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super pacs
'They Get Rich. Maine Pays the Price': Platner Campaign Takes Swing at Collins and Corporate Lobbyist Husband
The campaign highlighted findings that the lobbying firm run by Collins’ husband brought in $76 million in federal contracts while she pushed K Street-friendly legislation in the Senate.
Jun 17, 2026
Democratic Senate nominee Graham Platner's campaign is taking aim at Sen. Susan Collins and her lobbyist husband, calling her long history of supporting policies that helped his firm "the biggest political scandal in Maine" in an ad released Wednesday.
It follows a report out the previous day from Zeteo revealing that Collins' husband, Tom Daffron, worked as recently as last year for a firm owned by Scott Reed, the lobbyist who leads Pine Tree Results, a billionaire-funded super political action committee (PAC) that is spending millions to support Collins' (R-Maine) campaign for reelection.
While not necessarily a violation of the law, which prohibits super PACs from coordinating with the campaigns they support, the Platner campaign described Daffron's lobbying work as “only the latest example of the blurred lines between Collins, her husband, and the Washington insider network that has surrounded her political career for decades.”
Daffron’s activity as a Washington lobbyist stretches back more than two decades, before his marriage to Collins in 2012. In 2006, Daffron became the chief operating officer of the lobbying and consulting firm Jefferson Consulting Group.
A veteran of national Republican campaigns, he also served as a consultant on Collins’ 1996, 2002, and 2008 Senate bids, and ran her leadership PAC from 2003 until 2012. As far back as 2001, the Portland Press Herald described Daffron as "a close friend [of Collins] and one of the top advisers in her ‘kitchen cabinet.'"
Platner’s ad accuses Collins of having overseen "over $76 million in taxpayer dollars to his company,” which the campaign has argued was due in part to contracting reform legislation she wrote, and which passed in 2008. That law was said to “improve the federal acquisition workforce,” an area in which Jefferson Consulting specialized.
The Platner campaign cited a 2020 article by Salon, which found that:
Between 2006 and 2016, Daffron’s firm landed more than $76 million spread across dozens of federal contracts related to acquisition and procurement, according to searches on USAspending.gov.
In 2010, Jefferson Consulting reported providing acquisitions services and support to nearly two dozen federal agencies. Certain specific provisions included with Collins’ 2007 contract reforms appear to have benefited Daffron’s firm directly, by adding new requirements for acquisition services that Jefferson specialized in.
The ad also highlights Collins' role in voting against several ethics and transparency efforts that could have impacted firms like the one run by Daffron.
One amendment she voted against in 2006 would have required members of Congress to disclose when they or their staff were discussing a possible future private-sector role while serving in government. It would also have restricted lobbyists from giving gifts to lawmakers, such as free lunch or paying for travel or tickets to events.
In 2012, Collins helped to defeat another amendment that would have targeted the so-called “political intelligence” industry that profits from acquiring insider information and passing it on to investors, corporations, and other clients.
Platner: Susan Collins has gotten 21 times wealthier just in the last 15 years. Has anybody else gotten 21 times wealthier since Susan Collins was elected to office? Does Maine have 21 times the schools and hospitals? No, we have less. Susan Collins is getting rich while we're… pic.twitter.com/ZsB2v9JyVu
— Acyn (@Acyn) June 10, 2026
Platner has attacked Collins over her husband's work in recent days, thundering before a crowd on the night of his primary victory last week that “Susan Collins has used her privilege to funnel... federal contracts to her lobbyist husband. If that’s not corruption, I don’t know what is.”
Collins has denied the accusation, saying "It’s just not true, and it’s obvious that Mr. Platner has a problem with the truth.”
Platner has also highlighted Collins' own personal net worth, which had grown from just over $205,000 in 2011 to at least $4.3 million today, when including the estimated value of her stock holdings.
"Has anybody else gotten 21 times wealthier since Susan Collins was elected to office?" Platner asked last week. "Does Maine have 21 times the schools and hospitals? No, we have less."
The ad continues to hammer on this theme of self-dealing, calling out that "Collins voted for new forever wars that gave billions to companies they invested in."
"They made millions," the ad states. "They get rich. Maine pays the price."
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Watchdog’s Online Tracker Shows Which Candidates Are Being Showered With AI Industry’s Dark Money
"With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop, and how much they are spending.”
Jun 10, 2026
The artificial intelligence industry's super political action committees are dumping a heap of dark money into electing candidates from both parties to protect their interests on Capitol Hill amid growing public skepticism and backlash.
On Wednesday, the progressive advocacy group Demand Progress unveiled a new tool to help voters keep track of which midterm candidates are on the take.
The website, known as "AI Money Watch," is using Federal Election Commission (FEC) filings to track spending by the largest AI super PAC, Leading the Future (LTF), which has raised $125 million for into this year's midterms after being created last August to oust critics of the industry and protect allies.
"AI chatbots have been accused of flirting with children, discouraging people in distress from seeking help, and even offering instructions on how to plan a mass shooting—and billionaire AI CEOs are doling out millions to kill any safeguards that would stop this," said Demand Progress Action's AI policy adviser, Colin McGlynn, in a statement announcing the tracker. "With AI Money Watch, Americans can see which candidates the biggest AI Super PAC is buying, who they are trying to stop, and how much they are spending.”
The tracker allows users to view all 21 races in which LTF has spent money through its affiliated Democratic and Republican PACs and the 13 candidates it has endorsed.
While LTF has said it supports common-sense AI regulations to protect children and improve privacy, its affiliated nonprofit, Build American AI, has voiced opposition to state-level regulations and urged Congress to adopt a White House framework unveiled in March that calls for the federal government to preempt state AI laws.
