Category Archives: campaigns

“Trump’s Victory Is a Major Win for Elon Musk and Big-Money Politics”

NYT:

His victory lap was the culmination of an effort that began only six months ago and depended on a risky gamble: Mr. Musk’s new super PAC effectively led Mr. Trump’s get-out-the-vote operation in battleground states — and Mr. Trump entrusted a crucial campaign function to a political neophyte.

It is difficult to disentangle Mr. Musk’s ground work from other influences that propelled Mr. Trump to the White House. But there is little doubt that the election was a win not only for Mr. Musk but also big-money politics: An ultrawealthy donor took advantage of America’s evolving campaign-finance system to put his thumb on the scale like never before.

Mr. Musk almost single-handedly funded an effort that cost more than $175 million. His canvassers knocked on close to 11 million doors in presidential battleground states since August, including about 1.8 million in Michigan and 2.3 million in Pennsylvania, according to people with knowledge of the matter. Another $30 million was spent on a large direct-mail program, and about $22 million on digital advertising, including on Trump-friendly mediums like Barstool Sports.

When Mr. Musk first met with political advisers in the spring, he focused on turning out 800,000 to a million “low-propensity” voters in seven battleground states — people, especially in rural areas, who might be inclined to vote for Mr. Trump but who had spotty voting records. It is yet unclear whether Mr. Musk succeeded on that metric, although Mr. Trump claimed a dominating margin in rural areas, a focus of Mr. Musk’s.

The super PAC’s apparent success could inspire similar efforts, helping to transform modern campaigns. New guidance from the Federal Election Commission, issued in March, now allows presidential campaigns to closely coordinate field operations with super PACs.

“There is no reason to expend the precious hard money of federal campaigns on ground game activities if there are outside organizations with a proven track record and a verifiable infrastructure,” said the conservative activist Ralph Reed, whose own super PAC, the Faith and Freedom Coalition, said it knocked on close to 10 million doors on Mr. Trump’s behalf.

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“Musk to Spend Election Night With Trump; Elon Musk has spent $119 million on a super PAC supporting Donald Trump and held events on his behalf. But his ownership of X is especially valuable.”

NYT:

Elon Musk plans to spend election night with former President Donald J. Trump, giving Mr. Trump direct access to the person controlling one of key information platforms on what could be a chaotic evening….

Mr. Musk is joining the evening as a Trump superfan. He has spent at least $119 million on a super PAC supporting Mr. Trump and has held events on his behalf in Pennsylvania. He and Mr. Trump talk several times a week.

But one of the biggest benefits that Mr. Musk has brought to the Trump team is his ownership of X, the website formerly known as Twitter.

Democrats fear that Mr. Musk may use his personal feed on X to promote election misinformation. In the weeks leading up to Tuesday, Mr. Musk has posted raw data on early votes to falsely suggest that Mr. Trump has an insurmountable lead in places like Pennsylvania, and he has shared his concerns about the reliability of voting machines.

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“Elon Musk Pushes ‘Ballot Curing’ in Pennsylvania, Eyeing Tight Margin”

NYT:

Elon Musk’s super PAC has been emphasizing “ballot curing” in the final days of the presidential campaign, a highly expensive strategy meant to pick up a few additional votes in a razor-thin election.

Mr. Musk’s group, America PAC, has sent a new last-minute field team into the state of Pennsylvania, according to two people with knowledge of the move who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss it. One of the people said it was described to him as an “emergency” squad. A spokesman for America PAC declined to comment….

The fact that Mr. Musk’s super PAC is also pushing “ballot curing” in Pennsylvania suggests that, in the final hours, he and his team think the state will be very tight and that curing even a few ballots could be worth it to help Mr. Trump win the state.

Blitz Canvassing, a large contractor of America PAC, is leading the ballot curing operation for the super PAC in Pennsylvania, the people with knowledge of the move say. Blitz Canvassing has not been involved in the super PAC’s Pennsylvania door-knocking operations to date, making it all the more notable.

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“Canvassers for Elon Musk’s America PAC Were Fired and Stranded in Michigan After Speaking Out”

Wired:

Standing next to her hastily packed suitcase in Michigan’s Macomb County Wednesday night, Tyra Muldrow had a bad feeling in her gut.

“I have this eerie feeling that I need to get the hell up out of there,” says Muldrow, a 20-year-old Black woman from Florida. She was in Michigan as a door knocker, hired by a subcontractor for Elon Musk’s America PAC operation to turn out the vote for Donald Trump in the heavily contested working-class suburbs of Detroit.

Muldrow and the rest of her canvassing group of roughly a dozen people had just been fired en masse, after WIRED reported that they had been tricked and threatened as part of Musk’s get-out-the-vote effort. Speaking publicly for the first time about her ordeal, Muldrow says that the canvassers in her group were fired with little explanation beyond a complaint that someone had spoken with the press. Many, including her, were still owed money. Muldrow had to find her own way home; others are still stranded in Michigan.

