Bucks Dems dominated 2023 fundraising. Will GOP catch up this year?

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Bucks County Republicans’ prospects for regaining political power in 2023 looked promising, but Democrats won big owing largely to a vast fundraising advantage, according to a Broad + Liberty analysis of campaign finance records.

Republicans could catch up this year but only if they match the Democrats’ impressive midyear fundraising yield.

All told, the Democrats’ countywide campaign effort raked in nearly $595,000 more than the Republicans’ war chest during the 2023 election season. The gap between the two totals widens to over $858,000 when accounting for the money that all relevant county groups already had on hand from 2022.

At first glance in 2024, it would seem Republicans won the money battle. The Bucks County Republican Committee (BCRC) raised an impressive $1,480,877.05 through November 27, 2023. The Bucks County Democratic Committee (BCDC) raised just $405,273.18 during that timespan (the start of the year through the last reporting period covering Election Day).

In reality, however, the Democrats’ county power structure was much larger owing to the fundraising prowess of Bucks United, a political action committee that took in $1.67 million during the 2023 campaign season. Registered in 2021 and headquartered in Langhorne, it has supported Democratic Bucks row-office hopefuls with media output and manpower.

Of course, the four county commissioner candidates — the victorious Democratic incumbents Diane Ellis-Marseglia and Bob Harvie as well as returning Republican Gene DiGirolamo and his unsuccessful running mate Pamela Van Blunk — all had their own committees. But they each did little more than take in and disburse funds to other PACs, mostly to their party organizations and, in the Democrats’ case, to Bucks United.

That group spent copiously on campaign literature, video production, advertising airtime, online media, staff, and consultants of all kinds, including at least $4,000 on opposition research against Republican candidates.

Has the BCRC leveled the playing field this year? The committee got off to a promising start, raising nearly $202,000 through mid-May, exceeding what their Democratic rivals amassed by $16,000.

It’s not clear whether the Republicans have kept up the momentum. Democrats brought in almost $109,000 from this May through late summer. The BCRC didn’t need to report its numbers during that period because it didn’t give or take money from state-level committees. But both parties must file reports by the end of this week, revealing who’s ahead in the 2024 fundraising battle.

Bucks United did not fundraise significantly this year and the group was set up to support county candidates, so it doesn’t impact this year’s contest. But it’s a fundraising colossus to which Ellis-Marseglia and Harvie may owe their 2023 victory.

That committee never would have amassed so much campaign cash if it hadn’t been for a man who tried and failed to get elected himself. Last year, Scott Wallace gave Bucks United $200,000, over one-third of its year-long haul.

Wallace is best known in the Delaware Valley for tapping his more than $127 millionin largely inherited wealth to self-fund a 2018 campaign against moderate Republican Brian Fitzpatrick in Bucks’s First Congressional District. After the Doylestown-based Democrat raised his notoriety by saying “dogs are smarter than police officers,” and letting his nonprofit fund boycotts of Israel, he lost in the law-enforcement-friendly and relatively heavily Jewish district.

When Wallace ran, Bucks was only beginning to turn a bluer shade of violet and didn’t seem ready for representation by an ideological legatee of vice president and far-left 1948 Progressive presidential candidate Henry Wallace, Scott’s grandfather. But the co-chair of the anti-fossil-fuel, business-skeptical Wallace Global Fund has since taken on a kingmaker role, contributing $10,000 to BCDC in 2023 as well.

Wallace, who also co-founded the Kennedy Democrats PAC with former Bucks Democratic Congressman Patrick Murphy, told Broad + Liberty he believes his views dovetail with the county’s moderate mood, citing what he considers a Republican drift rightward. He slammed GOP U.S. Senate candidate Dave McCormick and other statewide candidates as giving a pass to Donald Trump, who is unpopular in the region. He also rebuked Fitzpatrick, now battling for reelection against Democrat Ashley Ehasz, as too pro-life and anti-tax.

“Bucks County Republicans used to be moderate,” he wrote in an email. “My parents settled in Bucks County in 1947 — in the house I still live in — and my father was a registered Republican and a friend and mentor to moderate Republicans like state Senator Ed Howard and Congressman Jim Greenwood, while simultaneously serving as president of Bucks County Planned Parenthood. My, how things have changed.”

