Republicans are creating a super PAC dedicated to keeping a GOP majority in the Senate and to reining in the growing number of outside "buddy PACS" aimed at helping single candidates,
The New York Times reported.
Created by allies of Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, the GOP go-to super PAC is called the Senate Leadership Fund. It will rival a similar political action committee formed by Democratic aides of Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid.
"As a new, independent super PAC, the
Senate Leadership Fund has one goal: to protect and expand the Republican Senate majority when Harry Reid, Elizabeth Warren and their army of left-wing activists try to take it back in 2016," the group’s website says.
McConnell’s super PAC is hoping to become the central base for donors who would like to see the GOP keep control of the Senate in the 2016 elections, according to the newspaper.
The Senate Leadership Fund plans to work closely with the prominent political action committee American Crossroads, led by McConnell’s former chief of staff Steven Law.
The two groups will coordinate advertising purchases, messaging and fundraising efforts.
The GOP will be defending more than twice as many seats as the Democrats next year, and a "well-financed" Democratic presidential candidate, probably Hillary Clinton, the Times said.
Republican strategists are also expecting that the Senate Leadership Fund may help to prevent the spread of single-candidate "buddy PACs" that sprang up during the 2014 elections to sponsor individual races.
According to the Times, the new McConnell group was partially motivated by the success of the Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC, headed by former aides to Reid, which helped struggling candidates and incumbents around the country in the November elections.
"I think you always have to be cognizant of what the competition is doing, and Harry Reid’s had his PAC for a number of years," said GOP Sen. Deb Fischer of Nebraska.
But some Republicans believe that having several outside spending groups helping individuals during the elections can only help the party in the long run, the Times said.
"It’s a good thing to install a lot of corporate control as long as you don’t choke off these political entrepreneurs and donors who have gotten into doing their own thing," said Will Feltus, a senior vice president at National Media Inc., a Republican media-buying company.
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