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“‘All hell has broken loose’: Inside Elon Musk’s high-stakes pro-Trump door-knocking effort”

NBC News:

Nine Republican operatives and canvassers connected to the Elon Musk-backed America PAC told NBC News that they’re worried the high-profile grassroots operation on behalf of Donald Trump’s presidential bid may hamper his chances in states decided by slim margins. 

America PAC has been tasked with much of the pro-Trump canvassing operation as his campaign focuses its efforts on a more limited effort targeting so-called low-propensity voters. In turn, the Musk-backed organization is going door to door in all of the major swing states to help turn out Trump supporters and have them fill out surveys about their voting intentions.

But the people who spoke to NBC News, many of whom have years of experience in GOP field operations, said the operation may not be the well-oiled machine many in the party might hope it is, especially considering how much money is behind the effort. 

In particular, they raised concerns about canvassers’ submitting an inordinate amount of suspect data. That data, some of which NBC News has reviewed, includes entries submitted far from the home or while canvassers are logged into Wi-Fi networks — telltale signs that a door was not knocked on, sources said. In addition, a video explaining how to “spoof” one’s location while submitting data drew attention  in Nevada and Arizona, raising further concerns. 

“I know it’s been flagged for America PAC that this has been transpiring,” an operative formerly on the effort said.

As some of that data spilled into public view last month, an operative close to the effort said: “All hell has broken loose” inside the PAC.

The super PAC denied that the suspicious entries were debilitating the effort. America PAC provided a statement signed by leaders at all of the major canvassing vendors working under its umbrella, as well as the head of its data platform, that disputed concerns over their data, pointing to in-house auditing programs each company employs.

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“Election officials are outmatched by Elon Musk’s misinformation machine”

CNN:

Elon Musk’s misinformation megaphone has created a “huge problem” for election officials in key battleground states who told CNN they’re struggling to combat the wave of falsehoods coming from the tech billionaire and spreading wildly on his X platform.

Election officials in pivotal battleground states including Pennsylvania, Michigan and Arizona have all tried – and largely failed – to fact-check Musk in real time. At least one has tried passing along personal notes asking he stop spreading baseless claims likely to mislead voters.

“I’ve had my friends hand-deliver stuff to him,” said Stephen Richer, a top election official in Arizona’s Maricopa County, a Republican who has faced violent threats for saying the 2020 election was secure.

“We’ve pulled out more stops than most people have available to try to put accurate information in front of (Musk),” Richer added. “It has been unsuccessful.”

Ever since former President Donald Trump and his allies trumpeted bogus claims of election fraud to try to overturn his loss to Joe Biden in 2020, debunking election misinformation has become akin to a second full-time job for election officials, alongside administering actual elections. But Musk – with his ownership of the X platform, prominent backing of Trump and penchant for spreading false claims – has presented a unique challenge.

“The bottom line is it’s really disappointing that someone with as many resources and as big of a platform as he clearly has would use those resources and allow that platform to be misused to spread misinformation,” Michigan Secretary of State Jocelyn Benson told CNN, “when he could help us restore and ensure people can have rightly placed faith in our election outcomes, whatever they may be.”

Benson has come the closest to matching Musk on social media. She pushed back on a claim he made about registered voters in the Wolverine State, accusing Musk of spreading misinformation. Her post, by the measurement posted on X, gained more than 33 million views.

It still failed to sway Musk, who accused Benson of “blatantly lying to the public.”

Such is the conundrum for officials in key battleground states six days before Election Day: They haven’t identified how to neuter the misinformation Musk has increasingly amplified to his 200 million followers and allowed to permeate on the X, formerly known as Twitter, platform with little intervention.

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“Elon Musk-Funded PAC Supercharges ‘Progress 2028’ Democrat Impersonation Ad Campaign”

404 Media:

An Elon Musk-funded super PAC has expanded an advertising campaign in which it is impersonating Democrats and targeting registered Republicans with policies unpopular with conservatives they say Kamala Harris will pass if she wins the election. The policies, which are not supported by the Harris campaign, include “mandatory” gun buy-back programs, allowing undocumented immigrants to vote, keeping parents out of decisions about gender-affirming care for minors, and imagining “a world without gas-powered vehicles.”

The campaign, called Progress 2028, is designed to look like it is the Democratic version of Project 2025 and lists a set of policies that the group says Harris would enact if elected president. In actuality, the entire scheme is being orchestrated and promoted by an Elon Musk-funded group called Building America’s Future, which registered to operate “Progress 2028” as a “fictitious name” under the PAC, according to documents uncovered by OpenSecrets, which investigates money in politics. Building America’s Future is the group we previously reported on, which is targeting Muslims in Michigan and Jewish people in Pennsylvania with opposing messages about Harris’s stance on Israel’s invasion of Palestine. 

