America Rising is a United States
political action committee (PAC) that produces opposition research on
Democratic Party Democratic Party most often refers to:
*Democratic Party (United States)
Democratic Party and similar terms may also refer to:
Active parties Africa
*Botswana Democratic Party
*Democratic Party of Equatorial Guinea
*Gabonese Democratic Party
*Demo ...
members. It has been called the “unofficial research arm of the Republican Party” by the ''
Wall Street Journal
''The Wall Street Journal'' is an American business-focused, international daily newspaper based in New York City, with international editions also available in Chinese and Japanese. The ''Journal'', along with its Asian editions, is published ...
''.
Organization
America Rising was founded in March 2013 by
Mitt Romney
Willard Mitt Romney (born March 12, 1947) is an American politician, businessman, and lawyer serving as the junior United States senator from Utah since January 2019, succeeding Orrin Hatch. He served as the 70th governor of Massachusetts f ...
's 2012 presidential campaign manager,
Matt Rhoades
Matthew “Matt” Rhoades (born February 3, 1975) is an American political and public affairs consultant. He is cited as a pioneer in messaging through less conventional outlets, such as the Drudge Report, and influencing the public image of can ...
. Political strategist
Tim Miller left the
Republican National Committee
The Republican National Committee (RNC) is a U.S. political committee that assists the Republican Party of the United States. It is responsible for developing and promoting the Republican brand and political platform, as well as assisting in fu ...
(RNC) to join the clearinghouse. As of January 2014, between the PAC and the
LLC
A limited liability company (LLC for short) is the US-specific form of a private limited company. It is a business structure that can combine the pass-through taxation of a partnership or sole proprietorship with the limited liability of a ...
run by fellow opposition research veteran
Joe Pounder, the organization employed 47 people, full or part-time. CNN reported that America Rising would be split into two entities: a super PAC that aimed to spread negative stories about congressional Democratic incumbents and candidates through digital channels and earned media, and an LLC that would house a video library to be shared with GOP candidates, the RNC and other right-leaning groups. To avoid making illegal in-kind corporate contributions, the LLC would likely need to charge candidates for access to the library. Pounder and Miller estimated it would have a budget of between $10 and $15 million for the 2013-2014 election cycle.
Raj Shah
Raj Shah (born c. 1985) is an American political aide who served as the White House Deputy Press Secretary and Deputy Assistant to the President from 2017 to 2019. Prior to joining the Trump Administration, Shah was in charge of opposition res ...
, appointed to be
White House
The White House is the official residence and workplace of the president of the United States. It is located at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW in Washington, D.C., and has been the residence of every U.S. president since John Adams in 1800. ...
Deputy Assistant to the President and
Deputy Director of Communications for Research in the
Trump Administration
Donald Trump's tenure as the List of presidents of the United States, 45th president of the United States began with Inauguration of Donald Trump, his inauguration on January 20, 2017, and ended on January 20, 2021. Trump, a Republican Party ...
in 2017, was also a co-founder of the PAC. He had been deputy research director at the RNC in 2012 and, from there, ultimately became the head of
opposition research
In politics, opposition research (also called oppo research) is the practice of collecting information on a political opponent or other adversary that can be used to discredit or otherwise weaken them. The information can include biographical, leg ...
at the committee for the 2016 campaign. After 2012, he focused specifically on developing deep anti-
Hillary Clinton
Hillary Diane Rodham Clinton ( Rodham; born October 26, 1947) is an American politician, diplomat, and former lawyer who served as the 67th United States Secretary of State for President Barack Obama from 2009 to 2013, as a United States sen ...
playbooks for America Rising and the RNC.
America Rising shares its office space and multiple current and former executives with
Definers Public Affairs Definers Public Affairs was an American right leaning opposition research firm based in Arlington, Virginia. It performed media monitoring services, conducted research using the Freedom of Information Act and also created strategic communication to ...
