How can a member's leadership PAC support a slate of colleagues with a shared dashboard?

What a leadership PAC can do

A leadership PAC is a committee established, financed, maintained or controlled by a candidate or officeholder that is not their own campaign committee. It raises under PAC limits and gives under PAC limits. Once it has been registered for six months, received contributions from more than 50 people and contributed to at least five federal candidates, it is a multicandidate committee and may give $5,000 per candidate per election. Its coordinated in-kind support for a colleague counts against that same $5,000, so a $4,700 phone program and a $300 check exhaust the primary limit for that candidate, and the general election limit is separate.

The FEC's leadership PAC definition is at 11 CFR 100.5(e)(6). The leadership PACs active this cycle, with their sponsors resolved to name, chamber and district, are listed in this site's directory.

Sizing programs to the limit

Because the in-kind value counts against the limit, the natural leadership PAC program is sized to it. At the bundle rate, $5,000 buys a defined number of households in each race; at $0.37 per household (the 20,000-household tier) that is about 13,500 households, and at $0.28 (the 50,000 tier) about 17,600. A slate of ten colleagues at 13,500 households each is a 135,000-household bundle, which is priced at the deepest tier on the table. The calculator shows the exact number for any slate; enter the households you can afford under the limit and read off the rate.

For races where the member wants to do more than the limit allows, the member's supporters can give to the candidate directly, and a super PAC aligned with the member can spend independently, but the leadership PAC's own coordinated program stops at the limit.

The dashboard the member can show donors

Every candidate in the bundle gets a live dashboard for their own race. The leadership PAC gets the roll-up: every race on one screen, with conversations held, voters identified, support share among the decided and daily momentum, updated as the calls happen. It is the first time a member has been able to show a donor breakfast what the PAC's money did last night, by name, by district. It is also the support tracker: the races where the member's colleagues are slipping are visible weeks before a public poll would say so, and the next contribution goes where it is needed rather than where it was promised.

The playbook, in order

Six steps, most of which take a single conversation.

• Pick the slate: colleagues in competitive seats, recruited challengers, and members the sponsor owes.
• Size each program to the remaining limit for that candidate and that election, with the calculator.
• Book the walkthrough and see a live dashboard from a real program.
• Sign one proposal itemized per candidate; the in-kind lines are in the paperwork.
• Brief each campaign's manager that the program is coming and what the dashboard will show them; the coordination that makes it an in-kind contribution is also what makes it useful to the campaign.
• Read the roll-up weekly, move money toward the races that are slipping, and put the roll-up in front of donors.

What the donor briefing looks like

A leadership PAC lives on its donors, and its donors are asked to give again every quarter on the strength of what the PAC did with the last check. The traditional answer is a list of contributions and a set of election results months later. The roll-up dashboard changes the briefing: the member opens one screen and shows, race by race, how many voters the PAC's programs talked to this week, how many were identified as supporters, how many undecided voters were moved, and which races are trending up. It is the difference between telling a donor the PAC supported twelve colleagues and showing them the twelve colleagues' voter contact happening.

The same screen answers the question donors ask most and members like least: where is the money going next. A member who can point at the tracker and say that two races are slipping and the next $10,000 goes there is making an allocation decision in front of the donor, with evidence, which is what a leadership PAC is for.

Where the leadership PACs are

This site's directory lists every leadership PAC active with the FEC this cycle with its sponsor resolved from the FEC candidate record to the member's name, chamber and district, and its receipts, spending and any independent expenditures. A member's political director can find their own PAC's page, claim it, and get the walkthrough times and a slate estimate back the same day. The page never publishes contact details, and claiming it changes nothing public.