By Corinne Murdock |
A political action committee (PAC) financed by Democrat billionaires is making good on its promise to spend millions to ensure Republican gubernatorial candidate Kari Lake’s defeat.
The Republican Accountability PAC, an advocacy arm of the Republican Accountability Project (RAP), spent nearly $3.7 million on advertising against Lake according to trigger reports on the secretary of state’s campaign finance website. They began spending their millions a week after the primary election, and haven’t spent for or against any other candidates.
Those expenditures break down as follows: Trilogy Interactive, over $1 million; Google, over $840,000; Longwell Partners, over $441,000; Tegna, over $284,000; Scripps Media, nearly $245,000; Fox Corporation, nearly $230,000; Gray Media, over $222,000; Meta Platforms, over $202,000; Allen Media Broadcasting, over $100,000; Clear Channel Outdoor, over $83,000; and Extreme Reach, over $1,000.
It appears that one of the RAP leaders benefits greatly from the PAC money. Sarah Longwell, RAP executive director and the PAC’s treasurer, owns Longwell Partners. In addition to the over $441,000 her communications firm received for anti-Lake advertising, her firm has received at least over $554,000 for advertising and political consulting according to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Longwell, a self-described “Never Trumper” is also the Defending Democracy Together co-founder (the parent organization behind RAP, and one of the top-spending dark money groups in the 2020 election), The Bulwark publisher, and former Log Cabin Republicans national board chair.
The only media company with an Arizona address that received Republican Accountability PAC money was Tegna. The listed address is the building that houses 12News and the Arizona Republic. Tegna was formerly part of Gannett before the media giant split into two publicly traded companies in 2015: Tegna, the broadcasting and digital operations, and Gannett, the publishing operations. Gannett shareholders retained the shares that became Tegna shares.
Gannett’s primary shareholder is BlackRock, the world’s largest asset manager and one of 100 strategic partners for the World Economic Forum (WEF). The WEF is the globalist lobbying organization that invented the social credit score system similar to one used currently by the Chinese government, called ESG investing or scoring, short for “Environmental, Social, and Governance” scoring.
Tegna’s board of directors consists of major corporate players representing nearly all sectors: its chairman is also a president of Dell Technologies, while other members include the executive vice president of Pfizer, the CFO of global sports entertainment giant DAZN Group and former Morgan Stanley executive, the former vice president of Coca-Cola, the former president of HBO, the former vice president and CFO of E*Trade, the president and CEO of WNET and former president of NBC, and former vice president of Time Warner Cable and HBO.
Last year, Maricopa County Recorder Stephen Richer and Board of Supervisors Chairman Bill Gates teamed up with RAP for a video speaking against the Arizona Senate’s audit of the 2020 election. About a month before Richer and Gates released their RAP video, RAP’s executive director Sarah Longwell donated $250 to Richer’s PAC, Pro-Democracy Republicans of Arizona.
A week before Longwell’s donation, Richer’s PAC also received $100 from Mindy Finn (formerly Feinberg), the founder of another self-described Never Trumper advocacy group called Stand up Republic. Both Defending Democracy Together and Stand Up Republic receive funding from nonprofit networks associated with Pierre Omidyar, eBay’s founder, a partner organization of the lucrative leftist dark money network originating with Arabella Advisors.
The other top PACs spending millions against candidates are the Future Forward PAC and MoveOn.org PAC: both leftist dark money groups, both spending to defeat Trump-backed Arizona candidates. In addition to Lake, they spent to defeat attorney general candidate Abraham Hamadeh and secretary of state candidate Mark Finchem.
Corinne Murdock is a reporter for AZ Free News. Follow her latest on Twitter, or email tips to corinne@azfreenews.com.
