Inside a super PAC that spends on everything but winning
The two billionaire mega donors poured $1.25 million into a super PAC that was supposed to supercharge Chris McDaniel’s insurgent bid to be Mississippi’s next Republican senator.
A year later, much of the money from Illinois shipping supply CEO Richard Uihlein and New York financier Robert Mercer is gone. Only a fraction was spent reaching voters who could boost the former state lawmaker’s uphill battle against Cindy Hyde-Smith, Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s preferred candidate in a November special election that will determine who finishes out retired GOP Sen. Thad Cochran’s term.
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“It is part of the growing trend of people using super PACs to get wealthy, rather than to direct the funds they raise toward actual political activity,” said Adav Noti, a former FEC attorney who now works for the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center in Washington.
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The Campaign Legal Center, the group that campaign finance attorney Noti works for, filed a complaint alleging Remember Mississippi made “illegal, excessive and unreported” contributions to McDaniel by paying for several catered events that were promoted as official campaign activities.