Want to run for president on the Democratic ticket? Priorities USA Action has your back. For over a decade, it’s been among the leading liberal Super PACs and a key player in the Democratic Party’s White House bid every four years.
Priorities was launched in 2011 by two former staffers of President Barack Obama. Sean Sweeney and Bill Burton established the super PAC as a counter to the growing stable of dark money and outside spending in the conservative camp. Priorities became one of the first liberal super PACs to spend major outside money on ads attacking the Republican nominee—writing the blueprint for the liberal fundraising behemoths to come.
Hitting hard from the start
During Obama’s reelection campaign, Priorities was outraised by its conservative rivals, but was effective nonetheless. The group spent millions on ads slamming Republican challenger Mitt Romney’s record at Bain Capital. With super PACs legally allowed to support a candidate but not allowed to coordinate directly with a campaign, Priorities raised some eyebrows in the press, given it was headed by two former Obama staffers. (One ad produced by the Super PAC even featured the same steelworker mad at Romney that the Obama campaign had used in a spot several months earlier.) But the political outside spending arms race was officially underway, and liberals who had opposed big money now rationalized it as representing parity against well-funded conservatives. (See our recent piece on Democrats’ evolving views of dark money.)
That year, Priorities spent more than $65 million and attracted donors who would become familiar to liberal fundraisers. Top among them were Renaissance Technologies’ James Simons ($5 million), Newsweb Corporation’s Fred Eychaner ($4.5 million), and Dreamworks’ Jeffrey Katzenberg ($3 million). Priorities also took in considerable donations from top labor unions that year, like the plumbers and pipefitters union ($2.2 million) and the National Association of Air Traffic Controllers ($1.25 million); organized labor has continued to support Priorities in the last two presidential cycles even as news coverage of the Super PAC has focused on celebrity and uber-rich individual mega-donors.
A Clinton cash machine
After Obama won reelection, Priorities leadership quickly shifted gears to support presumptive 2016 candidate Hillary Clinton. The Washington Post reported that as early as 2013, the Super PAC’s leadership was happy with the results from 2012 and hoping to replicate it for the next Democratic nominee, presumably Clinton. (Both Sweeney and Burton had history working with the Clintons.)
The 2016 cycle brought a new crop of liberal mega-donors like Donald Sussman ($21 million), Haim Saban ($12 million), George Soros ($10.5 million), Daniel Abraham ($9 million) and Dustin Moskovtiz ($6 million). The Super PAC ultimately spent $133 million that cycle, almost all of it going to Donald Trump opposition media, and became the top-spending Super PAC in the country, liberal or conservative. Although Clinton lost, Priorities firmly positioned itself as the leading outside-spending ally of the Democrats’ quest for the White House.
Heading into the 2020 race, Priorities Chairman Guy Cecil decided to shift spending away from broadcast ads to web ads and other types of media. For Clinton, the super PAC had spent $95 million on broadcast spots, more than 70% of its total spending that cycle, according to OpenSecrets.org; in 2020, it spent just under $12 million on broadcast, roughly 10% of its spending, while pumping around $44 million into web ads.
Reduced prominence
Priorities’ spending total of roughly $110 million in 2020 was eclipsed by liberal super PACs like the Senate Majority PAC, House Majority PAC and Future Forward. Other pro-Biden super PACs like Unite the Country and anti-Trump groups like American Bridge 21st Century attracted some of the mega-donors that had previously routed most of their money to Priorities. The Super PAC was now just one in a stable of outside spending and dark money groups at the Democrats’ disposal, and its donor roll reflected it: A large portion of its money came from other super PACs like SMP ($38 million), its own 501(c)(4) arm ($26.7 million), and dark money groups like the Sixteen Thirty Fund ($4.5 million).
With Biden now in the White House, Priorities has shifted its energies toward promoting Biden’s agenda. Polling conducted by the group found wide support for the Democrats’ pandemic relief plan, and Cecil wants to get the word out as much as possible, particularly in key swing states with Senate elections coming up, so voters remember who helped them heading into the 2022 midterms. Although in each of the last three cycles, the super PAC has spent more on bashing the Republican nominee than supporting the Democrat, this could indicate a new, positive direction for Priorities.
“We didn’t adequately explain what we had done,” Biden said in a March speech, referring to the 2009 stimulus package. “Barack was so modest, he didn’t want to take, as he said, a ‘victory lap.’ I kept saying, ‘Tell people what we did.’”
