After the Democratic candidates in the Florida private elections burned through millions and millions of dollars on their way to losses from two numbers this week, some Democrats ask where this money came for a while-and where everything goes.
The answer to both questions is, partly, a 23-year-old law and a master’s degree in Dungeons & Dragons-with a profitable side party.
Between the classes and fictional play, Jackson McMelan is the CEO of the main lime strategies, a small money raising company in Florida registered great when it fell as customers of Democratic candidates in the Congress elections in Florida, Josh Will and gay Jay Valmonant. Mr. McMillan said they were gathered to raise $ 25 million.
“We have built the tyrant.”
Along the way, Mr. McMillan has accumulated critics until after years. A lot of focus is on his extraordinary structure of the drawings, which was raised by one of the two senior parties in the endowment and Desist discourse as “exorbitant”. His company obtained a 25 percent reduction of “real profits”-revenues after money raising expenses-for both private elections.
Mr. McMillan is not apologized.
He said about collecting a lot of money, which he said: “Many people who criticize me online feel crazy because they were not.” Put a intimidation in Republicans And injecting real money into a prominent long angles of a state of discrimination.
Mr. McMelan explained that one of the secret components of his company’s success is Dungeons & Dragons.
“All the major strategists to raise funds in my company-I, Ryan-we are dungeon masters.” “We are running Dungeons & Dragons games. So we are weaving novels and tales. It is like our biggest hobby. We mainly tell a really convincing story. This distinguishes us from that – this and a lot of technical analysis – is what distinguishes us from some of our competitors.”
Others say that the story of his team revolves around Mr. Will and Mrs. Valentine, they made him a false merchant who was spent in the despair of young democratic donors who want to fight the new Trump administration. These were not renewed Republican seats, which the Republican Party won by more than 30 percentage points last fall and where Democrats faced almost due possibilities; Republicans won 14 percentage points on Tuesday.
Stefan Smith, a digital strategic expert as head of digital participation in the American Civil Liberties Union, launched the fee structure of 25 percent of the “ridiculous” fees and said that the races had transformed the donor funds from more urgent priorities under false allegations of competitiveness.
“The Democrats suffer from the biggest gap in the confidence that we passed in one generation, and we will not win this by allowing predators to wander freely through the digital ecosystem.” “We all have to search for them in extinction.”
There is no single criterion for money raising contracts, but consultants usually earn a wandering or a percentage of which is spent on creating and advertisements, or much lower percentage than what is generally raised.
So how much was Mr. McMilalan’s company clear?
“I don’t think I am completely comfortable to share it,” he said, and he recently waving that it was millions of dollars in batches and said that all bills have not been settled yet.
“Don’t understand me wrong,” added. “My company did well.”
The records indicate that by mid -March, the two loads paid $ 4.7 million, or nearly 38 percent of their total spending.
It seems that a large portion of the money sent to the main lime strategies has paid for money raising ads.
In the first 90 days of the year, the campaign of Mr. Will was the largest individual political single on Instagram and Facebook in the country, as he spent $ 2.5 million. Mrs. Valentine’s campaign was close to $ 2.1 million.
Mr. Will or Mrs. Valentine did not respond to comment. Both of them sent written data praised Mr. McMilalan. Mr. Will said that the campaign’s campaign payments The polling and correspondents, as well as e -mail, text messages and social media.
“The work he did in this campaign should strengthen Jackson McMelan as a golden standard for collecting money and political coordination in Florida for years to come,” he said. Mrs. Valentine said that the money helped to enhance “efforts to register voters that will not have any investment under normal circumstances.”
It is a valuable to raise political money online you have to spend money to earn money. (And collecting large money attracts more media attention, which in turn can bring more money.) The question is if a lot is needed. Records show that Blitz has gone over an overwhelming majority to raise more money instead of persuading voters in Florida.
Each of Mr. Will and Mrs. Valentine, for example, spent much more on the ads in California more than Florida, the records appear.
Finally, the Weil campaign spent much less on local TV ads, $ 1.5 million, from online money outside the country.
At some point in the race, actress Alexandria Okasio Cortez, Democrat in New York, He said She appeared in the resumption of collecting money without her permission. David Hug’s lawyer, Vice -Chairman of the National Democratic Committee, wrote a stop and measurement letter asking Mr. McMillan to withdraw ads that offer Mr. Hogg because he “will not” provide his name for the efforts to raise funds that transfer large parts of the revenue from a campaign to cover an exhibition of a consultant. “
Mr. Hogg went further in a post on X. “People like Jackson McMelan are the exact kind of consultants who people say they are the problem in our party,” books.
In an interview, Mr. Hogg explained his decision to follow Mr. McMillan by name: “Nothing will change until we start calling these people.”
Mr. McMillan said that the episode was “misunderstanding” and that the company had withdrawn ads and apologized. He indicated that he and Mr. Hug, 24, rose in Florida’s policy at the same time and they are of the same generation.
Mr. McMelan said: “We are in the same space.” “I would like to work with Hogg more, and I think we have the same motives and goals, which is why I was very surprised to see his attack from the attacks.”
Mr. McMillan is also Florida Future Pac, a youth organization group It was formed last year. State records indicate that PAC paid the major LIME strategies more than $ 534,000, approximately 65 percent of the total expenditures of the group.
Mr. McMillan defended his company’s salary structure, which is It is included on its websiteAs the cheapest and “more moral” than some competitors, who sometimes take a smaller than the total that was raised, regardless of what is the netting campaign.
Mr. McMillan said he had already stumbled on digital money raising work.
One day he was the ambitious excavation world at the University of Florida, where he said he joined early when he was 15 years old after skipping some classes. But a trip to Wyoming to dig the dinosaurs bone was interrupted by a car accident, and remember to think about his professional choice while removing the glass pieces from his arm.
His partner and his current colleague in the room met Mr. Eliason, in the college. They formed magic ClubWhere students gathered to play Fantasy Card Magic The Gathering, followed by a quick link.
Mr. McMillan presented paper works for the main Lime strategies in June 2022 and began to do political field programs for local races, including some of the Tampa City Council. “It was a lot of work for not a lot of return,” Mr. McMillan remembers about the efforts to raise early funds.
But then came the first offer of Mrs. Valentine the long Congress, in 2024 against Matt Gaitz-a prominent evil man of many Democrats. Mr. McMillan, by a full -time student, said it was the “ideal competition” of the experiment.
Mrs. Valentine collected $ 1.58 million. More than half – 812,824.15 dollars – went to the main lime strategies.
I lost 32 percentage points.
Then she ran in private elections, restored the main lime strategies, raised the other millions and lost again.
If the collection of money does not succeed, Mr. McMillian is already testing another company The papers were presented in JanuaryUsing artificial intelligence to discover consumer complaints about potential lawsuits against the “poor actors of companies”. “This is the type of law that I am familiar with,” he said, citing some courses and internal training last summer.
In both cases, he is betting on himself – and his colleagues, General Z.
“I will put money in 20 things in politics every day on a person who has been doing it for 40 years,” said Mr. McMelan. “Give them an energy drink, and they will outperform 10 to one.”
Kitty Bennett The research contributed.
