IF YOU’VE FOUND YOUR WAY to this newsletter, then chances are you at some point have been bombarded with very annoying, quite alarmist, often misleading texts and emails from Democratic organizations begging you for money.
Over the past decade-plus, these missives have drawn the ire of Democratic consultants, who believe the solicitations have become harmful to the party. They argue that the sheer volume and the abject fearmongering of the messages risks pissing off voters. Recipients become less trusting of party leaders and grow more skeptical of all information from Democrats—even the important stuff, like their voting location or volunteer requests.
“It’s an erosion of your trust, of our donors, and of our people, and that’s a really costly thing to lose and a really hard thing to get back,” said Betsy Hoover, who served as director of digital organizing for Barack Obama’s 2012 re-election campaign and is a founder of Higher Ground Labs, a Democratic-aligned incubator fund. “Everybody knows that this has gotten a little bit out of control.”
Recently, there have been efforts within the party to reckon with the exploitative nature of these so-called “scam PACs,” which use questionable tactics to raise millions of dollars only to then spend it on luxury hotels and fancy events—or vendors run by them or their friends. Ahead of the 2018 midterms, a group of consultants circulated a petition aimed at getting the industry to agree to standards, such as not sending texts pretending to be a candidate and banning deceptive language like “Final Notice” or “Account Delinquent” designed to spook people into handing over their credit card information. It got a couple dozen signatures. But not much changed.
In recent weeks, however, there have been signs that Democrats are making a more concerted effort. Exposés are being written on some of the more outlandish behavior. Groups acting in bad faith are being publicly called out. Officials are demanding concrete changes to online-giving policies—and online-giving portals are starting to embrace such reforms. As Kyle Tharp, author of the newsletter “Chaotic Era,” argued this week: “The era of the scam PAC may be coming to an end.” He may be right.
The most promising sign that the scam-PAC era could be coming to an end came on Wednesday when ActBlue, the online giving platform used by just about every Democratic campaign to process and collect donations, announced