DV Journal

I spend a lot of time staring at campaign finance reports (feel free to send your condolences).

So when I saw the recent investigative report by Broad + Liberty’s Todd Shepherd showing “likely the first link” in Pennsylvania between the Mark Zuckerberg-funded Center for Tech and Civic Life (CTCL) and a “source with an open partisan affiliation for Democrats,” a familiar name immediately caught my eye: Deliver Strategies.

The group, based in Virginia, is a direct mail consultant that works to elect Democrats nationwide, including here in Pennsylvania.

Shepherd notes that Deliver Strategies Senior Partner Kevin Mack was cc’d on an email chain last July regarding CTCL grants. The chain also included Delaware County Councilwoman Christine Reuther, political strategist Marc Solomon, and Gov. Wolf staffer Jessica Walls-Lavelle. “Blue” Delaware County was one of several Democrat counties that received advance notice of the grants before the Department of State invited other counties to apply in September.

In other words, it appears Deliver Strategies was potentially involved in early communication surrounding the CTCL election grants that eventually “skewed heavily” toward Democrat counties.

This is particularly concerning given Deliver Strategies’ extensive involvement in trying to elect Democrats in Pennsylvania.

Campaign finance reports filed with the Pennsylvania Department of State show that since 2018, Deliver Strategies has been paid at least $6.5 million to help elect Democrats here.

This includes:

• More than $3.3 million from the Pennsylvania Democrat Party.
• More than $2 million from the union- and trial lawyer-funded Pennsylvania Fund for Change, which has spent more than $9 million since 2018 on behalf of Democrat Candidates, with a strong focus on the southeast.
• More than $770,000 from the Pennsylvania Leadership Committee, an arm of the national Democratic Legislative Campaign Committee.
• Just over $470,000 from Gov. Wolf’s 2018 re-election campaign.
• Nearly $30,000 from the House Democratic Campaign Committee.
• $15,000 from the trial lawyer-founded Fairness PA.

And the organization’s website boasts its work on several democratic state representative’s campaigns in the Southeast, including Rep. Jennifer O’Mara of Delaware County and Rep. Joe Websters and Rep. Joe Ciresi of Montgomery County.

These connections—deep as they are—aren’t Deliver Strategies’ only ties to the left in this state. As Shepherd notes in his story, Mack also served as lead strategist for the Voter Project.

The Voter Project is an arm of the union-funded Keystone Research Center, which advocates for progressive policies in PA, including cutting funding for police.

An email I sent to Mr. Mack asking for comment on Deliver Strategies’ inclusion on the CTCL email chain and whether Deliver Strategies was involved in advising counties on the CTCL grant application process or any other discussions surrounding the grants was not answered.

What must be answered, however, is why discussion on election grants the Wolf administration claimed were “non-partisan” seemingly included a very partisan political group that has received millions from Pa Democrats to help them win elections.