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Sean McElwee is seen in a 2018 video arguing that the Immigration and Customs Enforcement agency should be shut down.
The new centrist polling outfit Blueprint, funded by venture capitalist and co-founder of LinkedIn Reid Hoffman, made a big splash with its initial poll, picked up by Semafor and other outlets, showing that President Biden’s economic message isn’t working. The poll insisted that voters have prioritized lower prices over jobs, and that where Biden had succeeded on price reductions, like through expanded use of the Strategic Petroleum Reserve and moderating inflation, the public generally didn’t believe the accomplishments happened.
The polling, conducted by YouGov and overseen by the political consulting firm Slingshot Strategies, definitely presented the frame you would expect from something bankrolled by the moderate Hoffman, arguing that Biden is too ideologically focused and isn’t highlighting his most centrist actions, in particular fostering more oil and gas exploration and supporting Republican-led efforts to block changes to the criminal code in D.C. Essentially, the poll results counseled Biden to vocally break from the left, which isn’t exactly rocket science given the usual trajectory of general elections. You could argue that with respect to Israel’s war with Hamas, it’s already happening.
But the poll, and Blueprint’s rollout, is interesting for another reason. Sean McElwee, the former rising star in Democratic politics who was fired late last year from Data for Progress, the polling firm and think tank he founded, was an unpaid consultant on the Blueprint poll. Slingshot partner Alyssa Cass confirmed that “Sean is one of a number of people we’ve talked to when putting together this project.” Cass added that McElwee “had no role in the fielding of this poll” and that only Slingshot was paid by Blueprint for the project.
Evan Roth Smith, who oversaw the poll for Slingshot, said over email that “I like to confer with people who have specific expertise undertaking a project that matches their specialty… in this case Blueprint is a narrative and framing project, and Sean has clear (in my view, at least) expertise there.” Smith added that McElwee to his knowledge wasn’t involved in any similar project, so he was available to discuss because he had no “competing interests.”
McElwee did not respond to a request for comment.
The return from oblivion for McElwee is not terribly unexpected, even with his fairly spectacular flameout. McElwee was found to have gambled on elections that Data for Progress conducted polling for. He was a consultant to Sam Bankman-Fried, the founder of disgraced cryptocurrency exchange FTX who was convicted recently of allowing his associated hedge fund to lose customer funds. He created a second polling organization that was doing work on behalf of a crypto lobbying firm. And there were credible allegations that McElwee engaged in a straw-donor scheme, where he both donated large sums to candidates preferred by Bankman-Fried (and may have been paid back by SBF), and pressured an employee at Data for Progress to donate to candidates with the promise of paying them back. Both would be violations of campaign finance law if true.
The last allegation is what got McElwee ousted from Data for Progress, according to New York magazine. McElwee and the employee have long denied the accusation. SBF was indicted for campaign finance violations, though the charge was dropped for the time being. Those charges did not reference McElwee or anyone at Data for Progress.
New York’s David Freedlander said last December that McElwee was “getting out of the political game and maybe doing some corporate work for a while.” That was the last real news on McElwee’s plans, until he showed up in Blueprint’s orbit.
McElwee had drifted toward the political center during his time in the spotlight, and was closely tied to SBF and crypto.
The Prospect asked Slingshot why McElwee’s perspective was important to hear during the polling process, given the various scandals with which he was associated. Smith responded that the discussions with McElwee were mainly about workshopping best strategies for this type of polling. “When I have these kinds of conversations, I’m mostly just hoping to sponge up some professional benefit and I set aside what they may have done/worked on,” Smith said. “There are pollsters who have done anti-union work (which I do not do) but have good insights on corporate research that I can benefit from. There are pollsters who have worked directly against some of my progressive candidates who are nevertheless talented researchers who have given me great ideas for polling approaches.”
Smith ended by saying he sought McElwee’s advice “because he is one of the few people who has launched an impactful national narrative polling project that shaped messaging and framing around Democratic politics, and that my key audiences for Blueprint (media and party/campaign operatives) paid attention to.”
But McElwee showing up in a Reid Hoffman-funded project isn’t that surprising either. Though he first rose to prominence by repeating the slogan “Abolish ICE” on social media, McElwee had drifted toward the political center during his time in the spotlight, and was closely tied to SBF and crypto, whether because of a change in ideological orientation or the chase of a lucrative client.
Hoffman has delivered tens of millions of dollars in primaries and Democratic organizations over the past several years. According to published reports, his goal with Blueprint is to “convince Democrats to change their messaging.”
Interestingly, McElwee’s former polling firm has a somewhat different view. In September, Data for Progress (alongside the Progressive Change Campaign Committee) shared polling with the White House, and while it agreed with Blueprint that the Bidenomics message wasn’t landing with voters, it also expressed support for leaning into progressive-leaning issues like negotiating down the price of prescription drugs, eliminating junk fees, reversing the Trump tax cuts, and expanding Social Security. (Smith noted after publication that some of these policies were also cited as high performers in the Blueprint polling.)
“Yes, we should be educating voters about [Biden’s policies]. … But it’s also about going on offense and picking fights,” new Data for Progress executive director Danielle Deiseroth told Politico, which first reported on the poll.
This story has been updated with more clarification on straw donor allegations against Sean McElwee. Also, full disclosure: In 2014 and 2015, McElwee wrote a handful of pieces for the Prospect.
