The PAC’s lone donor is billionaire GOP megadonor Jeff Yass.
An excellent PAC funded by conservative megadonor Jeff Yass has spent greater than half one million {dollars} in latest weeks urging Pennsylvania Democrats to assist a major challenger operating towards progressive Home Democrat Summer season Lee.
The Average PAC, which was shaped in 2021, is airing advertisements in Pennsylvania’s twelfth District that assault Lee for what it calls her “excessive socialist agenda,” and calling on Democratic major voters to decide on Lee’s challenger Bhavini Patel. The advertisements go after Lee for criticizing President Biden and the Democratic Celebration, and for voting towards the debt ceiling invoice negotiated between Biden and former Home Speaker Rep. Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.). Lee is a member of the so-called “Squad” of progressive Home Democrats that has stood aside from Democratic Celebration leaders on quite a few coverage points, together with most lately on U.S. assist for Israel’s ongoing navy marketing campaign in Gaza.
The tremendous PAC has spent no less than $586,000 on operating the advertisements because the center of March, in keeping with Federal Election Fee information.
The one donation that The Average PAC has ever reported receiving is $1 million from Yass that was given to the group in July 2022. Yass is a billionaire investor who former President Trump lately mentioned was “implausible” after the pair related at a donor retreat in Florida. Yass has donated greater than $62 million to conservative tremendous PAC Membership for Progress Motion, and $18 million to College Freedom Fund, a Membership for Progress PAC that helps candidates who imagine mother and father ought to obtain taxpayer {dollars} to spend with personal training corporations of their selecting. Yass lives in Pennsylvania and has a web value of about $27 billion, in keeping with Forbes.
Yass has additionally donated closely to congressional Republicans. Final yr he gave $10 million to the Congressional Management Fund, an excellent PAC affiliated with Home GOP management, and in 2018 he gave $200,000 to its higher chamber equal the Senate Management Fund. The New York Instances lately reported {that a} Trump marketing campaign supply mentioned that Yass is predicted to make a big donation to a pro-Trump group quickly, however that Yass mentioned that he had no plans to take action.
The one different contribution The Average PAC has acquired is an in-kind donation from the Home Democratic leadership-aligned Home Majority PAC, which FEC information point out has shared polling information with the group.