Among LTF's principal backers are top MAGA donors, including OpenAI president and co-founder Greg Brockman, the venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, as well as Palantir co-founder Joe Lonsdale and CEO Alex Karp.
But its top three beneficiaries are all Democrats. The group has spent more than $982,000 on advertising through its Democratic affiliate Think Big in support of Rep. Ritchie Torres (D-NY), a centrist facing a progressive primary challenger, Michael Blake, in his Bronx district. Torres, whom LTF has endorsed, has been one of the most active legislators in the realm of AI, introducing a regulatory bill last year aimed at "unleashing AI innovation" that was described by critics as too industry-friendly.
LTF also threw over $1.1 million behind former Rep. Melissa Bean, an ex-investment banker, who won the Democratic primary for the open seat in Illinois' 8th congressional district with additional help from cryptocurrency and pro-Israel groups, which gave her the edge over her Justice Democrats-backed opponent Junaid Ahmed.
The group poured even more money, $1.4 million, into backing former Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr.—the son of the late civil rights icon—as he attempted a comeback after nearly 14 years out of Congress. The Democrat had said he wanted Illinois' economically marginalized 2nd District to be on the ground floor of the AI economic revolution.
By far the super PAC's biggest target has been New York State Assemblymember Alex Bores (D-73), whom it has bombarded with $5.7 million worth of negative ads to fight off his run in the state's 12th congressional district.
Bores, a former Palantir employee, has run proudly on his role in helping to enact one of the strongest state-level AI regulation frameworks in the country and made himself a target for LTF's benefactors. Think Big has described his legislation as “ideological and politically motivated" while Lonsdale has degraded him as a "random legislator in New York state" seeking to "harass and slow us down, and make us lose to China.”
LTF has also backed two pro-AI Republicans for US Senate through its GOP PAC American Mission—the hawkish Sen. Lindsey Graham, who fought off an anti-interventionist primary challenger in South Carolina, and Rep. Andy Barr, who is gunning for the Kentucky seat long held by Sen. Mitch McConnell after comfortably winning his primary.
In a similar fashion to the cryptocurrency industry's $245 million push to put its allies in Congress and the White House in 2024, the AI industry's titanic effort to influence the midterms comes as its unchecked growth has left voters feeling increasingly uneasy and angry.
As Ryan Cooper explained on Wednesday for The American Prospect, "any messaging the PAC produces will almost certainly be dishonest."
AI as a business is quite unpopular, with 56% negative sentiment and just 38% approval in a recent NBC News poll. The data centers AI requires are even more unpopular, with a recent Heatmap News poll finding that Americans oppose them by a 71-21 margin—a 49-point swing in just one year.
When something is this unpopular, its associated PACs tend to carefully avoid mentioning what they actually care about. Instead, they run pretextual ads that raise unrelated pseudo-objections against their enemies. That’s how crypto took down Sen. [Sherrod] Brown (D-Ohio), and it’s how the Israel lobby took down Reps. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY), Cori Bush (D-Mo.), and Thomas Massie (R-Ky.). So, when some ad campaign is talking about housing, jobs, or whatever, and it’s funded by LTF, it will be vitally important to point out what is really going on.
McGlynn told Cooper that it's especially important to keep an eye on candidates like Torres, who claim to be in favor of some regulation but are receiving massive support from an industry that wants none.
“If you are going to take the money from the people that say, ‘No, don’t regulate anything,’ then you’ve lost credibility,” said McGlynn.
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Over 80% of All US Voters Support Ending Dark Money’s Grip on Democracy
"The public’s conception of what has gone wrong goes far deeper than super PACs or White House ballrooms or even slush funds. To them, it is a system that is fundamentally misfiring."
Jun 04, 2026
The Brennan Center for Justice on Tuesday published a poll showing that American voters believe the country faces a serious corruption problem, and supermajorities support taking major action to end the role of dark money in US politics.
The poll, which surveyed 2,000 registered voters across the country, found 79% support "a constitutional amendment to restore limits on money in elections." The proposal would essentially overturn the 2010 Citizens United Supreme Court ruling, which opened the door to unlimited corporate spending in US elections.
The poll further found that 85% of Americans support "mandatory disclosure for all federal campaign contributions and spending"; 81% support "the creation of a new federal ethics enforcer"; and 69% support "a constitutional amendment limiting the president’s pardon power."
Support for these anti-corruption measures was widespread across both political parties, with 84% of Democrats and 75% of Republicans backing the amendment granting government the power to regulate and limit campaign spending. The proposed mandatory disclosure law drew even more widespread support, with 88% of Democrats and 85% Republicans registering approval.
The poll found Republican voters far less inclined to support proposals that would specifically limit presidential powers, but even in those instances, a majority of Republicans favored a law limiting presidential pardon powers and a law that would let the US Congress and state governments sue the president for alleged violations of the Constitution's emoluments clause that bars presidents from receiving foreign gifts.
Michael Waldman, president and CEO of the Brennan Center for Justice, wrote that he was struck by Americans' widespread support for the poll's proposed reforms, noting that "it's hard to find a set of proposals with a wider bipartisan appeal."
Waldman also noted that voters see corruption as why the government has become unresponsive to key voter concerns about housing and affordability.
"Policymakers should understand that the public’s conception of what has gone wrong goes far deeper than super PACs or White House ballrooms or even slush funds," he wrote. "To them, it is a system that is fundamentally misfiring. A government that is not performing. And there is a willingness to name names and assign blame."
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