2ND STATE GROUP USED DATA FIRM
The Colorado “dark money” group paid Cambridge Analytica to help win seats in ’14
Centennial Coalition, a GOP “dark money” nonprofit, paid Cambridge Analytica $16,500 to help the party win control of the state Senate in 2014. It is the second Colorado GOP group linked to the datamining firm that improperly obtained personal data for 50 million Facebook users for website development and consulting.
A second Republican “dark money” nonprofit in Colorado hired Cambridge Analytica to help the party win control of the state Senate in 2014.
According to federal tax filings, the group, Centennial Coalition, paid $16,500 to the data-mining firm, the same company that improperly obtained personal data for 50 million Facebook users for website development and consulting.
The new details — first reported Wednesday by Denver7 and confirmed by The Denver Post — emerged a day after revelations that Cambridge Analytica helped Republicans win a one-seat majority in the chamber for the first time in a decade in 2014.
Concerned Citizens for Colorado, controlled by Senate Republican leader Bill Cadman, spent a total of $444,000 over 2014 and 2015 to hire Cambridge Analytica, which specialized in voter profiling using election and Facebook data.
Concerned Citizens sent $100,000 to the Centennial Coalition to educate voters on political issues in 2014, an amount equal to the latter group’s entire budget, according to IRS documents. Concerned Citizens and Centennial Coalition are 501(c)4 nonprofits that are not required to disclose their donors. Representatives for both organizations declined to comment or could not be reached.
The Centennial Coalition, also referred to in tax documents as the Centennial Fund, spent the bulk of the money on mail pieces — two of which attacked Democratic Sen. Andy Kerr on the issue of abortion, according to state campaign records.
In an interview Wednesday, Kerr called the mailers the most “horrible” ones ever against him and noted that many of the state Senate races were decided by a few hundred votes. “This absolutely could have been what did it,” he said.
Cambridge Analytica is now under investigation in two countries, and the CEO of its parent company, SCL, was suspended Tuesday. When it started, Cambridge Analytica had a salesman on the ground in Colorado pitching its services to most of the major campaigns in 2014.
State Sen. Cheri Jahn, one of the Democratic candidates targeted in the broader Republican effort in 2014, said she’s not surprised.
“I think that’s just one more reason that shows why people are so disgusted with politics,” said Jahn, now an independent.
Republican state Sen. Beth Martinez Humenik, whose victory in Thornton gave Republicans the majority in 2014, said she was not aware of Cambridge Analytica’s work in her race because it was coordinated by outside organizations.
“I don’t know that it helped me,” she said.