Until last weekend, the group had been relatively quiet, running only two very similar ads on Facebook that said Harris was running on a platform for “safe, inclusive schools … where every young person can thrive, regardless of their gender identity or expression.” Another ad said “SAY IT WITH US: Every person, no matter their immigration status, undocumented or not, deserves access to Medicare.” Republicans in swing states have also been receiving text message ads with similar messaging, according to screenshots posted to Reddit, research shared with 404 Media, and registered Republicans who have shared screenshots of ads with 404 Media. The ads feature caricatured, exaggerated versions of Democratic policies that are widely unpopular with conservatives. …

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“In Election’s Final Days, Dark Money and ‘Gray Money’ Fund ‘Dirty Tricks'”

NYT:

The campaign literature that landed in Republican mailboxes in North Carolina this week was jarring. On one side was a sonogram image of a human fetus, with this message: “Her heart is beating. We all know it. Only the courageous few will protect her.” On the other side was a call to action: “You have the courage and the conviction to vote for Randall Terry.”

But the mailer did not come from supporters of Mr. Terry, a third-party presidential candidate and longtime leader in the anti-abortion movement.

Rather, the fine print showed it was the work of a nascent super PAC with the anodyne name of Civic Truth Action that was funded by millions of dollars in difficult-to-trace money linked to Democrats trying to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the next president.

The final days of a high-stakes election are often a time of political mischief. The message pushed by Civic Truth Action — purportedly to help Mr. Terry but aimed at siphoning votes from former President Donald J. Trump — may be among the most cynical. But it is far from unique. Across the country, supporters of Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump are taking advantage of a patchwork of lax laws that allow partisans to funnel millions of dollars through daisy chains of opaque entities into hard-hitting campaign tactics, all to try to sway the tiny slice of swing-state voters who could make the difference.

Campaign operatives and donors have long deployed creative accounting to mask the flow of money into politics. But in the decade and a half since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision paved the way for unlimited spending on political advertising, it has become particularly difficult to follow the big-money flow in the weeks before Election Day, despite the majority opinion’s assertions that “prompt disclosure” of political spending would enable voters “to make informed decisions.”

“Now it’s sort of undeniable that the court was wrong with those predictions,” said Ian Vandewalker, a lawyer at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit that works to reduce the influence of big money in politics. Mr. Vandewalker published an analysis this week of the increase in difficult-to-trace funding to super PACs. “The ability to hide funding for those types of things is attractive for people who want to engage in dirty tricks,” he said in an interview.

If done effectively, operatives can hide the provenance of this money until after the election is called — or perhaps forever.

Here is how: Major donors give to so-called dark-money organizations, usually nonprofit groups that are not obligated to disclose their donors. Those groups then give the money to super PACs, which are technically required to disclose their donors. But the trail goes cold when those super PACs list dark-money organizations, instead of individual donors.

This cash, sometimes called “gray money,” has become increasingly popular in both parties, particularly for late spending that operatives and donors want to mask…..

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“Musk’s X to undershoot revenue goals from political advertising”

FT:

Elon Musk’s X is on track to fall well short of its goal of bringing in $100mn in revenue from political advertising in 2024, raising just $15mn in the year to date, largely from an increasing reliance on Republicans and the Trump campaign. 

Last year, X chief executive Linda Yaccarino told industry figures she was aiming to make $100mn annually in political ad revenues in an election year, according to several people familiar with the projections. The company is trying to offset revenue losses caused by big brands pulling spending from the platform.

However, data from X’s political ads transparency library analysed by the Financial Times show that the company has brought in less than a fifth of its target as of October 23, with under two weeks to go until the November 5 vote. 

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“These super PACs are spending more to get Trump elected than his campaign itself”

Politico:

Donald Trump is counting on heavy financial backing from an array of super PACs to get him elected — far more than Kamala Harris is.

The groups supporting Trump, working across different platforms to get him elected, spent far more money than the president’s own campaign in a crucial stretch before the election. Harris’ massive operation, meanwhile, still spent more than the outside groups backing her.

The six largest Trump-supporting super PACs spent a combined $159.6 million in the first 16 days of October, compared to $99 million in spending from the former president’s campaign, according to filings with the Federal Election Commission this week.

Super PACs aren’t new, and Vice President Kamala Harris is getting plenty of support from them too. The three largest Harris-supporting super PACs spent a similar $154.5 million over the same period — still less than the $165.8 million spent by the Harris campaign.