He said all of this motivates him to continue promoting Democratic candidates who support his priorities of ending the Electoral College, reforming redistricting, expanding government health insurance, strengthening unions, and protecting the rights of protesters.

“I plan to stay involved in empowering this return to normalcy,” he wrote. “I want to give Governor [Josh] Shapiro [D] a chance to break through the gridlock and [implement] a truly pro-people agenda.”

Wallace wasn’t Bucks United’s only major benefactor last year. A close second was Pennsylvania First, a PAC headquartered at the same address as the Marseglia-Harvie campaign. Much of Pennsylvania First’s money came from union committees like the Laborers’ District Council PAC, the Local 19 Sheet Metal Workers Union League for Political Education, the Local 98 International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, and the Local 690 Plumbers Union Political Action Fund, each contributing $10,000.

While Bob Harvie’s own campaign contributed the second greatest annual total to Bucks United ($150,000), BCDC chair and state Senator Steve Santarsiero (D-10, Bucks) gave the committee the third most ($120,761).

Santarsiero is another figure whose ideology lies considerably to the left of the county whose politics he hopes to steer. (His own district is marginally Democrat-leaning.) Republicans, on the heels of a strenuous registration effort, now boast a plurality countywide. But Santarsiero scores solidly progressive on advocacy groupscorecards. If he breaks with the progressive wing on any major issue, it would be Israel.

And the senator’s financial clout shows itself beyond his own committee’s generosity. Santarsiero worked as a partner at the Yardley-based Curtin & Heefner law firm, resigning in 2019. His departure came amid an allegation he breached the state Ethics Act by using his access to the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection in a legal battle over Rockhill Quarry.

Curtin & Heefner gave $15,000 to BDCD, $14,000 to Bucks United, and $5,000 to Democratic Bucks Commissioner Bob Harvie who won reelection last year. The law firm has worked pro bono on a redistricting change many believe will make it more difficult for Republicans to win board seats in Pennsylvania’s third-largest school district, Central Bucks (CBSD).

Curtin & Heefner represented the left-wing CBSD Fair Votes last year in its successful endeavor to reduce the number of school-director districts in Central Bucks from nine to three, a change that will go into effect in 2025. Republicans opposed the move, calling it a gerrymander and suggesting it would make the board less responsive to community concerns.

Brendan Flynn, an associate at the firm, disputed critics’ description of the court-ordered plan as a pro-Democrat gerrymander.

“The Court’s selection of the Fair Votes Plan for use starting in the elections of 2025 ensures that the voters of the Central Bucks School District will select Board members from three balanced regions, with each reflecting the slight Republican lean of the School District as a whole,” he wrote in an email. “The Court’s selection of the Fair Votes Plan also ensures that, going forward, the voters of Central Bucks will have more of a say in the direction of the School District, as the Court noted in its Memorandum selecting the Fair Votes Plan. In addition, Board members, even under the nine region plan, have always served the district at large, and the Court’s selection of the three-region Fair Votes Plan makes no change in that policy.”

Jamie Walker, a CBSD mother who was treasurer of the now defunct, issue-oriented PAC Protect Bucks, isn’t buying that the firm acted out of nonpartisan concerns, noting the high-profile Democrats who have worked for Curtin & Heefner, including former Bucks County Solicitor Joe Khan. She said opponents of the redistricting faced a daunting disadvantage when the firm took the case for free.

“I mean, how do you fight this stuff?” she said.

Many other attorneys who perform government work contributed to Bucks United, including Michael Clarke, whose accounts include the Bucks County Tax Claims Bureau, Doylestown Township, and numerous other local agencies. Clarke, at whose firm Santarsiero now works and who gave the PAC $2,500 during the 2023 election season, was described by The Philadelphia Inquirer as an example of “pay-to-play culture.”

Federal Agenda PAC intercedes in Central Bucks

As they did on the county level in 2023, Republicans suffered losses in CBSD, which comprises Doylestown and abutting communities. Five Democratic hopefuls prevailed over their Republican opponents, some by significant margins. This year, two of the board’s remaining Republicans resigned, giving Democratic school directors an eight-to-one majority.

At first glance, CBSD Republicans would appear to enjoy a financial advantage last year. GOP committees devoted to the race raised over $340,000 through November while Democratic outfits took in just under $316,000. The Democrats’ war chest enlarges by about $8,000 when funds brought forward from 2022 are included.

