Ryan Mackenzie Is In The Pocket Of The Koch-Network

New reporting from Lehigh Valley Live and Armchair Lehigh Valley highlights how dark money donors and corporate special interests spent half a million dollars to buy the PA-07 Republican primary for one of their own: Ryan Mackenzie. According to FEC filings, Mackenzie relied on nearly $500,000 from Americans for Prosperity Action, an anti-union, dark money Super PAC funded by the Koch-network.

The outside effort to prop up his already weak campaign comes after Mackenzie spent years using his elected office to protect corporations at the expense of everyday Pennsylvanians.

DCCC Spokesperson Aidan Johnson:
"Whether it was rejecting legislation to increase the minimum wage, opposing amendments to protect employees' rights to organize, or refusing to support bills that would expand retirement savings accounts for workers, Ryan Mackenzie has proven that he will always choose his anti-union, corporate donors over his constituents."

Lehigh Valley Live: Koch-backed PAC spent $500K on Ryan Mackenzie's successful GOP primary
Armchair Lehigh Valley | May 7, 2024

• Ryan Mackenzie's successful campaign to capture the 7th Congressional District's Republican nomination received a boost that his opponents did not have - nearly a half-million dollars in outside spending from an influential conservative political action committee connected to billionaire David Koch and his company Koch Industries.

• Americans for Prosperity Action spent $497,676 to promote Mackenzie's candidacy starting last fall, with about half of that - $244,738 - in the four weeks leading up to the April 23 primary, according to an analysis of the Super PAC's data available on the Federal Election Commission website.

• The money AFP Action spent on Mackenzie's candidacy was more than three times the $154,838 his campaign committee spent through April 3, the end of the pre-primary reporting period for candidate committees. By comparison, Dellicker's campaign spent the most ($279,557) and Montero's the least ($125,611).

• AFP Action paid for political services to boost Mackenzie's candidacy, including canvassing potential voters to gauge their candidate preferences, designing digital ads, and printing and mailing campaign materials.

• As a Super PAC, AFP Action can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to support or oppose a candidate but cannot coordinate its strategy or spending with a candidate's campaign. Its independent expenditures are disclosed not in a candidate committee FEC report but in its own campaign finance reports, which are filed monthly. A traditional PAC is limited to contributing $5,000 per election to a candidate's committee; the PAC and the candidate's committee must each report the transaction to the FEC.

• Wild, after winning the Democratic primary, released a statement from her campaign commenting on that night's results and looking ahead to the Nov. 5 election.

• "At a time when far-right extremists are taking away a woman's right to choose, shipping good-paying American jobs overseas, and lying about the integrity of free and fair elections, Pennsylvanians deserve a representative who will stand up for them and against any and all forms of fear and hate," she said. "That's what I intend to continue doing in Washington."

• Wild, who did not have a primary opponent this year, holds a large edge in campaign committee fundraising over Mackenzie, according to FEC totals as of April 3. Her campaign has raised slightly more than $3.5 million, spent $919,989 and has $2,662,153 in cash. By contrast, Mackenzie raised $280,980, spent $154,838 and has $126,142 in cash.

• The PAC has received $53 million from Koch Industries since 2020, according to the campaign finance data site Open Secrets. The PAC raised $100.2 million since the start of the current election cycle on Jan. 1, 2023. As of March 31, it spent $62.4 million, including nearly $59 million on independent expenditures for and against 21 candidates, according to Open Secrets.

• Mackenzie received the most money of any of the Americans for Prosperity Action-endorsed House candidates.

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