I wrote about rip-off PACs just lately, and—unsurprisingly—they appear to be ramping up their efforts.
This textual content simply landed on my telephone, from “Dems2025,” a rip-off PAC whose web site presents an entire lot of nothing:
Click on by way of, and also you get a web page that includes President Donald Trump’s face and a “survey” screaming: “STAND AGAINST DONALD TRUMP’S AUTHORITARIAN ATTACKS ON FREE SPEECH! Do you stand with Jimmy Kimmel against Trump’s war on free speech?”
After a couple of pretend questions, it insists that it’s “moving fast” to have interaction in two particular elections to switch Marco Rubio in Florida and JD Vance in Ohio. Besides these elections aren’t till November 2026. However urgency is the con’s favourite trick.
And the fundraising pitch? Straight from the rip-off PAC playbook:
Dems 2025 is shifting quick. We’re getting ready assist for the entrance traces. However we’re nonetheless wanting our mid-month purpose, and this second received’t wait.
Proper right here, Proper now, you may make an affect towards taking again the Senate Majority. Will you chip in $25 or extra to assist us attain 589 donations earlier than midnight to make sure we will win crucial open seats like these?
What “front lines”? What “preparing support”? How are they “moving fast”? Who is aware of, who cares—they actually don’t.
The donation hyperlinks go to ActBlue, which is supposedly cracking down on rip-off PACs, but right here’s one other one slipping by way of.
The homepage declares, “We don’t take years off—because democracy doesn’t either.”
Cute, besides they actually didn’t exist till Might 29, 2025, per FEC filings.
And the “Contact” web page isn’t even practical, that includes inventory template language:
Let individuals know what to succeed in out about and what to anticipate after contacting you. Don’t neglect to decide on a storage choice for submissions
(555) 555-5555
Feeling assured that these guys are on the up-and-up and prepared for individuals who attempt to contact them?
The treasurer is Chris Koob, a principal at MBA Consulting Group, which handles compliance paperwork for political candidates and PACs. So principally Koob recordsdata types and slaps his title on them—nothing extra. However who’s really behind Dems2025 remains to be unknown—I searched the tackle within the FEC’s database, and it’s a UPS retailer. It’s actually only a rented mailbox.
Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff of Georgia is amongst MBA Consulting Group’s lengthy listing of high-profile purchasers.
Up to now it’s raised simply over $19,000, and the one reported expense is ActBlue itself. Subsequent submitting, count on to see a textual content vendor added to the listing—these spam blasts don’t ship themselves.
The hazard right here isn’t simply individuals dropping a couple of bucks; it’s that rip-off PACs poison the properly. They burn by way of donor lists—how the hell did they get my quantity?—and confuse individuals into considering that they’re giving to Democrats, making it more durable for professional campaigns and organizations like Each day Kos to lift cash for actual work.
However that’s not ActBlue’s fault. Letting rip-off PACs like Dems2025 use their platform? That’s on them and the remainder of the political institution that tolerates it. Would MBA Consulting Group proceed working with these scammers in the event that they risked dropping purchasers like Sens. Adam Schiff, Amy Klobuchar, Jon Ossoff, and Raphael Warnock?
This has to finish, and you are able to do your half by ensuring that your community of activists and donors is aware of to look out for these scams—and refuses to fall prey to them.
