Amy McGrath launches PAC to defeat ‘Trump, anti-democracy’ Secretary of State candidates
Amy McGrath is back.
And she’s asking for your support – but not for a campaign this time.
The decorated fighter pilot-turned political candidate is leading a Political Action Committee (PAC) that says it will back candidates for secretaries of state, on both sides of the aisle, that aren’t what she calls “anti-democracy.” She makes reference to the perceived threat of Donald Trump and like-minded politicians who claim that elections are illegitimate without any evidence.
As was the case with McGrath’s 2018 campaign – where she narrowly lost to U.S. Rep. Andy Barr in Central Kentucky’s 6th Congressional District – her effort went public with a video.
The video starts out highlighting tape that documents former President Donald Trump’s conversation with Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in the days after the 2020 presidential election. Trump implores Raffensberger, a fellow Republican, that he “need(s) 11,000 votes” and falsely asserts that he actually won the 2020 presidential election.
Raffensperger objected to Trump’s assertion, standing his ground against the president.
“Imagine what would have happened if secretaries of state in Georgia, Arizona and Michigan had not stood up to him – Republicans and Democrats,” McGrath asks.
Raffensperger and other sitting secretaries of state in battleground states like Georgia are facing challenges from candidates who have strongly aligned themselves with Trump, some of whom have challenged Biden’s victory in their respective states.
“We need to engage in secretary of state races and defeat these Trump, anti-democracy candidates before they can get into office,” McGrath said in the video. “… Otherwise, next time a secretary of state just might agree with him.”
A PAC is an organization that pools money from various sources and donates it to candidates it deems worthy of the group’s goal.
According to the Federal Election Commission, the American SOS Project PAC was organized in March. It received $118,544 from Honor Bound PAC, which is the offshoot of McGrath’s 2020 senate campaign committee, Amy McGrath for Senate. Honor Bound PAC still has more than $2 million on hand as of mid-April. The two PACs share the same treasurer.
This week, Honor Bound PAC became a multi-candidate PAC, supporting five different Democratic women running for reelection in the U.S. House of Representatives, all of whom have defense backgrounds like McGrath.
Before it became the Honor Bound PAC, which shares a name with McGrath’s 2021 memoir, McGrath’s campaign received more than $90 million in its 2020 Senate push. McGrath lost that race against Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell by a much larger margin than her race against Barr, falling short by almost 20 percentage points to the longtime Senator.
Thus far, the American SOS Project PAC has spent $68,564.
