Note that large funders such as SBF can and do support political candidates with large donations via PACs, which can advertise on behalf of a candidate but are not allowed to coordinate with them directly. But direct donations are probably substantially more cost-effective than PAC money because campaigns have more options on how to spend the money (door-knocking, events, etc not just ads) and it would look bad if a candidate was exclusively supported by PACs.
The optics concern makes sense to me, but I’m 90% certain PACs and Super PACs can and do spend on things that are not ads? Eg paid canvassers/phone bankers, polling, mailers, etc.
They can do things other than ads. The real limitation is that by law candidates are entitled to the best unit rate on ads that a tv, cable, or radio station offers, and other political organizations are not. And the rates for other orgs can be quite a bit higher (the linked article cites other articles saying up to 6 times as much). Additionally, especially early in the race, how much money a candidate has raised directly for the campaign will be taken by other potential donors, volunteers, endorsers, the media, etc. as a sign of whether it is viable, and there are pretty solid reasons for this related to whether the candidate is actually putting in the work, so I don’t think money a Super PAC plans to spend would be counted this way in their eyes. So if you like what a PAC or a Super PAC is doing, it’s more cost-effective to look at the candidates they support and just give the money directly to the candidate.
My understanding is there are different kinds of PACs. Guarding Against Pandemics has a PAC that cannot receive more than $5000 from individual donors, but can donate up to $5000 directly to campaigns.
Note that large funders such as SBF can and do support political candidates with large donations via PACs, which can advertise on behalf of a candidate but are not allowed to coordinate with them directly. But direct donations are probably substantially more cost-effective than PAC money because campaigns have more options on how to spend the money (door-knocking, events, etc not just ads) and it would look bad if a candidate was exclusively supported by PACs.
The optics concern makes sense to me, but I’m 90% certain PACs and Super PACs can and do spend on things that are not ads? Eg paid canvassers/phone bankers, polling, mailers, etc.
Additionally (and I’m not advocating for this), there seem to be many ways to get around the coordination ban, e.g.: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/18/us/politics/buttigieg-votevets-super-pac.html
They can do things other than ads. The real limitation is that by law candidates are entitled to the best unit rate on ads that a tv, cable, or radio station offers, and other political organizations are not. And the rates for other orgs can be quite a bit higher (the linked article cites other articles saying up to 6 times as much). Additionally, especially early in the race, how much money a candidate has raised directly for the campaign will be taken by other potential donors, volunteers, endorsers, the media, etc. as a sign of whether it is viable, and there are pretty solid reasons for this related to whether the candidate is actually putting in the work, so I don’t think money a Super PAC plans to spend would be counted this way in their eyes. So if you like what a PAC or a Super PAC is doing, it’s more cost-effective to look at the candidates they support and just give the money directly to the candidate.
Ah, this is interesting about the ad rates-thanks for the link!
My understanding is there are different kinds of PACs. Guarding Against Pandemics has a PAC that cannot receive more than $5000 from individual donors, but can donate up to $5000 directly to campaigns.