Priorities USA Action is the largest Democratic Party

super PAC Independent expenditure-only political action committees, better known as super PACs, are a type of political action committee (PAC) in the United States. Unlike traditional PACs, super PACs are legally allowed to fundraise unlimited amounts of m ...

. Founded in 2011, it supported Barack Obama's 2012 re-election campaign. It was the primary super PAC supporting

Hillary Clinton Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, lawyer and diplomat. She was the 67th United States secretary of state in the administration of Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, a U.S. senator represent ...

's 2016 presidential campaign and

Joe Biden Joseph Robinette Biden Jr. (born November 20, 1942) is an American politician who was the 46th president of the United States from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he served as the 47th vice p ...

's 2020 presidential campaign. In the 2020 presidential election, Priorities USA Action spent the third highest amount of all outside spending groups. It focuses mainly on high-dollar donors; former New York City Mayor

Michael Bloomberg Michael Rubens Bloomberg (born February 14, 1942) is an American businessman and politician. He is the majority owner and co-founder of Bloomberg L.P., and was its CEO from 1981 to 2001 and again from 2014 to 2023. He served as the 108th mayo ...

is a major donor to the group. In 2023, Priorities USA Action announced that it would not run any television advertisements in the 2024 election cycle; it would instead reshape itself into a digital political strategy operation. The group announced plans to spend $75 million on digital efforts supportive of

and other Democrats in the 2024 election. ''The New York Times'' reported that "because of its size, the organization is essentially without peer." A 2024 investigation by '' Sludge'' found that the Priorities USA Foundation, which is a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) charity, has been raising millions of dollars and funneling that money to its affiliated 501(c)(4) political arm, Priorities USA. In 2022, the Priorities USA Foundation moved $10 million, or 96% of the money it had raised, to its political arm. According to ''Sludge'', this type of activity represents a "glaring loophole with current rules regulating nonprofits."

History

Barack Obama

The super PAC was founded in 2011 by former Obama campaign officials Bill Burton and Sean Sweeney to raise funds from wealthy donors, including corporations and unions, and support the re-election of President Barack Obama. As per FEC rules established in the wake of the '' Citizens United'' Supreme Court decision, the group is legally prohibited from coordinating with the candidate or his or her campaign. The group is led by Guy Cecil, who was the political director for Hillary Clinton's 2008 presidential bid. The Board of Directors includes Cecil, Jim Messina, Charles A. Baker III, Allida Black, David Brock,

Maria Echaveste Maria Echaveste (born May 31, 1954) is an American politician and civil rights activist who was a U.S. presidential advisor to Bill Clinton and White House Deputy Chief of Staff during the second Clinton administration.Stephanie Schriock, Marva Smalls, Joe Solomonese, Greg Speed, and Randi Weingarten. Its key backers in 2012 included

Paul Begala Paul Edward Begala (born May 12, 1961) is an American political consultant and political commentator, best known as the former advisor to President Bill Clinton. Begala was a chief strategist for the 1992 Clinton-Gore campaign, which carried 33 ...

, Teddy Johnston, Geoff Garin, Ellen Malcolm,

Jeffrey Katzenberg Jeffrey Katzenberg ( ; born December 21, 1950) is an American media proprietor and film producer. He served as chairman of Walt Disney Studios (division), Walt Disney Studios from 1984 to 1994, a position in which he oversaw production and busin ...

Bill Maher William MaherStated on ''Finding Your Roots'', January 12, 2016, PBS; on a series that lists "Jr." and "Sr." distinctions, Bill Maher's birth name was listed simply as William Maher, while his father was William Aloysius Maher Jr., and his pa ...

Mary Beth Cahill Mary Beth Cahill (born December 1954) is an American political advisor who served as the campaign manager of the John Kerry 2004 presidential campaign. She was Kerry's second campaign manager, replacing Jim Jordan in November 2003, after Jordan wa ...

, and Irwin M. Jacobs. On August 7, 2012, Priorities USA Action put out an ad titled ''Understands'', which "offers one man's story to suggest the investment practices of Romney and

Bain Capital Bain Capital, LP is an American Investment company, private investment firm based in Boston, Massachusetts, Boston, Massachusetts, with around $185 billion of assets under management. It specializes in private equity, venture capital, credit, p ...

led to the early death of his wife". The man, Joe Soptic, explains that after the GST Steel plant was shut down, he lost his job and health insurance for him and his family which led to his wife's death from cancer.

