NYT:
Ever since Vice President Kamala Harris lost the election in November, a big-money group that had raised over $900 million to support her but ultimately failed in its efforts has kept a low profile — even as Ms. Harris’s advisers have publicly second-guessed its approach to the campaign.
But a closed-door conference this week hosted by the super PAC, Future Forward, at a luxury seaside hotel in California made plain that the group does not plan to fade away.
Future Forward drew some of the biggest names in Democratic politics to the Ritz-Carlton resort in Half Moon Bay, Calif., south of San Francisco, to brief donors on what it thought went wrong last year — and what could come next.
Attendees included potential future presidential candidates, such as Gov. Gavin Newsom of California and Gov. Andy Beshear of Kentucky, and seven-figure Democratic donors, some of whom had questions about why Future Forward was unable to help Ms. Harris win.
At an event on Thursday with passed hors d’oeuvres like mini lobster rolls and short-rib tostones and a dinner featuring heirloom tomato carpaccio, beef tenderloin and seared sea bass, Chauncey McLean, the group’s leader, gestured to criticism of what he called the group’s “reputation” — a dependence on polling and testing and randomized trials.
“Those are all just fancy ways of saying we listen to voters and try to gauge whether any of the things we do actually work,” Mr. McLean said, according to a person in the room. The group declined to comment…..Top Future Forward advisers on Friday defended their approach to guests that included Minyon Moore, a longtime Democratic operative and a Harris confidante. They outlined that 96.3 percent of the super PAC’s spending was on advertising, as opposed to unrelated, overhead costs, and that its nonprofit gave $220 million to 73 progressive groups, according to two people in the room when the information was presented. Advisers also reviewed which of the group’s ads worked and which did not, based on data it collected.
Given Ms. Harris’s defeat, it has not been clear to well-heeled Democrats that Future Forward has a path forward. The group was founded during the 2018 election, and its leaders did not initially anticipate that it would become a long-term part of the Democratic establishment, though President Joseph R. Biden Jr. eventually made it the primary outside group supporting his re-election bid.
In recent months, Future Forward has held private conversations with donors to discuss what happened in 2024 and to express the group’s desire to remain active in politics, according to two people with knowledge of the conversations.
The group has said that since its founding it has raised $1.4 billion, but it remains to be seen whether it will be the leading group for a 2028 presidential nominee.