Vice President Kamala Harris's campaign directed nearly $600 million to just four media consulting firms with deep ties to the Democratic establishment, Federal Election Commission records show.
The latest available FEC data show the Harris campaign exceeded $880 million in total spending as of October 16, though that number is expected to balloon to $1.5 billion after the Harris campaign files its post-election FEC report on December 5. Seventy percent of the campaign's known total spending flowed through four firms: Media Buying & Analytics, Gambit Strategies, Bully Pulpit Interactive, and Dupont Circle Strategies.
Together, these four Democratic firms were largely responsible for distributing Harris's campaign messaging across the nation—an effort that ultimately saw Harris lose all seven swing states and the popular vote but directed huge sums of donor money the firms' way.
Media Buying & Analytics
A little-known Atlanta-based firm founded in May 2019, Media Buying & Analytics was the top-earning contractor for the Harris campaign, raking in an astonishing $281 million for ad production and placement services as of October 16, FEC records show.
If Media Buying & Analytics had its way, its work for the Harris campaign would have been conducted entirely from the shadows. Media Buying & Analytics doesn't have a website, its business is registered to a law office in Atlanta, and the Harris campaign's checks to the company were made out to a UPS store in the city.
But Federal Communications Commission filings in 2020 linked Media Buying & Analytics to Canal Partners Media, a well-connected Democratic ad agency that has worked in presidential elections dating back to 1988. Canal Partners Media CEO Bobby Kahn confirmed to Business Insider in 2020 that his company owns Media Buying & Analytics, which was formed specifically to work for President Joe Biden's 2020 campaign.
It's not uncommon for consulting firms to create a subsidiary to work exclusively with a presidential campaign in order to create the appearance of a firewall between its work with the campaign and other allied political groups.
Kahn is a longtime Democratic political activist who made his name running the gubernatorial campaigns of former Georgia Democratic governor Roy E. Barnes in 1998 and 2002. He was later elected chairman of the Democratic Party of Georgia. Media Buying & Analytics raked in more than $446 million from Biden's 2020 campaign, and parent company Canal Partners Media has worked with a wide range of Democratic politicians and groups, including the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, Sen. Amy Klobuchar (D., Minn.), and Everytown for Gun Safety.
Kahn's firm knows a thing or two about overseeing an exorbitant amount of cash on behalf of losing campaigns. Early this year, Canal Partners Media raked in more than $31 million running ads for Rep. David Trone's (D., Md.) failed Senate campaign. Trone made history in May for pouring a record-breaking $61.8 million of his own money into his bid, only to lose in a blowout to his primary challenger Angela Alsobrooks, who went on to win her first term in the Senate in the November election.
It's unclear what Media Buying & Analytics's profit margins were on its $281 million payday from the Harris campaign payments. Canal Partners Media did not return a request for comment.
Gambit Strategies
Gambit Strategies came in a distant second in Harris campaign contractor payments, bringing in $122 million from the vice president's campaign for media production and placement services.
Founded in 2021, Gambit Strategies was a natural fit for the Harris campaign. One of its founding partners, Megan Clasen, was a senior paid media adviser to Biden's 2020 campaign, during which she claims to have executed "the largest digital ads program ever run by a Democratic campaign." Prior to that, Clasen led digital advertising efforts for Hillary Clinton's 2016 campaign.
Before working on the Biden campaign in 2020, Clasen led digital advertising efforts for Democratic Illinois governor J.B. Pritzker's 2018 campaign, a connection that could prove lucrative for Gambit Strategies in the near-future if Pritzker runs for president in 2028, as some political analysts predict.
Gambit's other founding partner, Patrick McHugh, also has extensive experience in Democratic campaigns. McHugh led the pro-Biden Priorities USA super PAC in 2020 and before that held senior roles at the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, the Democratic National Committee, and several Democratic campaigns.
Gambit Strategies did not return a request for comment asking what its profit margins were for its work with the Harris campaign.
Bully Pulpit Interactive
Founded in 2009 by veterans of former president Barack Obama's 2008 campaign, Bully Pulpit Interactive was paid just over $101 million in Harris campaign payments for media production and placement services.
Bully Pulpit Interactive has become one of the most prominent Democratic communications firms since it hit the scene in 2009, growing from an 8-person crew led by Obama campaign veteran Andrew Bleeker to a global behemoth in 2024 with 250 employees and operations in the United States and Europe.
Bully Pulpit Interactive played a critical role in shepherding Biden to the White House in 2020, establishing partnerships with social media influencers to spread his message from outside the confines of the campaign.
"We were not the biggest megaphone compared to Trump, so we had to help arm any who were," Bleeker told the New York Times after the 2020 election.
The Harris campaign tried to replicate that strategy in 2024, spending millions of dollars on social media influencers to boost her campaign with young voters, according to the New York Post.
But the strategy didn't work for Harris. The vice president failed to capitalize on opportunities to engage with long-form podcast hosts while Trump made the rounds with some of the most prominent hosts on the scene, such as Joe Rogan and Theo Von. Harris ultimately lost support from young voters compared with Biden in 2020, exit polls showed.
Bully Pulpit Interactive did not return a request for comment.
Dupont Circle Strategies
Operating from the shadows, Dupont Circle Strategies was the fourth top-earning Harris campaign contractor, earning more than $94 million for media consulting, production, and placement services.
Founded in September 2023, Dupont Circle Strategies has no website and worked exclusively with the Harris campaign, according to FEC records.
It's unclear who or what owns Dupont Circle Strategies. As a Delaware corporation, ownership information is shielded from the public. And though the Harris campaign cut its checks to Dupont Circle Strategies to an address in Washington, D.C., the company does not have a business license or permit to operate in the district, according to business records reviewed by the Washington Free Beacon.
Public records indicate, however, that Dupont Circle Strategies could share ties with Chong and Koster, a D.C.-based Democratic consulting firm also known as C Plus K. The firm claims to have pioneered the use of Facebook ads as the primary form of voter contact for winning campaigns, starting in 2012, when it managed digital strategy for Democrat Bridget Mary McCormack's campaign for chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
Chong and Koster has worked closely with the DNC since 2016, according to FEC records, and more recently, in late 2023, performed some political strategy consulting for the Harris campaign.
But the Harris campaign's payments to Chong and Koster dried up in December 2023. The following month, in January 2024, Harris campaign dollars started flowing into the newly formed Dupont Circle Strategies by the millions for ad production and placement, FEC records show.
And it just so happens that Chong and Koster and Dupont Circle Strategies share the same office suite in a building in downtown Washington, D.C., according to Harris campaign payment records.
Dupont Circle Strategies could not be reached for comment. Chong and Koster did not return requests for comments asking about its connection to Dupont Circle Strategies.