, an
opposition research
In politics, opposition research (also called oppo research) is the practice of collecting information on a political opponent or other adversary that can be used to discredit or otherwise weaken them. The information can include biographical, leg ...
firm, and NTK Network, a digital
news aggregator
In computing, a news aggregator, also termed a feed aggregator, feed reader, news reader, RSS reader or simply an aggregator, is client software or a web application that aggregates syndicated web content such as online newspapers, blogs, podc ...
.
2014 Senate races
In the
2014 Iowa senate race, America Rising released a
split screen
Split screen may refer to:
* Split screen (computing), dividing graphics into adjacent parts
* Split screen (video production), the visible division of the screen
* ''Split Screen'' (TV series), 1997–2001
* Split-Screen Level, a bug in the vid ...
video of Democratic Senate candidate
Bruce Braley
Bruce Lowell Braley (born October 30, 1957) is an American politician and attorney who served as the U.S. representative for from 2007 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he was defeated in his attempt to win an open seat in the 2014 Uni ...
being readied for a televised appearance alongside a similar video of former U.S. Senator
John Edwards
Johnny Reid Edwards (born June 10, 1953) is an American lawyer and former politician who served as a U.S. senator from North Carolina. He was the Democratic nominee for vice president in 2004 alongside John Kerry, losing to incumbents George ...
. America Rising also released a video of Braley saying of Iowa Senator
Chuck Grassley
Charles Ernest Grassley (born September 17, 1933) is an American politician serving as the president pro tempore emeritus of the United States Senate, and the Seniority in the United States Senate, senior United States Senate, United States sen ...
, "you might have a farmer from Iowa who never went to law school, never practiced law, serving as the next chair of the
Senate Judiciary Committee
The United States Senate Committee on the Judiciary, informally the Senate Judiciary Committee, is a standing committee of 22 U.S. senators whose role is to oversee the Department of Justice (DOJ), consider executive and judicial nominations, a ...
."
The campaign of Alaska U.S. Senator
Mark Begich
Mark Peter Begich ( ; born March 30, 1962) is an American politician who served as a United States senator from Alaska from 2009 to 2015. A member of the Democratic Party, he previously served as Mayor of Anchorage from 2003 to 2009.
Born in An ...
's reelection opponent,
Dan Sullivan Dan, Danny, or Daniel Sullivan may refer to:
Arts and entertainment
* Daniel J. Sullivan (born 1940), American film and theater director
* Daniel G. Sullivan, American screenwriter
* Dan Sullivan (musician), indie rock musician
* Dan Panic, Amer ...
, used the identical opposition research files as did an outside group aligned with it. Their source was America Rising, which has a corporate political research arm that purveys its materials directly to campaigns, but it also sells to outside groups like
Crossroads Grassroots Policy Strategies
American Crossroads is a US Super PAC that raises funds from donors to advocate for certain candidates of the Republican Party (United States), Republican Party. It has pioneered many of the new methods of fundraising opened up by the Supreme Cour ...
(Crossroads GPS). "Everyone is paying for the same research, information, and then they can use it at their own discretion. Nobody's discussing how they want to deploy that information," said Tim Miller, America Rising's executive director. The Sullivan campaign also employed the same political consulting firm, Black Rock Group,
as did the
Crossroads GPS
American Crossroads is a US Super PAC that raises funds from donors to advocate for certain candidates of the Republican Party. It has pioneered many of the new methods of fundraising opened up by the Supreme Court's ruling in ''Citizens United ...
sister organization,
American Crossroads
American Crossroads is a US Super PAC that raises funds from donors to advocate for certain candidates of the Republican Party. It has pioneered many of the new methods of fundraising opened up by the Supreme Court's ruling in ''Citizens United ...
