Pro-Clinton group teaming up with EMILY's List

Hoping to energize women voters, the super PAC backing Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, Priorities USA, is joining forces with EMILY’s List to raise $20 million to engage women voters through paid media in key battleground states, the groups announced Monday morning.

Priorities USA, the big-money independent PAC that is expected to serve as the main outside engine raising and spending money to support Clinton’s campaign, is expected to raise between $200 million and $300 million in total. The group raised $15.6 million in the first quarter. A spokesman said the $20 million campaign with EMILY’s List will be specifically earmarked for the project to energize women voters.


In a press release announcing the partnership, the groups noted that 2016 marks the first election where millennial women will outnumber baby-boomer generation women at the voting booth.

“Women voters are the key to winning the 2016 elections, for Hillary Clinton and for Democrats up and down the ballot,” Stephanie Schriock, president of EMILY’s List said in a statement. “We are thrilled to be joining forces with Priorities to make sure every woman in this country understands that with a Republican in the White House, our rights, freedoms and opportunities will be on the chopping block.” EMILY’s List will fundraise through its independent expenditure arm, known as “Madam President.”

Unlike her 2008 race, where Clinton downplayed any focus on her gender, Clinton’s campaign has been eager to play it up this time around. In terms of policy, Clinton has been focusing on an economic populist pitch with a strong appeal to women, highlighting equal pay, paid family leave, affordable child care and universal pre-K — and trying to highlight a contrast on those issues with the Republican field. The outside groups supporting her bid are expected to spend the money defining the contrast between Clinton’s record on women’s issues and those of her Republican opponents.

“The entire Republican field is a case study in extremism, and we must fight back against their agenda that would marginalize opportunities for women of every race, age, and economic background,” Guy Cecil, co-chair of Priorities USA, said in a statement.

The announcement also underscores the overlapping circles that make up the Clinton universe. Priorities USA earlier this year poached Anne Caprara from EMILY’s List to serve as its executive director. That position had been vacated by Buffy Wicks, who was reportedly in talks to join the campaign but has yet to be hired.

A former board member of priorities, former Michigan governor Jennifer Granholm, last week announced she was stepping down to serve as a senior adviser at another pro-Clinton super PAC, Correct the Record, which is allowed to coordinate with the campaign — it has been working directly with the campaign on rapid response. Priorities USA also recently formed a joint fundraising committee with Correct the Record. The concentric circles of pro-Clinton groups and campaign operatives continues: another former outside group, Ready for Hillary, handed over its full email list to the campaign through a swap with EMILY’s List. And Clinton’s campaign recently hired Craig Smith, who served as a paid senior adviser to Ready for Hillary.