As we all know, Amy McGrath came out of the chute with a bang, raising serious money for her campaign to win the Democratic nomination this May, then beat Mitch McConnell this fall.
In addition, multiple PACs are raising money for the race, with some of them raising money specifically for her.
She and the PACs have raised so much money, in fact, that most observers assume she will win the primary without too much trouble.
But … what if she doesn’t? What if, by some interesting set of circumstances, either Mike Broihier or Charles Booker win the nomination? What happens to all that money?
We contacted the PACs to see what they would do with their money, and we checked into what the McGrath campaign could do with their money. Here’s what we found out.
The McGrath Campaign
What an official campaign committee for federal office can do with its money is regulated by the Federal Election Commission (FEC). As you can imagine, there are fairly specific rules about what they can with the money they raise, outside of spending it on their campaign.
One of the first and most basic of campaign finance rules is that the candidate cannot use any campaign funds for personal expenses. That seems obvious, but any number of candidates get in trouble for it every election cycle.
What CAN a federal candidate committee do with the money, then, if their candidate loses in the primary?
- First, refund any donations made for the general election, since she isn’t running in that election.
- Donate to charities, as long as the candidate does not receive compensation from the organizations and the donation is not used by the charity to benefit the candidate.
- Donate to other federal candidates, but only up to the maximum allowed. So, if Booker or Broihier won the primary, the McGrath campaign could donate $2,000 for the general election.
- Donate to the state or national party. The campaign can transfer as much money as it wants to either the KDP or the DNC.
- Transfer the funds to a future election committee for the same candidate (but not necessarily the same seat or office). So, McGrath could set up a campaign committee for a future race of some kind, and transfer some or all of the money there.
The PACs
OK, that takes care of what McGrath (and Broihier and Booker) have to do and can do with their campaign money if they don’t win the primary. What about the PACs out there raising money for this race?
We contacted three different PACs that are either associated with McGrath or are explicitly raising money for the Kentucky 2020 Senate race, and asked them a simple question: If Amy McGrath doesn’t win the primary, what are you going to do with the money you’ve raised? Here are their responses (or lack thereof).
Feminist Majority PAC
This is a PAC that raises money for candidates that support certain women’s issues, as well as trying to get more women elected in general. In looking for PACs supporting McGrath, we came across this one using the Google machine. Turns out it was from the 2018 cycle, when they supported McGrath against Andy Barr. (They still had their 2018 candidates front and center on their web site.) So, not relevant for this cycle.
Fire Mitch, Save America
This is the PAC led by Eric Hyers, who was Andy Beshear’s campaign manager in the 2019 governor’s race. The launching of this PAC made the news, both because of the Beshear staff involvement and because as most observers saw it as a sign of support from the state Democratic establishment.
The “Fire Mitch, Save America” PAC is unabashed in its sole support for McGrath. The home page of their web site states in big bold type: “The SuperPAC dedicated to replacing Mitch McConnell with Amy McGrath.”
The McGrath campaign caught some heat for encouraging donors to give to this PAC if they have already maxed out to the campaign committee. The campaign manager, Mark Nickolas, was unapologetic.
“We’ve got to fight fire with fire,” Nickolas said. “We have to defeat him at the game he created. We’re not going to run this race with one arm tied behind our back.”
We reached out multiple times to the Fire Mitch PAC, asking for an answer to our question as to where their money would go if McGrath loses. We never got a response.
The Ditch Mitch Fund
This PAC has been in existence for longer than McGrath’s official campaign. It was started in 2018 by Ryan Aquilina, specifically to raise funds for the 2020 Kentucky Senate race and to defeat Mitch McConnell.
We interviewed Aquilina last year, and he noted that he formed the PAC without having any idea of who might run against McConnell. He just wanted to get McConnell out of Washington.
After McGrath got into the race, though, the Ditch Mitch Fund ran some ads calling on people to help them support Amy McGrath. So, we wondered what their stance would be if she lost.
Here’s the official statement we received from Aquilina when we asked:
Our mission and strategy hasn’t changed, so you can still use the previous statements we’ve given you:
We are an organization solely dedicated to defeating Mitch McConnell, and we plan to support 100% whoever is the Democratic nominee against Mitch. The Ditch Mitch Fund’s resources will be used to do the exact same thing no matter who wins the primary:
Support the Democratic nominee and defeat McConnell.
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