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The Conversation with Dasha Burns

The quarter-billion dollar PAC driving a red wave

The Conversation with Dasha Burns

POLITICO

Politics, News, Government

4.01.6K Ratings

🗓️ 28 October 2022

⏱️ 59 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Dan Conston is the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund, the super PAC aligned with Rep. Kevin McCarthy with the singular mission of making the California Republican Speaker of the House. Most forecasts suggest that Conston and CLF are on the verge of success. In a candid hour-plus interview, Conston took Playbook behind the scenes of CLF’s operation. We talked about the issues and demographics of this election, emerging GOP opportunities in the final days of the campaign and the inside strategies that one of the best-funded super PACs in American politics uses to take down its Democratic opponents. Ryan Lizza is a Playbook co-author for POLITICO.Dan Conston is the president of the Congressional Leadership Fund.Afra Abdullah is associate producer for POLITICO audio.Kara Tabor is producer for POLITICO audio.Brook Hayes is senior editor for POLITICO audio.Adam Allington is senior producer for POLITICO audio.Jenny Ament is executive producer for POLITICO audio. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0

All right, so to get it on the record, if you guys don't take back the house, who's

0:07.2

false is it?

0:08.2

We're going to take back the house.

0:12.2

I feel very confident that we will win back the house and we will win it with some

0:15.5

margin.

0:17.0

Dan Constan heads the Congressional Leadership Fund.

0:20.1

The House GOP's main super PAC, whose mission is to make Kevin McCarthy's speaker.

0:25.6

And right now, it's looking pretty good for Dan.

0:28.6

And Kevin, Republican candidates are seeing their polling numbers rebound into what might

0:33.2

be considered red wave territory.

0:36.2

The summer of optimism for Democrats has dissipated.

0:40.6

Constan says Democrats have reached the peak of the so-called DOBS effect, and they are

0:45.5

highly vulnerable on both the economy and crime in the final days of this election.

0:50.9

We are moving numbers against Democrat incumbents with ease at this point, and that says to

0:56.2

us that actually the environment is a little bit better than the top line suggests.

1:01.9

And he has a lot of money to take advantage of this improved political terrain.

1:07.4

Dan's super PAC will spend some $250 million in the 2022 mid-term cycle.

1:15.9

So how did a 37 year old get a quarter of a billion dollar budget to play with in American

1:22.6

politics?

1:23.6

That's a good question.

1:27.3

I'm Ryan Liza, this is Playbook Deep Dive.

1:33.5

So what does Dan do with all that money?

...

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