The outside money plays an outsized role because of the two campaigns’ wildly different financial circumstances: Trump has struggled with fundraising compared to Harris and has not built out much infrastructure in terms of campaign staff and swing-state offices. As a result, he has relied more on outside groups not only for traditional support across TV, radio and digital platforms, but for canvassing and texting operations that the Democratic side has largely kept in-house.

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“JPMorgan, FirstEnergy to Offer More Political Spending Details”

Bloomberg:

JPMorganChase & Co., FirstEnergy Corp., and Sempra are the first to be designated “model code companies” by organizations that urge corporations to voluntarily disclose more information about their political footprint.

The companies have publicly committed to following the code, which sets out a framework for political donating, said Bruce Freed, who runs the Center for Political Accountability whose group, along with the Zicklin Center for Governance and Business Ethics at the University of Pennsylvania’s Wharton School, developed the model code.

Here is the Model Code.

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“As Election Looms, Disinformation ‘Has Never Been Worse'”

NYT:

The Democratic Party’s vice-presidential nominee has been falsely accused of sexually molesting students. The claims have been spread by a former deputy sheriff from Florida, now openly working in Moscow for Russia’s propaganda apparatus, on dozens of social media platforms and fake news outlets.

A faked video purporting to show one victim — creating fake people is a recurring Russian tactic — received more than 5 million views on X, a platform owned by the world’s richest man, Elon Musk. Mr. Musk has not only leaned all in for the Republican nominee, former President Donald J. Trump, but he also used his platform to reanimate discredited claims about the validity of the election’s outcome.

Smears, lies and dirty tricks — what we call disinformation today — have long been a feature of American presidential election campaigns. Two weeks before this year’s vote, however, the torrent of half-truths, lies and fabrications, both foreign and homegrown, has exceeded anything that came before, according to officials and researchers who document disinformation.

The effect on the outcome on Nov. 5 remains to be seen, but it has already debased what passes for political debate about the two major party candidates, Mr. Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris. It has also corroded the foundations of the country’s democracy, undermining what was once a shared confidence that the country’s elections, regardless of who won, have been free and fair….

Meta’s stance signaled a desire to step back from America’s fractious political debate, though the company says it continues to moderate false election content. Mr. Musk has by contrast used X to thrust himself square into the middle of it.

He dismantled the platform’s teams that flagged false or hateful content and welcomed back scores of users who had been banned for violating company rules.

He has raised millions of dollars for Mr. Trump’s bid and campaigned for him in appearances in Pennsylvania. In posts to his 200 million followers — more than Mr. Trump had in his heyday on the platform — he has also repeated unsubstantiated claims that the Democrats are recruiting ineligible immigrants to register to vote.

Last week, he echoed the refuted assertion that Dominion Voting Systems rigged the count in 2020, a falsehood that resulted in a $787.5 million settlement paid by Fox News.

Mr. Musk also, according to a recent study, played an outsize role in amplifying content promoted by Tenet Media, a news outlet that the Justice Department accused last month of covertly using $10 million in laundered funds from Russia to pay right-wing media personalities like Tim Pool, Benny Johnson and Dave Rubin.

It is not clear whether Mr. Musk knew of the Russian links — the influencers claimed they did not. He certainly engaged regularly with Tenet Media’s content, though, and Tenet regularly tagged him, presumably to draw his attention, according to the study, published by Reset Tech, a nonprofit research and policy organization based in London.

At least 70 times from September 2023 to September 2024, he responded to or shared accounts linked to Tenet and its influencers to his followers on X — many of them relating to this year’s election, the study found…

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“Trump files extraordinary complaint claiming election meddling by UK Labour party”

The Guardian:

First King George III. Now Sir Keir Starmer.

Citing the American revolution while misspelling “Britian”, Donald Trump’s campaign has filed an extraordinary complaint against the UK’s Labour party for what it claims is “interference” in the US presidential election.

The Trump campaign alleged that in recent weeks, Labour recruited and sent party members to campaign for his opponent, Kamala Harris, in critical battleground states in a bid to influence the 5 November election.

“When representatives of the British government previously sought to go door-to-door in America, it did not end well for them,” says a letter from Trump’s legal team to the Federal Election Commission in Washington.

“This past week marked the 243 anniversary of the surrender of British forces at the Battle of Yorktown, a military victory that ensured that the United States would be politically independent of Great Britian” – an incorrect rendering of “Britain”.

It is understood that volunteers are campaigning in the US in their own personal time, rather in their capacity working for the the Labour party.

The letter goes on to request an immediate investigation into “blatant foreign interference” in the election in the form of “apparent illegal foreign national contributions made by the Labour Party of the United Kingdom” and accepted by Harris’s campaign committee.

It also refers to a report in the Washington Post that claims advice has been offered between Labour and the Harris campaign, and other reports regarding meetings between senior Labour staff and the Democratic campaign….

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