Republicans have quietly formed a new super PAC that is preparing what appears to be a significant push to persuade former President Donald J. Trump’s voters to vote early or by absentee ballot.
The group, America PAC, was created last month and remains fairly secretive. But over the last two weeks, it has spent $6.6 million on behalf of Mr. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee, according to public filings, vaulting it suddenly into the top tier of pro-Trump outside groups in the general election.
On its little-publicized website, the group is collecting voters’ information and encouraging them to register to vote, to request an absentee or mail ballot, or to pledge to vote, calling the race “the most consequential election of our lifetime.”
People who enter their ZIP code are directed to the form on an official state election website where they can complete their voter-registration forms. Voters who put in their information for an absentee ballot are assured that they will be sent more information shortly. And those who pledge to vote are informed that the super PAC will “stay in touch” with them.
Category Archives: campaigns
How Bob Bauer Channels His Inner Trump (for Biden Debate Prep)
Q and A with Politico.
“Disappointment and ‘depression’: Biden’s biggest fundraisers watch their advantage vanish”
Joe Biden’s campaign planned to bury Donald Trump in an avalanche of cash.
Instead, his allies are bracing for a slugfest without the benefit of a fatter wallet, as financial reports showed Trump outraising Biden in back-to-back months, hauling in huge sums after his 34 felony convictions and erasing Biden’s longstanding financial edge.
Democrats in recent days largely downplayed Trump’s new financial lead in the same way Trump’s allies had when Biden was running ahead in the money race — saying the president would have enough money to compete.
But privately, several Democratic strategists and donors were reeling.
“There was the strategy of raising all this money on the front end so we could have this huge edge,” said one Biden bundler, granted anonymity to speak candidly. “The whole point of it was to come out with a sizable cash advantage and, you know, we’re now even and it’s June. … I have no other word for it other than ‘depression’ among Biden supporters.”
Another major Biden bundler, also granted anonymity, called the development “disappointing, but not surprising.”
“Trump raised so much last month he erased Biden’s cash advantage”
Former President Donald Trump’s huge May fundraising haul erased President Joe Biden’s longstanding cash advantage as the two gear up for a rematch.
Trump’s campaign had $116.6 million in the bank at the end of May, compared to $91.6 million for Biden.
It wasn’t due to poor fundraising on the incumbent’s part — Biden’s campaign saw a decent fundraising rebound in May after a weak showing the month prior. But Trump’s fundraising while he was on trial in New York that month, punctuated in the final days when he was convicted, was enough to surpass Biden in campaign cash, something that had long been seen as a crucial strength of his.
Indiana: “Beckwith poses a ‘serious threat’ to Braun’s campaign, says GOP powerhouse lawyer” (Includes Jim Bopp Memo)
Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Braun faces a “serious threat” to his candidacy after Noblesville pastor Micah Beckwith was selected as his running mate, according to an internal campaign memo penned by prominent conservative attorney Jim Bopp.
The five-page report, obtained by the Indiana Capital Chronicle Sunday evening, outlines “several negative effects” of Beckwith’s nomination, including concerns that Beckwith will cause “division and chaos” and “undermine” Braun’s leadership.
Chief among Bopp’s worries, however, is the possibility that Beckwith could keep Braun out of the Statehouse altogether.
“Beckwith’s nomination as Lt. Gov poses a serious threat to the Braun candidacy, election and administration,” Bopp wrote, later saying in the memo that “the Democrats have a real opportunity to launch a serious campaign in the fall because of Beckwith’s nomination, and it has already begun.”
The Terre Haute-based lawyer theorized that current Democratic gubernatorial nominee Jennifer McCormick could be swapped out with Joe Donnelly, a former U.S. senator from Indiana, and she would be moved to the lieutenant governor spot on the ticket.
Bopp said the Democrats’ campaign “would focus almost exclusively” on Beckwith and his “radical” views. He pointed specifically to a video Beckwith made after the Jan. 6 insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, in which he said the assault was “divinely inspired.”….
When asked about the memo, Bopp said in a statement to the Capital Chronicle that, “I do not discuss confidential communications with others. And I think it was despicable that someone leaked it.”
Citing First Amendment, Michigan Supreme Court narrows construction of voter intimidation statute after 2020 robocall prosecution
People v. Burkman and People v. Wohl, decided yesterday by the Michigan Supreme Court, a 5-2 decision. The majority narrowed construction of the statute and remanded for further consideration. The dissenting opinions, which concurred in part, would have held that the conduct fell outside the scope of the statute. The core of the holding is that the criminal statute still extends to “proscribe that speech only if it is intentionally false speech that is related to voting requirements or procedures and is made in an attempt to deter or influence an elector’s vote.” On remand, the court will decide whether the facts of the case fit that here. From the opinion (lightly revised):
Continue reading Citing First Amendment, Michigan Supreme Court narrows construction of voter intimidation statute after 2020 robocall prosecutionSocial-pressure mailers back in the news
Since Gerber, Green & Larimer’s 2008 study – among the most widely cited articles in political science since that time – there’s been both academic and practical interest in the sizable turnout impact of mailings using the shaming impact of voter-file information about election participation, both with and without measures to mitigate backlash.
Green & Gerber later warned against the most heavy-handed version of this sort of shaming, noting that though voter-participation data is usually public, that fact isn’t always salient to voters — and that “Your phone will ring off the hook with calls from people demanding an explanation.”
But the heavy-handed versions persist (and not just for fundraising), and controversy follows. To wit: the campaign mailer in a recent Texas primary runoff:
Hard to beat this split-screen
NBC News on courting older voters with phone banks and pickleball.
WaPo on courting younger voters with beer and birth control.
