Dean Guernsey/The Bulletin via AP
Oregon Democratic congressional candidate Jamie McLeod-Skinner speaks during an election watch party at the High Desert Music Hall in Redmond, Oregon, May 17, 2022.
A new progressive super PAC is entering the fray in Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District, hoping to provide the financial boost Democratic nominee Jamie McLeod-Skinner needs to pull away in her tight race against Republican Lori Chavez-DeRemer.
The group, Fight Corporate Monopolies PAC, is a new independent expenditure arm of the anti-monopoly advocacy group Fight Corporate Monopolies, which says its mission is to “elect lawmakers who are devoted to ending the corporate chokehold on our democracy, and to demand accountability from lawmakers that will not.” According to Executive Director Helen Brosnan, the group’s $200,000 TV and digital ad buy will begin airing on stations in the Bend, Oregon, area Tuesday, with digital ads throughout the district to follow.
The ad, titled “Corporate Profiteer,” attacks “multimillionaire” Chavez-DeRemer’s personal wealth and investments in starkly populist terms, painting her as financially conflicted and out of touch with the working class. “She invested in the corporate monopolies that are price-gouging Oregonians,” the ad states. It also highlights her support for the Trump tax cuts, “enriching those same corporations and herself.”
According to Brosnan, the group’s research indicates that the populist, anti-corporate nature of the ad is doubly effective because of its potential to turn out irregular Democratic voters and persuade undecided voters. Brosnan told the Prospect the target audience will largely include political independents and independent men in particular. Recent polling, which has shown McLeod-Skinner holding on to a narrow lead, corroborates the potential effectiveness of populist messaging against Chavez-DeRemer, a health industry executive.
Chavez-DeRemer’s decision to use her fortune to finance her run may make her particularly vulnerable to populist, anti-corporate appeals. According to Federal Election Commission reports, she has loaned her campaign at least $411,000. Those loans, while substantial, have not been enough to level the playing field with McLeod-Skinner, who has managed to outraise Chavez-DeRemer by over 2-to-1 with individual donors.
But prior to Thursday, the race’s outside spending painted an entirely different picture. Amid a national cash crunch, Democrats’ national campaign groups have begun pulling back from a handful of races, including progressive activist Michelle Vallejo’s race in the crucial Rio Grande Valley, and have been tight-fisted in others where they have previously provided support.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee has planned a total of $1.8 million in spending on behalf of McLeod-Skinner, but that amount is less than half the $4.5 million that Republican electoral groups have pledged for Chavez-DeRemer. House Majority PAC, the electoral arm of the House of Representatives’ Democratic leadership, does not currently have any plans to spend in the district, despite recent polls and forecaster ratings indicating that the race continues to be a toss-up. Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District is the most expensive competitive race, by far, that the organization is planning to sit out this cycle.
Brosnan told the Prospect that groups like Fight Corporate Monopolies have to step up for candidates like McLeod-Skinner, who refuses corporate PAC money and has made populist economics a cornerstone of her campaign, because the party establishment is often reluctant to fund candidates who buck corporate interests. “Being an anti-corporate candidate means you are probably going to rub up against party leadership in many ways,” she said. According to Brosnan, McLeod-Skinner’s victory over longtime incumbent Kurt Schrader in the Democratic primary was a huge win for anti-corporate activists, but it represents a threat to corporate interests that are influential within the party.
Fight Corporate Monopolies is not the only progressive organization hoping to make a difference in the closing weeks of the race. Indivisible Action is also boosting its support for McLeod-Skinner. The group, which has invested heavily since the primary, intends to spend an additional $50,000 in the race’s closing weeks. That spending will include a mix of billboards, print advertisements in local media, and support for canvassing by local organizers. Indivisible Political Director Dani Negrete told the Prospect that Indivisible’s local affiliates in the district have played a large role in powering McLeod-Skinner’s campaign from the start, and they intend to see that commitment through to Election Day.
Negrete contrasted the work of progressive organizations with the groups that steered a flood of cash into Democratic primaries to elect moderate nominees, but have mostly remained silent during Democrats’ uphill fight to retain control of Congress in the general election. Indivisible co-founder Leah Greenberg has pointed specifically at Democratic Majority for Israel (DMFI) and United Democracy Project, two super PACs closely aligned with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee. (DMFI’s corporate-branded spin-off, Mainstream Democrats PAC, also funded by LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, spent heavily against McLeod-Skinner in the primary.)
After the Prospect asked DMFI spokesperson Rachel Rosen whether the group planned to make any independent expenditures supporting Democrats who are facing Republicans in swing districts, the organization announced its first ad buy of that nature this cycle. That ad buy will support Democratic endorsee Elaine Luria in her race against Republican Jennifer Kiggans for Virginia’s Second Congressional District.
According to Rosen, DMFI, which has spent more than $10 million in Democratic primaries in the last four years, will make a “six-figure ad buy” supporting Luria, with more to come. Rosen did not reply to a request to be more specific about the intended size of the organization’s general-election investments, but she did indicate she was “looking forward to learning from [this] piece what Justice Democrats and the Working Families Party PACs are doing to help Democrats win in November.”
While Justice Democrats’ organizational aim is specifically focused on electing anti-corporate nominees in Democratic primaries, the Working Families Party has been active across the congressional map, as it has in previous elections, making independent expenditures on behalf of a number of candidates in competitive Senate and House races. Spokesperson Joe Dinkin told the Prospect that the group intends to include the race for Oregon’s Fifth Congressional District on their list. They have already prepared an upcoming ad for the Portland area in coming weeks that hits Chavez-DeRemer over some extreme views on abortion that she has recently tried to walk back.
