Political leanings: Republican
2020 total spending: $4.8 million
The National Victory Action Fund was established in 2020 by several Republican political strategists.
The group is what’s known as a hybrid PAC or “Carey committee,” meaning it “has the ability to operate both as a traditional PAC, contributing funds to a candidate’s committee, and as a super PAC, which makes independent expenditures,” according to OpenSecrets. Such groups must have separate bank accounts for those purposes.
The group says its purpose is to “get money to campaigns as early as possible” by “soliciting donations directly into candidates’ own campaign accounts,” bypassing both party committees and the campaigns themselves. While a traditional super PAC raises and spends money on behalf of a candidate, the National Victory Action Fund leverages a new model for fundraising that directs donations to candidates.
Instead of aiming to persuade voters, its ads provide information that points supporters to a candidate’s fundraising page, allowing candidates to advertise earlier and at cheaper rates. This new strategy has been used successfully by Fair Fight, a new Democratic hybrid PAC led by former Georgia state Rep. Stacey Abrams — though any outside group that buys advertising that supports or opposes a named candidate must file independent expenditure reports.
The National Victory Action Fund’s chairman is former Republican Sen. Cory Gardner, who joined the lobbying firm Michael Best Strategies after losing his 2020 reelection bid in Colorado. Jeff Larson, former Republican National Committee chief of staff, sits on the group’s board. Larson also serves as the chairman of America Rising Corporation, a research and communications firm.
The group is what’s known as a hybrid PAC or “Carey committee,” meaning it “has the ability to operate both as a traditional PAC, contributing funds to a candidate’s committee, and as a super PAC, which makes independent expenditures,” according to OpenSecrets. Such groups must have separate bank accounts for those purposes.
The National Victory Action Fund spent just over $1.6 million on independent expenditures in the 2020 election cycle. The majority of those funds supported then-Sens. David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler of Georgia, both of whom ultimately lost their seats in the Jan. 5, 2021, runoff elections.
Though the group’s October 2020 founding gave it a late start in the last election cycle, it seems to be gearing up to have an active role in 2022. Since Jan. 1, 2021, the National Victory Action Fund has spent a total of $12.4 million in the 2022 election cycle, including more than $2.4 million on independent expenditures supporting incumbent Republican House and Senate candidates in their 2022 reelection bids — the sixth-highest figure among all outside groups.
The National Victory Action Fund raised nearly $15 million in 2020, bolstered by contributions from its top individual donor Ken Griffin, CEO of the hedge fund firm Citadel, who gave $8 million. Paul Singer, founder of Elliott Management, also gave $300,000. Additionally, the group benefited from a $1.7 million contribution from the Republican super PAC Georgia Action Fund, which opposed Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff in the Georgia runoff.
Between Jan. 1, 2021, and Dec. 31, 2021, the group raised an additional $6.2 million for the 2022 election cycle.
FactCheck.org Undergraduate Fellow Cecelia Vieira contributed to this article.
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