And the money quote: “‘You have to be able to drink the beer whether you voted or not,’ said Brian Svoboda, a campaign finance attorney at Perkins Coie LLP.”
[Also: don’t forget the soundtrack.]
“Trump raises millions in Newport Beach and Beverly Hills in post-conviction appearances”
The LA Times reports on the former President’s fundraising since the verdicts were announced.
“Trump’s Campaign Donor Website Crashes After Guilty Verdict”
WinRed, the payment processor for Republican campaign donations, crashed after former President Donald J. Trump’s felony conviction, a technical issue that his campaign attributed to the number of people trying to donate in the immediate aftermath of the verdict.
“So many Americans were moved to donate to President Trump’s campaign that the WinRed pages went down,” the Trump campaign said in a statement on social media.
The website no longer shows an error message when visiting the donation page for Trump’s campaign, though it is unclear if the website is properly functioning and processing donations. The Trump campaign did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
“Debunking misinformation failed. Welcome to ‘pre-bunking’; Election officials around the world are adopting ‘prebunking’ campaigns, as AI and other threats jeopardize voting.”
Election officials and researchers from Arizona to Taiwan are adopting a radical playbook to stop falsehoods about voting before they spread online, amid fears that traditional strategies to battle misinformation are insufficient in a perilous year for democracies around the world.
Modeled after vaccines, these campaigns — dubbed “prebunking” — expose people to weakened doses of misinformation paired with explanations and are aimed at helping the public develop “mental antibodies” to recognize and fend off hoaxes in a heated election year.
In the run-up to next month’s European Union election, for example, Google and partner organizations are blanketing millions of voters with colorful cartoon ads on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram that teach common tactics used to propagate lies and rumors on social media or in email.
One 50-second animation features a fake news campaign in which “visiting tourists” are blamed for a “litter crisis.” The example is meant to educate voters about “scapegoating,” a disinformation technique that places unwarranted blame for a problem on a single person or group.
Google has no plans to launch such a campaign in the United States, where former president Donald Trump and his allies are spreading falsehoods about widespread voter fraud in the 2020 election, laying the groundwork to cast doubt on the results of Trump’s rematch with President Biden in November.
“Trump’s Reported Fund-Raising Tops Biden’s for First Time”
Former President Donald J. Trump and the Republican Party out-raised President Biden and the Democrats last month for the first time in this election cycle, according to campaign officials, as Mr. Biden’s pace of fund-raising slowed significantly from March.
Mr. Trump’s advisers have said privately that his campaign, together with the Republican Party and all of their affiliated committees, raised $76.2 million in April. The Biden campaign said on Monday evening that it had raised $51 million in April with the Democratic National Committee — which was just over half as much as they raised in March, and also a touch less than they raised in February.
In filings with the Federal Election Commission on Monday, Mr. Biden’s campaign committee reported taking in $24.2 million in April, compared with $43.8 million in March.
Mr. Trump’s campaign still lags far behind in total cash on hand, the April filings show. Mr. Biden’s campaign ended April with $84.5 million on hand, holding roughly steady from the preceding month, while Mr. Trump’s campaign had $48 million in net cash on hand, up from $45 million in March….
“See How Easily A.I. Chatbots Can Be Taught to Spew Disinformation”
The responses, which took a matter of minutes to generate, suggested how easily feeds on X, Facebook and online forums could be inundated with posts like these from accounts posing as real users.
False and manipulated information online is nothing new. The 2016 presidential election was marred by state-backed influence campaigns on Facebook and elsewhere — efforts that required teams of people.
Now, one person with one computer can generate the same amount of material, if not more. What is produced depends largely on what A.I. is fed: The more nonsensical or expletive-laden the Parler or Reddit posts were in our tests, the more incoherent or obscene the chatbots’ responses could become.
And as A.I. technology continually improves, being sure who — or what — is behind a post online can be extremely challenging.
“Gene Mazo survives petition challenge in NJ-10 special election”
Eugene Mazo, a Rutgers law professor with a penchant for filing for political office in order to test out state election laws, has just barely survived a challenge to his nominating petitions for the special election in New Jersey’s 10th congressional district.
Leslye Moya, the co-executive director of the New Jersey Democratic State Committee, had filed a challenge against many dozen of Mazo’s 243 signatures, claiming that they had a variety of deficiencies. But Administrative Law Judge JoAnn LaSala Candido determined that only 43 of them were invalid, keeping Mazo at 200 acceptable signatures – exactly the threshold required for ballot access.
The attorney representing Moya, Raj Parikh, said at the end of the hearing that he will not officially withdraw his challenge until he speaks with his client.
The judge’s determination means that, at least for now, the Democratic primary field for the late Rep. Donald Payne Jr. (D-Newark)’s congressional seat will remain at 11 candidates. Two of those candidates, former East Orange Councilwoman Brittany Claybrooks and Newark City Council President LaMonica McIver, are also facing petition challenges that have yet to be resolved.
Either McIver or Claybrooks are far more likely to end up prevailing in the July 16 Democratic primary than Mazo, whose runs for office are usually not concerned with actually winning.
Mazo, a scholar of election law, has run for Congress several times before, utilizing unusual or provocative ballot slogans in order to challenge the state’s slogan restrictions. (In 2022, for example, he filed for the 8th congressional district using slogans like “Supported by the Governor” and “Endorsed by the New York Times,” statements that were not true.)
This year, Mazo filed at first with three ballot slogans referencing a variety of famous figures, fictional and real: “Vladimir Putin Is A Murderous Warmonger” in Essex County, “Xi Jinping Will Destroy Taiwan” in Hudson County, and “The James Bond of Newark” in Union County. But those were rejected by the Division of Elections; Putin and Xi, after all, had not granted Mazo their permission to use their names….