, a super PAC that had spent more than a million dollars on campaign ads attacking Begich or promoting Sullivan. Operatives
Ed Gillespie
Edward Walter Gillespie (born August 1, 1961) is an American politician, strategist, and lobbyist who served as the 61st Chair of the Republican National Committee from 2003 to 2005 and was counselor to the President from 2007 to 2009 during the ...
and
Karl Rove
Karl Christian Rove (born December 25, 1950) is an American Republican political consultant, policy advisor, and lobbyist. He was Senior Advisor and Deputy Chief of Staff during the George W. Bush administration until his resignation on August 3 ...
co-founded the two latter organizations. One of the partners at Black Rock,
Michael Dubke
Michael D. Dubke (born April 18, 1970) is an American entrepreneur and political aide who was the White House Communications Director for U.S. President Donald Trump until his resignation effective June 2, 2017.
Dubke worked in political affair ...
, is a strategist for Sullivan's campaign; another,
Carl Forti
Carl Forti (born June 29, 1972) is an American Republican Party strategist who is the political director of Karl Rove's American Crossroads Super PAC. He was political director for Mitt Romney in 2008. Prior to joining American Crossroads, Forti ...
, is the political director for American Crossroads. Miller and Dubke both contend their firms' arrangements do not violate the law because they each employ different workers on opposite sides of a firewall between the campaigns and the outside groups. Dubke said he works on some projects alongside Forti, but they don't interact on Alaska issues and Forti works out of a separate office for American Crossroads. A spokesman for the Sullivan campaign, Mike Anderson, failed to respond to a request to address how it ensures its vendors avoid violating coordination rules. He wrote: "There are very clear guidelines, and our campaign staff, consultants and vendors strictly adhere to them." The
Federal Election Commission
The Federal Election Commission (FEC) is an independent regulatory agency of the United States whose purpose is to enforce campaign finance law in United States federal elections. Created in 1974 through amendments to the Federal Election Cam ...
(FEC) avoids policing the relationships between outside groups and candidates, failing to bring enforcement, according to Larry Noble, the former general counsel for the FEC from 1987 to 2000. Nobel says the FEC's three Democrats and three Republicans frequently deadlock as they vote on whether or not to initiate investigations.
[Despite similar messages, Senate campaigns say there's no coordination with outside groups]
Anchorage Daily News, Nathaniel Herz, September 28, 2016. Retrieved April 19, 2018. Ann Ravel, the frustrated vice chair of the FEC authored a 2014 New York Times op-ed about the stalemates entitled, "How Not to Enforce Campaign Laws."
Trump administration
America Rising Squared, a non-profit division of America Rising oversaw the targeting of environmental advocates such as
Bill McKibben
William Ernest McKibben (born December 8, 1960)"Bill Ernest McKibben." ''Environmental Encyclopedia''. Edited by Deirdre S. Blanchfield. Farmington Hills, Mich.: Gale, 2009. Retrieved via ''Biography in Context'' database, December 31, 2017. is a ...
and
Tom Steyer
Thomas Fahr Steyer (born June 27, 1957) is an American climate investor, businessman, hedge fund manager, philanthropist, environmentalist, and liberal activist. Steyer is the co-founder and co-chair of Galvanize Climate Solutions, founder and f ...
by deploying "trackers" to videotape them. Brian Rogers, executive director of America Rising Squared, said that the firm had focused on McKibben and Steyer because they "aggressively target conservative thought leaders."
Doxing issues accusations
In 2018, a Democratic candidate who worked for the US government and filed a mandatory "SF-86" form with sensitive personal information accused the group of using the information publicly as a campaign strategy by Republicans.
In December 2018, the U.S. Postal Service inspector general "officially cleared" America Rising "of any wrongdoing" in obtaining the personnel file of the Democratic candidate. The IG report concluded that the group went through the proper channels and submitted a Freedom of Information Act request for the file to the National Archives and Records Administration (NARA).
References
External links
America Rising home page
{{DEFAULTSORT:America Rising
Opposition research
Political organizations based in the United States
Organizations established in 2013