Super PAC backing Mayor Suarez’s presidential bid reported super high fundraising costs

A political action committee supporting Miami Mayor Francis Suarez’s failed presidential campaign paid its top fundraising consultant more money than the super PAC raised in new donations last year, according to an analysis of the committee’s latest report filed last week.

The pro-Suarez super PAC paid nearly $2.2 million to Virginia-based consulting firm Starboard LLC, while raising just $1.5 million, the report showed.

The report underscores the desperation and inexperience of Suarez’s campaign, which relied on gimmicks to drum up support, including an AI version of the candidate and an offer of a $20 gift card to each $1 donor. Experts said it’s also an example of how super PACs, which by law are supposed to operate independently, are taking on functions formerly handled by campaigns directly.

The pro-Suarez super PAC, SOS America, stands out among those supporting presidential candidates. For instance, Never Back Down, a super PAC supporting Gov. Ron DeSantis’ candidacy, spent about the same amount on fundraising but raised $60 million in new donations.

Local consultants told the Herald that the amount the Suarez PAC paid out compared to the small amount raised was shocking.

Dario Moreno, a political consultant and professor of politics and international studies at Florida International University, called the amount paid to the fundraising consultant “excessive and on the borderline of abusive.”

Under federal law, super PACs such as SOS America can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money but are required to be independent of a candidate’s official campaign. The groups typically spend the majority of their money on advertising supporting or attacking candidates.

SOS America told the Herald that its payments to Starboard were actually designed to boost donations to Suarez’s official campaign, not the independent PAC.

“The Republican National Committee required that each presidential candidate have a minimum of 40,000 unique contributors in order to participate in the first presidential debate — a formidable challenge for those candidates who were not already nationally known,” the committee said in a statement.

“SOS America was able to lawfully engage Starboard and other vendors to identify and drive prospective donors to the Suarez for President website, and thanks to the efforts of all our vendors, we believe SOS America played an important role in Suarez for President reaching its 40,000-contributor goal.”

Starboard has been criticized for charging high fees in the past, but the firm’s founder and CEO, Ryan Coyne, told the Herald that much of the $2.2 million that SOS America paid his firm for “fundraising consulting” went to covering the hard costs associated with advertising geared at driving potential small donors toward the official campaign.

“The Starboard Team was honored to work with SOS America PAC to generate over 40,000 small dollar donors and the financial figures shown on [federal] filings largely reflect the advertising budgets utilized throughout that successful partnership,” Coyne said. He did not provide a breakdown.

Regardless of those efforts, Suarez failed to meet other requirements to make the stage for the first Republican debate in August 2023, such as registering at least 1% in multiple eligible polls, despite initially claiming that he had. Suarez ended his campaign days later.

Suarez referred questions to the super PAC and Starboard.

Pushing the limits

Campaign finance experts said it is unusual for a super PAC — rather than the official campaign — to pay to goose campaign donations, but that it shows how federal super PACs are increasingly testing the boundaries of what is permissible.

“What they’re saying is, ‘We know the rules are narrow and they’re never enforced anyway, so let’s push the the limits,’” said Saurav Ghosh, a former Federal Election Commission enforcement lawyer and the director of campaign finance reform at the watchdog Campaign Legal Center.

Ghosh’s group has filed a complaint with the FEC alleging that the pro-DeSantis super PAC Never Back Down illegally coordinated with the DeSantis campaign.

SOS America made its first payment to Starboard as Suarez’s campaign struggled to build grassroots support and offered the $20 gift cards and entry into a raffle to see Lionel Messi play soccer, all for a buck. Those gift card expenses were paid not by the PAC, but by the campaign itself, which had its own war chest.

The bulk of the super PAC’s payments to Starboard, eight quarter-million- dollar chunks starting in August, ended shortly after the campaign did in September.

Earlier, the super PAC had paid more than $300,000 to longtime Suarez consultant Brian Goldmeier for fundraising.

The super PAC’s other expenses — for digital media and TV advertising, for instance — were covered by money left over from the previous year. The PAC had been in existence and raising money since long before Suarez announced he was running.

‘It’s a racket’

Starboard has done work for only a handful of other committees, including one connected to a super PAC supporting Nikki Haley’s presidential bid. The firm was in the news earlier this year after announcing plans to acquire the conservative social media platform Parler.

Under its former name, Olympic Media, it had a more extensive track record.

The firm has been paid nearly $18 million over the past five years by committees tied to Republican politicians, including Ohio U.S. Rep. Jim Jordan, Florida Rep. Matt Gaetz and Missouri Sen. Josh Hawley.

But at least one former client, failed Maryland congressional candidate Kim Klacik, publicly criticized the firm’s fees.

The Washington Post reported that Olympic Media kept as much of 70% of the money it generated for Klacik’s campaign.

“I actually lost sleep over this,” Klacik said of the fees to promote her online ads and help her attract donors. “These companies — it’s a racket.”

The latest filing suggest the Suarez super PAC paid even higher fees, said Anna Massoglia, editorial and investigations manager for the campaign finance watchdog Open Secrets.

“This is an even more egregious example,” she said.

Starboard boasts on its LinkedIn page that it has a “zero-risk solution” for potential clients.

“Assuming all the risk, we are only as successful as our clients. Simply put, when our clients win, we win.”