Political leanings: Republican/Pro-Donald Trump
2022 Spending: $1.4 million
Preserve America PAC is a super PAC that was founded in 2020 to support the reelection of then-President Donald Trump. After being largely inactive during the 2022 midterms and the 2024 primaries, the group plans to play a role in helping Trump try to win back the White House this fall.
In late May, Politico reported that the group was making a comeback with financial backing from Dr. Miriam Adelson, a Republican megadonor who is an owner of the Las Vegas Sands casino and resort company. She and her late husband, Sheldon Adelson, who was also a major Republican donor, contributed $90 million of the $105 million that Preserve America PAC raised during the 2020 campaign cycle.
It’s unknown how much Adelson will donate to the group in 2024, but Dave Carney, a Republican strategist who is leading the super PAC, told Reuters in late May that the goal is for Preserve America PAC to raise more than it did in 2020. Super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with a candidate’s campaign, but they can collect and spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose candidates running for office.
In early July, the group told Politico that it had raised money from 50 donors, although its most recent filing with the Federal Election Commission showed only two, including Miriam Adelson. She contributed $5 million, which was basically all the money it had collected, as of June 30.
The super PAC plans to spend at least $61 million on TV and digital ads through Labor Day in September, according to the July Politico report. It intended to begin running ads against President Joe Biden after the Republican National Convention ended in mid-July, but quickly shifted its focus to Vice President Kamala Harris, who became the presumptive Democratic presidential nominee after Biden suspended his reelection campaign on July 21. She officially became the nominee in early August.
Preserve America PAC already has put more than $42 million into anti-Harris ads, according to independent expenditure reports to the FEC, as of Aug. 20. The ads have focused on illegal immigration.
One TV ad that the group began running in Michigan, Pennsylvania and Wisconsin in July falsely claimed that Biden “put Kamala Harris in charge of the border.” Another ad featured Art Del Cueto, vice president of the National Border Patrol Council, saying that “America needs a commander in chief who is tough on illegal immigration” and Harris “failed that test.”
During the 2022 election cycle, the super PAC spent almost $1.4 million, with its largest expenditure being a $1 million contribution to the Republican Governors Association. In 2020, it spent $104 million, including $103 million for ads attacking Biden.