At the beginning of 2024, Pew Research reported that “reducing the influence of money” is at the top of Americans’ list of priorities for Congress and the president, right behind strengthening the economy and protecting against terrorism.
Then came the election. The federal campaigns spent $16 billion (state elections added another $4 billion). Despite appearances of “small donors,” the concentrated power of big spenders is worse than ever. Most of the money came from wealthy donors in a handful of cities. Just six people– including Elon Musk – put $800 million behind the 2024 Trump campaign. Billionaires backed the Harris campaign, too. In October, Michael Bloomberg and Bill Gates put $100 million into the Harris Super PAC. Bloomberg held back until Kamala Harris and her economic team were willing to satisfy him with a personal briefing.
This concentration of political money – this concentration of power- is why the word “populism” comes up a lot now. The perception that elites control the government is accurate, and it’s not going away. As Joshua Dyck, a political science professor at the University of Massachusetts Lowell, told The New York Times, “the politics of anti-elite grievance is not just popular in the United States and it’s not just popular on the right,” he said. “It is the story of politics right now.”
In a NYT/Siena poll after the election, two-thirds of voters – 82% of Trump voters – said the government is “mostly working to benefit itself and the elites,” rather than “the people and the country.”
Populism can mean a lot of things, but as before in American history, some key drivers of populism are drivers of big change. In the Gilded Age, populists demanded election of senators, equal voting rights for women, and progressive income taxes, all of which were achieved with constitutional amendments. The pervasive fact coming out of the election is that American politics have aligned around exactly the problem that American Promise is built to fix.
Thanks to you, we are ready. We closed our $20M raise last quarter, enabling us to expand our capacity to mobilize Americans across the nation to win the necessary two-thirds vote in Congress and ratification in 38 states.
In 2025, we will have campaigns in 11 states and will connect these more powerfully to our congressional operation in Washington. With rich opportunities in key states and a nation eager for more ways to engage in this historic campaign, we will launch a new capital raise to drive the For Our Freedom Amendment to the finish line. We will end this corrupt era of politics and return power and representation to all Americans.
Please reach out any time with your suggestions and thoughts. We know that the wide range of different viewpoints that make up American Promise and our cause is essential, but not always easy. (Not many go from the Federalist Society to an MSNBC-sponsored event within 24 hours, as we did last month.) To succeed, as we intend to do, we work with all Americans who want to help. This work takes commitment, courage and, sometimes, a level of patience with each other. That’s what you demonstrate and that’s what will get us over the finish line.
We are grateful for your support and to be on this journey together.
2024 was a big year for big donors. Billionaires funneled unlimited amounts of money to their hand-picked candidates. Faceless dark money groups sunk millions into swing districts. And the wealthiest donors found new ways to shield their contributions from public scrutiny.
Thanks in large part to the leaders in our Ambassador program, we have had considerable, growing success in our fundraising efforts. Ambassadors not only commit to investing and raising $25,000 or more, they actively invite friends and family, connect us to their professional networks, and host and attend events, among other things. It’s a great community and a lot of fun.
Over the past few months, Ambassadors have hosted gatherings in Boston, Brookline, Cambridge, Bronxville, Dallas, New York City, Marblehead, San Francisco and Washington, D.C., bringing together both current American Promise investors and guests who are eager to learn more about our work and consider participation themselves. Ambassador Susan Ryan shared: “My husband and I have been involved with American Promise for some time. The organization’s mission is our most important priority. We contribute through the Ambassador Program by introducing people to the organization and hosting events to educate the community about the dire need to get big money out of politics. What keeps us engaged is the amazing community of people connected to American Promise, working hard to change the course of history.”
Looking ahead, we are focused on expanding the Ambassador Program in key areas, including New York City, San Francisco, Dallas / Austin and Florida, where we see tremendous opportunities as we scale, along with winter destinations in Wyoming and Utah. We are collaborating closely with our Ambassadors to identify hosts and guests for upcoming events and would welcome your introductions.
