Bernie Alum Create PAC and Ads to Help Biden Shore Up the Socialist Vote

Bernie Alum Create PAC and Ads to Help Biden Shore Up the Socialist Vote

After spending years railing against the evils of PACs, Bernie campaign alum Jeff Weaver has joined forces with the America’s Progressive Promise, a super PAC, to help Biden shore up the fringey socialist vote.

To that end, the group released an ad highlighting Sanders’ endorsement of Biden. It’s scripted in such a way that it’s hard to tell if it’s real or parody.

Watch:

FWIW, Sanders’ is still anti-PAC. Or at least that’s what he says.

More from HuffPo:

Jeff Weaver, who was Sanders’ campaign manager in 2016 and a senior adviser to his 2020 campaign, said the group remains worried about Biden’s relatively weak standing with Latinos and young voters — two groups that Sanders is popular with — even if public polling gives him a healthy and consistent lead over Trump in key states.

“If you look at the polling, Biden is underperforming where Secretary Clinton was with Latinos,” Weaver told HuffPost. “In the Latino community, he just isn’t well-known.”

Sanders beat Biden among Latino voters in key states like Nevada and California during the 2020 Democratic presidential primaries, and America’s Progressive Promise has already worked with Nuestro PAC — which was founded by former Sanders aide Chuck Rocha to target Latino voters — to air ads aimed at Latinos in Arizona, Michigan and North Carolina.

Weaver also said the group would try to remain focused on Iowa, a state that many political forecasters see as a second-tier presidential battleground. Sanders became well-known in Iowa after two strong performances in the state’s caucuses. Weaver noted that winning over a relatively small number of voters — he estimated between 30,000 and 40,000 — could flip the state.

“Iowa hasn’t received the kind of attention I think it deserves,” he said. “I think it’s important for Democrats long-term to demonstrate their continued strength in the agricultural Midwest.”

Weaver declined to reveal exactly how much the group plans to spend, saying only that the sum would be “substantial.” As a super PAC, it can raise and spend unlimited sums in support of Biden, provided that it does not directly coordinate with his campaign. The group won’t have to reveal its donors to the Federal Election Commission until October.

Sanders was not a fan of the group’s creation. He has long opposed super PACs, even though several relatively small super PACs spent money supporting his presidential bids in 2016 and 2020. While the group’s name originally invoked a Sanders slogan — “Future to Believe In” — the name was changed in May at Sanders’ request.

Still, Weaver indicated that the group will continue to feature the grandfather of the modern progressive political movement in its advertising.

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