Politifact PolitiFact.com is an American nonprofit project operated by the Poynter Institute in St. Petersburg, Florida, with offices there and in Washington, D.C. It began in 2007 as a project of the ''Tampa Bay Times'' (then the ''St. Petersburg Times ...

rated the claim made in the ad false, noting that the ad "uses innuendo for a serious allegation, but there's no proof directly linking the death to Bain". Factcheck.org found the ad to be "misleading on several accounts", including that Soptic's wife died "five years after the plant closed". Factcheck.org also points out that, when the plant closed, she had her own employer-sponsored coverage which she lost two years later and, furthermore, that Romney was running the

2002 Winter Olympics The 2002 Winter Olympics, officially the XIX Olympic Winter Games and commonly known as Salt Lake 2002 (; Gosiute dialect, Gosiute Shoshoni: ''Tit'-so-pi 2002''; ; Shoshoni language, Shoshoni: ''Soónkahni 2002''), were an international wi ...

when the plant closed.

Hillary Clinton

In 2014, the organization began to focus efforts on raising funds to help Hillary Clinton in her 2016 presidential campaign. Jim Messina and

Jennifer Granholm Jennifer Mulhern Granholm (born February 5, 1959) is an American politician who was the 16th United States secretary of energy from 2021 to 2025. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, she previously served as the 47t ...

(former

Governor of Michigan The governor of Michigan is the head of government of the U.S. state of Michigan. The current governor is Gretchen Whitmer, a member of the Democratic Party, who was inaugurated on January 1, 2019, as the state's 49th governor. She was re-ele ...

) were drafted to serve as co-chairs of the organization. Granholm resigned in August 2015 to join Correct the Record, another pro-Clinton super PAC. As of September 2016, it had amassed $132 million in support of Clinton. The top six donors to the super PAC have given $43.5 million, which is a third of the money collected by Priorities USA Action in the 2016 election cycle. The super PAC raised $21.7 million in August 2016, marking its largest monthly fundraising haul. The group was headed by David Brock from 2014 until his resignation in February 2015. In 2016, the Center for Public Integrity (CPI) called Priorities USA Action "the 2016 presidential election's most powerful super PAC." In the lead up to the 2016 U.S. presidential election, it aired over 36,000 television advertisements, all of them attacking

Donald Trump Donald John Trump (born June 14, 1946) is an American politician, media personality, and businessman who is the 47th president of the United States. A member of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party, he served as the 45 ...

in his race against

. As a super PAC, Priorities USA Action is allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations, and labor unions. Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate spending with candidates it is seeking to aid. Hillary Clinton helped the group raise money "while also trying to distance herself from it as she touts campaign finance reform." CPI wrote that "Everyday Americans are not fueling this super PAC: Just 33 Priorities USA Action donors— who each have donated at least $1 million — account for 90 percent" of the group's $110 million haul from January 2015 through July 2016. Top donors include Donald Sussman,

George Soros George Soros (born György Schwartz; August 12, 1930) is an American investor and philanthropist. , he has a net worth of US$7.2 billion, Note that this site is updated daily. having donated more than $32 billion to the Open Society Foundat ...

, James Simons, S. Daniel Abraham,

Haim Saban Haim Saban (; ; born October 15, 1944) is an Israeli and American media proprietor, investor, musical composer and producer of records, film, and television. A businessman with interests in financial services, entertainment, and media, and an ...

, and Cheryl Saban.

Joe Biden

In 2020, after remaining neutral in the highly contested 2020 Democratic Party presidential primaries, Priorities USA endorsed

after his apparent delegate lead from the

Super Tuesday Super Tuesday is the United States presidential primary election day in February or March when the greatest number of U.S. states hold primary elections and caucuses. Approximately one-third of all delegates to the presidential nominatin ...

primaries Primary elections or primaries are elections held to determine which candidates will run in an upcoming general election. In a partisan primary, a political party selects a candidate. Depending on the state and/or party, there may be an "open pri ...

. In 2024, the group began paying social media influencers to post pro-Biden content on social media, including Tik Tok and

Instagram Instagram is an American photo sharing, photo and Short-form content, short-form video sharing social networking service owned by Meta Platforms. It allows users to upload media that can be edited with Social media camera filter, filters, be ...

. According to ''Politico'', "with few federal regulations over campaign advertising on social media, each platform sets its own rules" which "appear to be poorly enforced."

References

External links