A new way for Spam PACs to Spam PAC? with A.J. Carrillo

A.J. Carrillo was searching for Adam Hamilton’s ActBlue page when he stumbled onto a series of spam PAC donation pages designed to siphon money from his campaign into the pockets of the PAC operators. Then he found something similar for James Talarico.

The same tactic also appeared to be used to fundraise for John Hickenlooper’s safe Senate seat.

The Hickenlooper campaign says it was not involved and has worked with ActBlue to take down pages designed to look like it was raising money for Talarico or Hamilton.

A.J. joined me on the pod to walk through how he found these pages, what patterns he’s seeing, and what it means for the rest of this cycle.

What to watch for before you donate:

Before giving to any candidate you found through a search or an AI summary, check that the page links to that candidate’s official ActBlue account. If something looks off, report it. Campaigns, start monitoring for lookalike pages now, before someone else does it for you.

Find links, transcript and more at HelloMergeTag.com.