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Election 2012: top seven super PACs

Decoder profiles the seven top super PACs, the organizations that have spent the most trying to influence the elections – and still have the most money in the bank.

3. Priorities USA Action

Chris Pizzello/AP/File
Dreamworks Animation CEO and honoree Jeffrey Katzenberg poses at the annual 'Pioneer of the Year' award ceremony at CinemaCon 2012, on April 25. mR. Katzenberg is the largest donor to Priorities USA Action, a pro-President Obama super PAC.

Priorities USA Action, which supports Mr. Obama, is the third-largest super PAC, although it lags far behind Restore Our Future. According to the latest FEC filings, Priorities USA has spent $36 million and raised $35.6 million in the 2012 campaign cycle, as of Oct. 4.

Priorities USA Action was founded in April 2011 by two former Obama staffers – Bill Burton, who was Obama's campaign press secretary in 2008, and Sean Sweeney, an aide to then-White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel – to counter the clout of conservative super PACs.

Big liberal donors have been relatively cool to funding super PAC ads, compared with their conservative counterparts. The New York Times reported on a meeting of top liberal donors on Sept. 27 that produced new pledges to fund Democratic super PACs, including a commitment by billionaire investor George Soros to contribute $1 million to Priorities USA Action.

Priorities USA Action has received a large number of donations from people in the communication and electronics industries. Its largest donor is Jeffrey Katzenberg, head of DreamWorks Animation Studios. Mr. Katzenberg gave $2 million to Priorities USA Action. In the 2008 campaign cycle, Katzenberg was the second-highest individual donor overall, with all of his contributions going to Democrats.

Priorities USA Action has also received funding from businessman and philanthropist Irwin Mark Jacobs, as well as the actor Morgan Freeman, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), and the National Air Traffic Controllers Association PAC.

So far, Priorities USA Action has spent no money in support of their candidate. Every cent of their $36 million in total expenditures has gone to funding ads against Romney. They have spent a total of $11.5 million on television ads, primarily in Colorado, Ohio, and Florida. Ninety-six percent of their advertisements have been negative.

Sourcing this Report:

Several sources were used to compile this report. 

The figures for total expenditures, total money raised, and totals spent in support or opposition of specific candidates were taken from Open Secrets. Open Secrets is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that tracks money in US politics and its effect on elections and public policy. The website, which was launched in 1996, is project of The Center for Responsive Politics, which was founded in 1983 by US Sens. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), in order to track money in politics, public policy, and elections. 

All figures were taken from the 2012 election cycle, and were based on data released by the FEC, and last updated Oct. 4. For Open Secrets' full report on spending by all 900 super PACs click here.

Advertising figures and specific markets targeted were taken from the Washington Post's Mad Money feature, which tracks the cumulative and weekly spending on television advertising by candidate and by the groups supporting them. The Post also calculated the percentage of ads that have been negative vs. positive. Their data was last updated Oct. 3.

The Center for Public Integrity, and the New York Times were used for background research on top donors and organizers of each super PAC. 

Other sites used include the official webpages for each super PAC, the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, NBC News, as well as some local news sources like the Dallas Morning News and the Denver Post.

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Mark Sappenfield
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