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For at least the past year, a PAC connected to the Congressional LGBTQ+ Equality Caucus has been sending out fundraising emails promoting the work of a widely discredited PAC founded by Republican operatives, including one who had to step down after it was revealed he was a serial harasser of young men.
The emails sent by Equality PAC are in the breathless, over-the-top, and hectoring style of so many donor solicitations, and generally don’t have anything to do with LGBTQ people or causes, instead alluding to figures MSNBC-watching Democrats might be familiar with. Sample subject lines include “Liz Cheney Just HUMILIATED Jim Jordan… Ouch!!”; “(we’re CRYING) Mark Kelly!”; and “Joe Manchin just SHOCKED US.”
But some stand out because they heap praise on the Lincoln Project, a PAC founded in late 2019 by Republican operatives who were now making it their mission to defeat Donald Trump. The group made a number of ads that went viral on Twitter and gathered millions in donations from prominent mega-donors, along with $1.9 million from Senate Majority PAC, which is officially connected to the Democratic Party. But the Lincoln Project was also a hive of self-dealing, the New York Times would later report, sending $27 million (nearly a third of all the money it raised in 2020) to a firm run by one of its co-founders. A later study by the Super PAC Priorities USA found that those viral ads were remarkably ineffective at persuading voters. And one of the LP’s co-founders, John Weaver, was a closeted gay man who had been sexually harassing young men, including some teenagers, for years. (He stepped down from the LP.) The last time the LP was in the news, it was for organizing a stunt during the 2021 Virginia gubernatorial campaign in which the LP arranged for people dressed as “tiki torch” white supremacists to approach Republican Glenn Youngkin’s campaign bus when it arrived in Charlottesville. This was so offensive and bizarre that Democratic candidate Terry McAuliffe denounced it as “disgusting and distasteful” and the state Democratic Party called it “shameful and wrong.”
This history has apparently not dampened Equality PAC’s enthusiasm for the group. In one fundraising email from April 4, the PAC declares, “AMAZING: LINCOLN PROJECT FOUNDERS CONTINUE FIGHT TO DEFEAT TRUMP-LOVING REPUBLICANS.” It goes on to ask recipients to rank the LP on a scale of “excellent” to “terrible.” If someone tries to submit a response they are taken to a longer poll that asks questions like “Did you know that Equality PAC helped elect 9 LGBT+ Democrats and countless allies in 2020?” (The two responses are “Yes, that is AMAZING!” and “No, but that is AMAZING!”) At the end of that poll, respondents are asked to donate to Equality PAC.
"These types of ridiculous surveys aren't designed to collect meaningful data, but to trick potential donors into landing on a donation page," said Civic Shout CEO Josh Nelson, who works to help progressive groups grow their email lists in sustainable ways. "Unfortunately, this type of substance-free deception is par for the course for Mothership Strategies, the firm that runs Equality PAC's email program."
Mothership is the subject of frequent criticism in progressive circles for its clickbait-y email come-ons, but its client list includes many prominent Democratic PACs, and it has had an enormous amount of financial success since Trump’s 2016 election. In the 2020 cycle, Equality PAC paid Mothership $1 million, more than a sixth of what it raised that cycle.
Mothership has been using the Lincoln Project’s name in email blasts from multiple clients, including the Progressive Turnout Project, which, on December 6 and 25 last year, sent identical emails asking recipients to rate the LP. These emails didn’t offer unqualified praise for the shady PAC, however, saying vaguely, “While some Democrats say we need all the help we could get to defeat Trumpism, others are not happy with the group's tactics.” For whatever reason, Mothership’s emails on behalf of Equality PAC have been more positive. On February 19, an email told recipients, “The Lincoln Project is a group of Republican campaigners who went VIRAL during the 2020 election cycle for helping defeat Trump—yes, you read that right.” On April 8, an Equality PAC email about Clarence Thomas was subject-lined, “The Lincoln Project humiliated him. H-U-M-I-L-I-A-T-E-D.”
These emails don’t directly ask donors to give to the Lincoln Project, but by hyping up the PAC they are clearly burnishing its reputation and giving Democrats the impression that the scandal-ridden group is worth their time and money. It’s especially bizarre that a PAC devoted to electing LGBTQ candidates would single out the Lincoln Project for praise given the nature of Weaver’s scandal. Blue Tent reached out to the Democratic legislators who chair the LGBTQ+ Equality PAC about these emails, as well as the Equality PAC and Mothership, but didn’t hear back.
"Equality PAC Co-Chairs Mark Takano and David Cicilline are fantastic legislators who I have tremendous respect for—and the work of the LGBTQ Equality Caucus couldn't be more important," Nelson said. "That’s why it’s so disappointing that they have turned their email program over to a deeply unethical email firm with a reputation for using guilt-tripping and deception to raise money."