Jason,
Demi Palecek just won her primary last month, and I want to tell you exactly why corporate super PACs spent hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to stop her.
The answer will tell you everything about who and what she’s really up against.
Here’s what’s been happening in Illinois:
Last fall, Illinois passed a new tax on sports betting. A per-bet tax that hit DraftKings and FanDuel the hardest. Sports betting in the state dropped 15% almost overnight, and the companies’ stock value tanked.
So what did they do in response? They decided to try and buy the Illinois state legislature.
DraftKings funneled over $1.2 million into Illinois Democratic primaries through a super PAC called “American Future” with a simple goal — handpick candidates who would get rid of the sports betting tax and protect their profits. Even at the cost of millions of young people who have become addicted to gambling.
One of the candidates they bankrolled was Adam Braun, a lawyer working for a corporate firm that represents DraftKings and FanDuel. He ran against Demi in her district, and they bet a whopping $164,000 on him. They lost.
That’s just one piece of the corporate machine Demi is running against.
And it’s the playbook that these dark money groups run every single cycle. They find spineless candidates who will do their bidding, pour millions into their campaigns, and try to drown out the voices of progressive fighters who actually care about working people.
But just like every other Leaders We Deserve-endorsed candidate, Demi has refused to take a single dollar from corporate PACs. Her entire campaign is funded by grassroots supporters like you, who know exactly what she’s fighting for. Because of your support, Leaders We Deserve was able to invest over $110,000 to help Demi stay competitive.
Part of our investment came early, when we conducted a poll for her race. Most state legislative candidates, especially young candidates, can’t afford to spend campaign money on polling — that’s where we come in. We used the findings from that poll to help Demi’s team map their campaign strategy and uncover a path to victory — despite being up against over a million dollars in outside spending by DraftKings and others. Demi used her resources wisely, outsmarting her corporate backed opponents by making them fight each other instead of attacking her, while she was able to successfully win over 85% of the undecided voters we’d helped identify in our original poll.
And since it’s a strong blue seat, come November the Illinois State House will have a National Guardswoman who fought fascism firsthand at the Capitol following January 6 instead of a gambling industry lobbyist who campaigned for the favor of corporations, not his constituents.
Demi’s primary win last month is proof that people power can beat dark money any day. But it takes resources and a movement willing to go toe to toe with corporations that think they can buy our democracy. That’s exactly what Leaders We Deserve was built for.
Thank you,
David Hogg
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