But Central Bucks Democrats had outside help from the federal Agenda PAC, a pro-LGBT organization. Based in Philadelphia and then chaired by auditor general candidate and state Rep. Malcolm Kenyatta (D-181, Philadelphia), the committee ran advertisements and canvassed against the Republicans in the CBSD races. While its campaign finance reports don’t specify how much money it spent in Central Bucks, the total it disbursed for Pennsylvania digital advertising and consultants was at least $24,635.50, all paid to southeastern Pennsylvania vendors.

It took a dogged effort by the Federal Election Commission to get the super PAC to even file its 2023 reports so the public could understand its role in local races. The FEC sent the committee an initial letter in August 2023, another this February, and another this April. This winter, the Daily Caller news website reported on the PAC’s failure to file, something the group only corrected this May.

An ad Agenda PAC ran against CBSD Republicans faulted the then GOP-controlled board for incurring seven-figure legal fees and castigated majority incumbent directors for pursuing an “extreme Republican agenda.” That autumn, the group organizeddoor-knocking events in the Central Bucks community of Doylestown. Local Republicans were accused of “banning books” and culture-war politics.

Agenda PAC remains active and has named former state Representative Brian Sims (D-182, Philadelphia), an LGBT activist famous for attempting to doxx pro-life teenagers, as a senior adviser. The PAC openly embraces harassment as a campaign tactic; when members of the conservative Moms for Liberty stayed in Philadelphia last summer, Agenda PAC placed door-hangers outside their hotel rooms saying “PLEASE DISTURB” and “FASCISM IN PROGRESS.” (Capitals in the original.)

“We will disturb their bigotry every place, every time,” the PAC said in a tweet.

Agenda PAC’s work augmented the efforts of CBSD Neighbors United, the committee responsible for the Democrats’ Central Bucks campaign. TBB (Turn Bucks Blue) PAC gave CBSD Neighbors United $50,000, the largest donation it received in 2023. PSEA PACE, a committee of the Pennsylvania State Education Association, bestowed $27,000 on CBSD Neighbors United.

Walker lamented the role the union played in electing those on the other side of the compensation bargaining table.

“The teachers’ union put up signs saying, ‘These are the school board members we want,’ and meanwhile, the school board members are who fund their contracts,” she said.

TBB got $5,000 from Wallace but relied mostly on a $100,000 donation from Jill Kearney, a sometime Bucks resident who now runs the ArtYard exhibition space in Frenchtown, New Jersey.

Apart from the Democratic candidates’ own committees, Santarsiero’s senate campaign was CBSD Neighbors United’s third-greatest donor, providing $6,000. Meanwhile the Democratic candidates themselves each raised between $16,000 and $28,000, except for Heather Reynolds who brought in $51,360.23 in 2023.

None of the Central Bucks Republican candidates set up a campaign committee or raised campaign funds. Paul Martino, head of Bullpen Capital, contributed the greatest sum of $239,000 to the local Republicans’ committee, Bucks Families for Leadership. Former congressional candidate Kathy Barnette’s committee as well as school-director candidate Stephen Mass, also donated $5,000.

Another PAC working against Central Bucks Democrats was Stop Bucks Extremism, which brought in almost $60,000, though that number overstates its impact on the race insofar as roughly $14,000 of that money came in late in the election cycle and was not spent by late November 2023.

Ultimately, in Walker’s view, local Republicans couldn’t match the combined county and local fundraising advantage the Democrats amassed while enjoying uncritical treatment from news outlets, particularly WHYY and The Philadelphia Inquirer. After the then GOP-led Central Bucks School Board enacted a policy to prevent any kind of political advocacy in the classroom, including the hanging “pride flags,” the Inquirerran a commentary piece by law student Devontae Torriente accusing the district of waging an anti-LGBT “crusade.” WHYY’s Emily Rizzo, whose work at the station would soon come to an end, frequently gave CBSD progressives glowing coverage.

“They wouldn’t even consider writing our point of view,” Walker said. “They wouldn’t even be interested in what we had to say. I have spoken with them before; they would take anything we say and twist it around.”

Neither BCRC, BCDC, Michael Clarke, nor Agenda PAC responded to requests for comment.

Bradley Vasoli is a writer and media strategist in Pennsylvania. You can follow him on X at @BVasoli.

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