Please let us know if you or people in your network might wish to attend a gathering or participate in the Ambassador Program. To learn more, please contact Carolina Hojaij (Carolinah@americanpromise.net).
American Promise has expanded our research capacity and works closely with the non-partisan Open Secrets organization and its data sources. Here’s a quick recap of some 2024 numbers.
The 2024 election was projected to see more than $20 billion in spending, including $16 billion at the federal level, beating the previous spending record set in 2020 by nearly a billion dollars. Money is not speech but power, and that power is concentrated, with most of the money coming from billionaires and only 100 donors providing 70% of the Super PAC money
This election also saw a record-breaking amount of outside spending—political spending done by entities claiming to be independent of a campaign. Dark money, meaning spending by unknown sources, also soared, passing the $1 billion mark.
In addition to soaring and concentrating, the money in elections also is nationalizing, with local and state races overwhelmed by national donor money sourced far from the concerns, knowledge and needs of local voters.
In 2024, Chicago school board elections saw $7 million in spending, $3 million of which came from Super PACs. And in Arizona, one of the most expensive Senate races, both candidates raised millions of dollars, with over 70% of each candidate’s contributions coming from outside of the state.
Passing an amendment to the U.S. Constitution requires a two-thirds vote in Congress and ratification in three-fourths of the states. We know how to do that.
First, we build strength in unity. Consider the numbers, available on our website:
84% of Americans: believe the influence of money in elections threatens democracy.
77% of Americans support the For Our Freedom Amendment.
Second, we mobilize Americans everywhere. In the 2024 election, our staff and volunteers secured 612 Candidate Pledges in support of the For Our Freedom Amendment in 2024—more than the last five years combined—including 201 Republicans, a seven-year high. With more candidates and elected officials committing to use their positions to push forward the amendment, we are looking at even greater chances of passage. With our 50-state plan and expanding campaigns in strategic states, 22 states have taken formal action to back the For Our Freedom Amendment, and momentum is accelerating. Recent highlights include:
Learn more updates on the states below, and in 2025, look for our American Promise campaigns in these states, plus Arizona, Utah, Oklahoma, Ohio, Michigan, Minnesota and Indiana.
In the third piece of our strategy, we leverage and integrate our states and federal work to accelerate support in both the states and in Congress. We are meeting with congressional leadership as well as new and returning members, and will have more meetings when Congress convenes early next year.
In Arizona this quarter, American Promise staff and volunteers held conversations with thousands of citizens, hosting a table for five weeks at the Arizona State Fair, holding Freedom is Brewing gatherings, and attending wide-ranging local events like the Veterans’ Car Show and the Black Chamber of Arizona, finding deep support for the For Our Freedom Amendment.
The Arizona team communicated with 95% of Arizona’s legislators, and collected numerous Candidate Pledges to support the For Our Freedom Amendment.
American Promise CEO Jeff Clements and Board member Debra Winger were invited to report from “the frontlines of a movement to get an amendment to the U.S. Constitution that would limit spending in politics” at The Philadelphia Citizen’s 2024 Ideas We Should Steal Festival, sponsored by Comcast/NBCUniversal. After the event, attendees resolved to help follow our recent win in the Pennsylvania House with passage in the Pennsylvania Senate in 2025. The Philadelphia Citizen helped circulate the American Promise Citizen Pledge and declared, “Come on folks, we can do this!” You can watch a video of Jeff and Debra’s conversation with MSNBC’s Ali Velshi here.
American Promise Pennsylvania State Manager Matt Powell presented to students at Lehigh University, inviting them to volunteer with our Young Americans Network. We also presented to the annual Eleanor Roosevelt Brunch, and helped to organize three bipartisan “Country Over Party” events ahead of the election. This year, we secured 80 American Promise For Our Freedom pledges from candidates in Pennsylvania, and a cross-partisan victory in the Pennsylvania House.
Texas is taking off with volunteer call-time twice a week; engagement at numerous events, including the Texas Republican Convention; a record-setting 118 candidates pledging to support American Promise’s For Our Freedom Amendment; and a commitment from a key Republican legislator to sponsor the Lone Star State’s ready-to-ratify resolution.
