Obama-turned-Clinton Super PAC Urges Donors to Give in Midterms

An effort to assuage Democrats worried that 2016 is making donors forget about 2014

  • Share
  • Read Later

The Democratic super PAC that helped reelect President Barack Obama and is now preparing to back former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s potential White House candidacy is encouraging its donors not to overlook this fall’s midterm elections.

In a Priorities USA Action memo to contributors first obtained by Politico, Buffy Wicks, the group’s executive director, said the group isn’t sitting out the midterms and neither should donors. “The first battleground of the 2016 presidential campaign is the 2014 mid-term elections!” Wicks wrote. “That is why for  over a year we  have had regular communication and coordination with the folks running the Democratic Super PACs focused on the 2014 House and Senate races.”

Priorities has donated $250,000 to both Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC, groups working to elect congressional Democrats this fall.

“In a coordinated strategy with Democratic Super PACs focused on the 2014  election, we have strongly encouraged donors to support midterm efforts and won’t aggressively raise for 2016 until after the midterm cycle,” Wicks added.

The group has recently added former Obama campaign manager Jim Messina and former Michigan Gov. Jennifer Granholm as co-chairs of its board, which includes a host of other Clinton backers.

The letter is both a plea for support, and an effort to assuage the concerns of Democrats who are worried the early Hillary-boosting efforts are distracting from efforts to hold the Senate and make gains in the House. Guy Cecil, the executive director of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, took to Twitter earlier this month to push Democratic donors to first look to the midterms.

“The next Democratic President will have a much easier time if she – or he – has a Democratic House and Senate,” Wicks said.

The full memo is below:

[scribd id=208922586 key=key-18pnkjf288seu83abvde mode=scroll]