Which U.S. political campaigns have documented use of paid crowd services and how were they disclosed?
Executive summary
Paid crowd services — most prominently the firm Crowds on Demand — have verifiable ties to at least one named political effort and alleged ties to a few others; public documentation is sparse because the company and its clients routinely use non‑disclosure arrangements and campaign records that rarely label “crowd hires” as political expenditures [1] [2]. The clearest documented payment identified in public records was for the Six Californias campaign, while other high‑profile allegations (for example about Anthony Weiner) rely on press reporting and company statements rather than transparent campaign filings [2].
1. Documented examples: what is on the record
Public reporting and watchdog research identify Crowds on Demand as the for‑hire crowd company most frequently tied to U.S. political campaigns, with public records demonstrating at least one direct client: the Six Californias ballot effort paid the firm, according to media and archival reporting [2]. Wikipedia and InfluenceWatch summarize the company’s political work and note the Six Californias payment as the one publicly traceable campaign engagement, while the company founder has claimed broader work for “dozens of campaigns” and some 2016 presidential bids without naming specifics [2] [1].
2. Widely reported but less well‑documented allegations
Several high‑profile claims exist in major media and secondary sources that a campaign — notably Anthony Weiner’s 2013 New York mayoral effort — paid Crowds on Demand to supply in‑person supporters or actors; those claims appear in press accounts but are not corroborated by a public campaign expenditure clearly labeled as a crowd‑for‑hire payment in available filings cited by secondary sources [2]. The company’s own stated reluctance to identify clients — reinforced by mandatory nondisclosure agreements for contractors — makes independent verification difficult and leaves many such allegations rooted in journalistic reports or anonymous tips rather than unambiguous public disclosures [1] [2].
3. How campaigns (have to) disclose — and why crowd hires slip through
Federal and state laws create disclosure thresholds and “paid for by” disclaimer rules for many political communications, and FECA requires filing for electioneering communications once spending exceeds defined aggregates (for example $10,000 triggers disclosures at the federal level) and requires disclaimers on certain paid communications [3] [4]. Yet those rules focus on advertising and reportable expenditures and do not neatly capture a campaign’s payment for in‑person crowd services when vendors are contracted through intermediaries, classified under generic vendor categories, or covered by NDAs, all of which reduce the likelihood that a line item in a campaign report will read “paid for hired crowd” [3] [1].
4. Structural incentives for secrecy and industry response
Crowds on Demand and similar firms profit from anonymity: the company advertises rapid mobilization for advocacy and political stunts and requires contractors to sign nondisclosure agreements, creating a market incentive to obscure who pays for demonstrations or staged support [1]. That opacity has led even the company’s CEO to propose statutory disclosure — the so‑called “Transparency in Political Demonstration Act” advocated publicly — acknowledging that current practice lets buyers of demonstration services avoid public scrutiny [5].
5. What independent trackers and reform groups say about gaps
Advocacy groups and research centers note the growing difficulty of tracking paid political influence when it migrates online or uses influencers and intermediaries: scholars flagged the risk of undisclosed paid influencers and astroturfing campaigns, and reform organizations argue that disclosure regimes designed for TV and radio ads do not fully capture modern, platform‑driven tactics [6] [7]. OpenSecrets and state toolkits document where money is supposed to be reported and remain primary resources for tracing expenditures, but available sources show that a combination of vendor opacity, state‑by‑state variation, and narrow legal definitions means many paid crowd uses are detected only when journalists or records requests uncover them [8] [9].
6. Bottom line: a narrow public ledger, broader private practice
The public record contains a small number of confirmed instances — the Six Californias payment is the clearest documented example — and a larger set of allegations supported by reporting but not cleanly matched to labeled campaign filings [2]. Federal disclosure laws and state advertising rules create reporting obligations for many political expenditures, but structural practices (NDAs, generic vendor entries, intermediaries, and gaps for online/in‑person activity) mean that paid crowd services are often visible to researchers only when journalists or watchdogs connect the dots rather than through explicit, routine campaign disclosures [3] [1] [4].