In addition, staff and volunteers give presentations and lead discussions at campuses around the state, including Texas A&M, University of Houston, University of Texas-Austin, and University of Texas-Tyler. At these presentations, students are able to gain insight into the problem of money in politics, the For Our Freedom Amendment, and the process of amending the Constitution.
American Promise Young Americans Network Coordinator Grace Hall recently assembled a group of five young activists based in Texas and Pennsylvania to serve as our Young Americans Council.
In Wisconsin and Wyoming, we finished the year strengthening our coalitions and giving presentations, including with the Ripon College Republicans and La Crosse League of Women Voters. Our super volunteers Judy Nagel and Howard Hauser gave a Rotary presentation, with additional Rotary presentations planned in Wyoming in early 2025. These mobilization efforts are key to building momentum as we look ahead to 2025, where our focus will be on passing resolutions in these states calling on Congress to back the For Our Freedom Amendment.
We are growing our research and communications capacity. With an expanded research team, we provide Americans with inspiring, infuriating and actionable data, information and stories in our reports, our biweekly Campaign Finance Roundup, polling data and the media. One report example is The Problem of Foreign Money in U.S. Politics. We are also working to create more video content, in order to effectively help spread the word about the issue of money in politics and how the For Our Freedom Amendment is a necessary solution.
In early 2025, we’re expanding our Communications team and conducting post-election message testing. If you have any extraordinary communications leaders in your network, please feel free to pass along our posting for Chief Communications Officer
In our final installment of the Leadership Series for 2024, Brian Boyle, our Chief Program Officer and General Counsel sat down with Dr. Yuval Levin. Dr. Levin is the director of Social, Cultural, and Constitutional Studies at the American Enterprise Institute, where he also holds the Beth and Ravenel Curry Chair in Public Policy. The founder and editor of National Affairs, he is also a senior editor at The New Atlantis, a contributing editor at National Review, and a contributing opinion writer at The New York Times. He served on the American Academy of Arts and Sciences Commission that endorsed our amendment.
Dr. Levin is the author of several books on political theory and public policy, most recently “American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – and Could Again.”
If you missed the conversation or want to revisit it, you can view it here.
I’m currently retired, but my favorite occupation, other than of course being a mom, was working at U.S. News & World Report Magazine. I had started just as the publishing industry was trying to figure out what to do with new media – this was the early ’90s so it was called new media, now of course it’s the internet. Nobody really knew what to make of the possibilities, and I remember one executive calling the internet a “zero billion dollar industry,” which was such a great line, and at the time he wasn’t wrong. It was a really really interesting time to work in publishing and try to figure out what to do with this industry that was just exploding. I was the newest person at U.S. News at the time, so they put me on a small editorial team tasked with putting the magazine online. The timing was really great and I got to be involved in this really cool industry at a really interesting time. It was great fun.
I started sourdough baking, so I’m mostly preoccupied with not killing my sourdough starter because, I’m a really, really bad baker so this is challenging me in unexpected ways. But more substantively, and this is something I actually think about a lot, I’m preoccupied with the way we get news now and how that’s changed. I worry that we all live in these self-constructed news silos, where we are only being exposed to news and information and perspectives that reinforce our already established point of view. The way we consume news today, doesn’t leave much room for serendipity. When you used to get a newspaper in the morning, you’d sit down and turn the pages and end up reading some random article that you wouldn’t have necessarily sought out on your own. You’d often think , “Wow, I didn’t know I would be interested in that.” That kind of experience changes the way you think, but it happens less and less today. I think it’s sad for us as individuals and probably as a society too.
I’m watching Slow Horses, and I know I’m a little bit late to this party, but it’s so good and I’m completely obsessed with it. It’s so dark and funny and brilliant, and I just love it.
