How has Preserve America PAC’s spending broken down by race/issue and recipient since 2020?
Executive summary
Preserve America PAC has been a major independent-spending vehicle since 2020, directing roughly nine-figure sums into pro‑Trump and anti‑Democratic advertising with large variations in reporting on exact totals; FactCheck reports about $104 million in 2020 with $103 million targeted at ads attacking Joe Biden 2024/08/preserve-america-pac-2/" target="blank" rel="noopener noreferrer">[1] while other trackers and vendor claims put 2020 and 2024 investments at "more than $100 million" each [2] [3]. Public filings and reporting agree on the PAC’s focus: high-dollar media buys attacking Democratic presidential candidates and selective contributions to allied Republican groups, but sources diverge on precise tallies and on the PAC’s spending categorized by race or demographic targeting [4] [5] [1].
1. How much money overall — conflicting totals and official records
Federal Election Commission (FEC) committee pages and outside‑spending trackers list Preserve America PAC as an independent‑expenditure super PAC registered in 2020 and provide raw disbursement categories, but the FEC interface does not present a single clean narrative summary of "since 2020" totals in the reporting excerpts available here [4]; investigative and watchdog outlets report differing headline numbers, with FactCheck noting $104 million spent in 2020 [1] and campaign vendors or aggregators claiming "more than $100 million" investments in later cycles as well [2] [3], which signals that precise totals vary by data source and by whether the figure includes vendor invoices, related entities, or post‑reporting adjustments [5].
2. Race/issue breakdown — primarily political messaging, limited public evidence of demographic targeting
Reporting repeatedly documents that the PAC’s spending has been overwhelmingly devoted to political advertising attacking Democratic presidential figures — Fox and independent trackers say $103 million of Preserve America’s 2020 spending was for ads against Biden [1] — and in 2024 the PAC pivoted to attack ads targeting Kamala Harris on immigration in swing states [3], with FactCheck also reporting $42 million in anti‑Harris ads from related independent‑expenditure reports as of August of an unspecified year [1]; however, none of the provided sources supplies a systematic line‑item "by race/issue" ledger showing, for example, separate tallies for advertising aimed at Black, Latino, Asian, or other demographic groups, so claims about spending "by race" are not directly documented in these sources [4] [5].
3. Recipient breakdown — ads, select transfers to GOP vehicles, and vendors
Public reporting identifies two distinct recipient types: media buys and allied Republican organizations; FactCheck notes a $1 million transfer to the Republican Governors Association in 2022 as the PAC’s largest expenditure that cycle [1], while outside summaries and vendor case studies describe six‑ and seven‑figure media campaigns targeted to Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan (the "Blue Wall") and name ad agencies as contractors who executed more than $100 million in ad buys for the PAC [2] [3]. OpenSecrets and FEC pages catalogue independent expenditures and disbursement types (ads, consulting, transfers), but the excerpts here do not include a complete recipient ledger that breaks every dollar down by vendor or group for all cycles [6] [4].
4. Who paid for it — major donors and concentration of funding
The PAC’s principal funders in 2020 were Sheldon and Miriam Adelson, with FactCheck reporting that the Adelsons contributed roughly $90 million of the $105 million raised that cycle [1]; OpenSecrets maintains donor records and labels the group a single‑candidate super PAC supporting Trump [5] [7]. Some advocacy trackers and partisan sites place total Preserve America related spending even higher across multiple cycles [8], but those figures differ from FEC‑based and mainstream‑reporting tallies and should be treated as alternative estimates unless reconciled with the PAC’s filings [4] [5].
5. Limits of the record and what remains unclear
Available public reporting documents the PAC’s priorities — heavy ad spending against Biden and Harris, large single‑donor concentration and transfers to allied Republican entities [1] [3] [2] — but none of the cited sources provides a full, auditable table that allocates every dollar "by race/issue" or lists every recipient by name and line‑item across all cycles in the excerpts provided, so any granular breakdown by demographic target or exhaustive recipient list requires direct FEC independent‑expenditure filings and vendor invoices not reproduced here [4] [6]. Those primary filings are cited by the FEC and OpenSecrets and should be consulted for a definitive dollar‑by‑dollar accounting [4] [5].