive movement dry while the right builds real power.
In July 2024, I warned readers to beware of scam PACs as the Kamala Harris campaign itself urged donors to be cautious. These are fundraising operations that pledged to “take the fight” to Donald Trump, only to funnel the donations into their own coffers. I highlighted one such appeal and tracked the financials for the Retired Dems 2024 PAC.
That PAC claimed it was “electing leaders who will stand up for older Americans.” By year’s end, the PAC had raised $10.6 million and spent $4.1 million on “campaign expenditures”—leaving a tidy $6.5 million profit for themselves. Only about 40% of what it raised even pretended to benefit the campaigns it name-dropped, and that was spent on ineffective ads that further fed the consulting machine through commissions and fees.
Related | Don’t fall for scam PACs claiming to support Harris
The rot at the root of this theft is Mothership Strategies, the digital consulting agency that soaked up much of this cash. Run by two former Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee insiders who pioneered the “DOOOOM” emails I’ve been railing against since 2014, Mothership turned small-dollar voter passion into a personal ATM. As Bonica explained, after subtracting the massive operational costs—the payments to Mothership, the fees for texting services, the cost of digital ads and list rentals—the final sum delivered to candidates and committees was vanishingly small. In other words, just 1.6% of what was raised ever reached Democratic candidates.
And let’s not pretend that their ad spending really helps Democrats. According to AdImpact, the Harris campaign and her allies spent nearly $1.4 billion on political ads—roughly half a billion more than Trump—only to lose. Ads don’t win elections. They’re grossly inefficient, a default path for consultant-driven operations more focused on lucrative volume buys than strategic, grassroots investment.
To further illustrate this point, every single Democratic campaign that the affiliated Retired Americans PAC bought media for lost. All of them. Even the money they didn’t steal was pissed away.
What a catastrophic waste of resources. While conservatives invest in core infrastructure—media outlets like Fox News, think tanks like the Heritage Foundation (the force behind Project 2025), podcasters and influencers, and networks of grassroots organizers—we’re lighting hundreds of millions of dollars on fire. Imagine what the $650 million Mothership stole from well-intentioned donors could have done if campaigns themselves had spent it on voter registration or door-knocking. Imagine if it had gone into building permanent progressive infrastructure, like the media site you’re reading right now.
Instead, it went into the pockets of traitors to the cause, exploiting people genuinely worried about our democracy and eager to do something about it.
It is fucking infuriating.
I didn’t mean to turn this into a fundraising appeal for Daily Kos, but I will. The right funds its media ecosystem because it knows that shaping public opinion is the foundation of political power. We need to do the same. If you value Daily Kos, and if you value bold progressive voices still fighting to cut through the noise, we need your support.
Because it’s nauseating to think of what hard-working organizations could have done with those stolen hundreds of millions. We can’t let it happen again.
Scam PACs will be back—because they’re lucrative. Don’t give them a dime. Tell your friends and family not to either. Support candidates early, before their consultants funnel everything into mostly worthless ads. Early candidate money builds organization and grassroots voter outreach. And please please please support progressive organizations you trust. Start by investing in the progressive media you trust, like Daily Kos, and the outlets and influencers we need in this fight.
That’s how we make sure our money fuels the fight, not the scam.