And I’m really doing a lot more listening these days than I am reading. Stuff You Should Know is one of my favorite podcasts. I think it’s great because it makes you feel like you’re a walking encyclopedia. I just listened to this episode on tugboats that was so fun, and again back to the serendipity – I’m not interested in tugboats, I never would have thought about them, but it was the latest episode and it was really good. I also recently discovered this podcast called Everything is Alive. It is random and quirky. The hosts interview inanimate objects, like a can of cola in the refrigerator. I wouldn’t be able to do it justice trying to imitate it but it’s just very funny and bizarre, and oddly compelling.
Living – I feel like the world is a little heavy right now, so I am filled with admiration for anyone and anything that makes us laugh, and I feel like the Smartless guys deserve a medal for that.
Historical – Katharine Graham. I think people who are forced to step out of their comfort zone in unplanned ways, into significant roles, are really fascinating. Her brilliant husband’s suicide forced her into this role that she never wanted, as president and publisher of her family’s newspaper – The Washington Post – during such a critical time in its history. She was a shy person, kind of awkward, and under these really horrible circumstances she had to take on this really important and very public role. She wasn’t necessarily built for it but she didn’t just succeed, she completely triumphed. She was the first female Fortune 500 CEO and the Post flourished under her. She was principled and showed such courage during Watergate and the Pentagon Papers. She changed American history. I think she showed such grit and grace and style, and I find her to be completely remarkable.
We were introduced to American Promise by Leila Blodgett and Fred Maynard a couple of summers ago at a dinner at their home. Before that, like most people, we were aware that there was far too much money in our political process, but we really were not aware of the types of money and the extent to which the floodgates had really opened. A lot of things stuck out to us that night, but the fact that American Promise offers such a reasonable solution to this very serious problem was super compelling to us. But the most important thing was that American Promise’s solution is so utterly bipartisan. At a time when our political system and our national conversation is so polarized, for Tom and I, it was very refreshing to see a solution for such a serious problem that was constructed to benefit both sides of the aisle.
We send our condolences to Randi Feinberg, our chief operating officer, her father, Howard Simowitz, and all her family on the recent passing of her mother, Barbara Simowitz. We deeply appreciate the generous donations made to American Promise in Barbara’s memory by the following supporters:
Renee Block
Robert DeWitt
William Ehrlich
Epstein Teicher Philanthropies – Jane Heffner, Adrienne Simpson and Dr. Jack Stern
Randi and Andy Feinberg
Anne Gussoff
Katherine Hall
Elizabeth Harvey
Gerald Kaminsky and family
John F. Keane
Lori and David Kriedberg
Dan Mendelson
Steven Rose
Leslie Rosenberg
Howard Simowitz
Dean and Frank Stein
Alan Storch
Nancy Wender
Gail Willner-Giwerc
American Promise CEO Jeff Clements had an op-ed published in RealClearPolitics, where he discussed constitutional populism and the opportunity for the country now.
The Lehigh University student newspaper, The Brown & White, recapped American Promise Pennsylvania State Manager Matt Powell’s discussion with students at the university about the For Our Freedom Amendment and how they can get involved.
American Promise Board member Leila Blodgett was featured in the Marblehead Current, highlighting her leadership and work with American Promise and why she is passionate about limiting unchecked money in politics.
American Covenant: How the Constitution Unified Our Nation – And Could Again by Dr. Yuval Levin
If you haven’t done so, contact Liz Harvey at lizh@americanpromise.net to learn how you can make a commitment to invest in American Promise’s growth and expansion in new states and in Washington. It’s an all-hands-on-deck opportunity to make history in the next few years!
Contact our Director of Ambassador Program Carolina Hojaij at carolinah@americanpromise.net to learn how you can become an American Promise Ambassador. Our Ambassadors are funders and allies dedicated to expanding our network and introducing others to the American Promise movement.
Join our grassroots volunteers by contacting Director of Mobilization Mike Monetta at mikem@americanpromise.net. Opportunities include everything from talking with neighbors and colleagues to writing letters to the editor and gathering pledges from elected officials.
© 2024 American Promise
