Democratic super PACs get jump on 2014, 2016

“There will always be in the Democratic Party and the progressive community a skepticism about outside money writ large,” said Mollineau, whose group is considering jumping into governors’ races and possibly state legislative and ballot campaigns. “But I also think there were converts won over this last election cycle, and there is now a sense that we need to compete with super PACs and outside groups, and we can win elections if we do.”

That message seems to have resonated with New York author and philanthropist Amy Goldman, another new big donor who gave $4 million in all to Priorities USA Action, Planned Parenthood and other super PACs. “I’m new to politics. I have never felt mobilized before to this extent,” she said.

Goldman said she has already been solicited post-election by outside groups, including American Bridge, and could give early, as she did in 2012, “to get the ball rolling and encourage other donors to give.” Still, she called super PACs “a reality that I wish would go away, but I had to fight on their terms.”

Some top Democratic donors — including Democracy Alliance founding member George Soros — continue to grapple with the morality-versus-pragmatism question. Soros famously poured $24 million into Democratic outside efforts in 2004. But he has yet to come close to that figure since, giving $4.3 million to Democratic outside groups in 2012, despite publicly opposing outside advertising of the sort that most super PACs spend their cash on.

Soros spokesman Michael Vachon attended the Democracy Alliance conference but declined to comment on it or Soros’s plans for 2014 and beyond.

Democracy Alliance chairman Rob McKay said the plan is to keep going, but goals include campaign finance reform. “We spent wisely on every aspect of the 2012 campaign … but we’re not resting, instead we’re mobilizing to get progressive policies passed in D.C. to finally put in place comprehensive immigration reform and limit the effect of money on our political system.”

Sources tell POLITICO that Pelosi and Schumer thanked the donors for their support and an attendee said Sens.-elect Elizabeth Warren and Tammy Baldwin and New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman were there as well.

Also at the conference, George Soros’s son sat on a panel that examined the role of money in the first post-Citizens United presidential election and assessed efforts to reduce its influence. Jonathan Soros boasted that Friends of Democracy — the super PAC he co-founded and underwrote with at least $762,000 — defeated seven of eight Republican members of Congress it targeted with ads and mail asserting they were beholden to big special interest money. According to an official with the group, it is considering entering Democratic and Republican primaries in 2014 to support candidates who favor tougher restrictions on campaign cash or oppose those it views as corrupted by it.

Jonathan Soros acknowledged the irony of using a big-money super PAC to call out politicians for big money ties, according to someone who attended. And in a POLITICO op-ed last week, he wrote, “What this election shows is that having more money from the wrong sources can cost a candidate the election rather than help win it.”

Another lesson Democrats should try to carry forward into 2014 and beyond, said Paul Begala, a strategist for Priorities USA, is the benefit of having a small number of outside groups with clearly defined duties. By comparison, the GOP may have actually hurt itself by having more better-funded super PACs and outside groups that muddled the general election message and fueled damaging primaries, he said.

“I do think that the demolition derby on the right couldn’t have helped them,” Begala said. “You had the Koch brothers and all their various entities bumping into each other, and then bumping into [Karl] Rove, and then bumping into the Romney super PAC.”

Priorities USA Action, which was represented at the Democracy Alliance conference by co-founder Bill Burton and pollster Geoff Garin, reported spending $65 million attacking Romney. That was a fraction of the $281 million spent on the presidential race by the Rove-conceived Crossroads groups or the pro-Romney Restore Our Future super PAC, according to Federal Election Commission data. But Priorities was the only outside group dedicated exclusively to Obama. Similarly, House Majority PAC and Majority PAC were the only super PACs devoted entirely to electing to Democratic candidates to the House and Senate, respectively.

In 2010 House races, Democratic groups were outspent by outside Republican groups by a margin of 3 to 1. In 2012, House Majority PAC, at times working with Friends of Democracy, helped cut the GOP outside advantage to less than 1.5 to 1, spending $42 million and winning 32 of the 52 races in which it played.