A super PAC supporting Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren launched a $9 million ad campaign in Super Tuesday states after the senator changed her mind about super PACs, Politico reports.
The Persist PAC will spend $9 million in states that vote on March 3 after already spending $3.25 million in those states. The PAC also dropped $2 million in Nevada and South Carolina, bringing the total ad buy to $14 million.
The ad buy is focused on California, Texas, and Massachusetts.
“Our goal is to show voters that Elizabeth Warren has been fighting for the middle class her whole life,” said PAC spokesman Joshua Karp.
Karp refused to say where the money was coming from.
Warren now has the biggest PAC:
Warren spent years decrying the “corrupting influence of dark money” but now has the biggest super PAC advertising in the Super Tuesday states.
A super PAC backing Joe Biden made a “low six-figures” ad buy for next Tuesday and a super PAC backing Pete Buttigieg announced a seven-figure ad buy.
Bernie Sanders also swore off super PACs but he has gotten support from the outside group Our Revolution, which he founded, along with the Nurses Union and groups affiliated with Justice Democrats and the Sunrise Movement.
Warren now defends super PAC:
Warren’s campaign lashed out after a dark money group bought ads in Iowa last November.
Spokesman Chris Hayden told Politico at the time that the “campaign was not aware of this and asks that those involved immediately stop purchasing advertisements of any kind. Elizabeth Warren believes democracy is undermined by anonymous, dark-money attempts to influence voters — whether that influence is meant to help or hurt her candidacy.”
But Warren defended the PAC after disappointing finishes in Iowa and New Hampshire.
“If all the candidates want to get rid of super PACs, count me in,” she said in Nevada. “I'll lead the charge. But that's how it has to be. It can't be the case that a bunch of people keep them and only one or two don’t.”
