National Education Association PAC Raised Roughly $27 Million for 2024 Election

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This article is part of The 74’s EDlection 2024 coverage, which takes a look at candidates’ education policies and how they might impact the American education system after the 2024 election.

With just a matter of days left until Election Day, the main political fundraising arm of the National Education Association, the NEA Advocacy Fund, has raised nearly $27 million, according to the latest data from OpenSecrets – virtually all of it in a bid to elect Vice President Kamala Harris and get more Democrats into the House and Senate.

The country’s largest union, boasting more than 3 million members, is traditionally one of the biggest supporters of Democrats, lending both the power of its various political action committees’ purses for advertising and mailings, and its strength in numbers for boots-on-the-ground get-out-the-vote operations.

“Across the country, most of us want the same thing – strong public schools where every student, no matter their race, place, or background can grow into their full brilliance,” said NEA President Becky Pringle in a statement to The 74. “Educators know that Kamala Harris and Tim Walz are tireless champions for students and educators, who will work to support strong public schools, expand school-based mental health services, ensure no student is hungry, and lower costs for middle-class families.” 

“As some of the most trusted people in every community, NEA members are knocking on doors, making phone calls, and talking to their communities about voting for Harris and Walz, along with pro-public education candidates up and down the ballot,” she said. “They are using their educator voices because they know that the future of our public schools and our students will be shaped by what happens in this election.”

Among the top 20 PACs based on contributions to Democratic candidates, total fundraising, total spent, and total spent in independent expenditures and communication costs, the NEA’s PACs place 11th, according to OpenSecrets, the non-partisan organization that tracks money in politics. It donated $3 million directly to the Harris campaign. 

The vast majority of the union super PAC’s expenditures – $6.9 million total this election cycle – went to other super PACs supporting Democrats. As of Oct. 8, the NEA Advocacy Fund had given $2.5 million to Future Forward USA Action, the pro-Harris super PAC and the biggest in American politics. It also doled out $1.5 million each to the House Majority PAC and the Senate Majority PAC in an effort to maintain Democrats’ razor-thin majority in the Senate and pick up seats to gain a majority in the House.

So far, NEA’s super PAC has spent $430,000 on media, including things like online, TV and radio ads, and mailings, and another $100,000 on campaign expenses.

It’s also spent roughly $630,000 on targeted federal election candidates, including $150,000 on Rep. John Mannion, a Democrat from New York, $130,000 on Raquel Teran, a Democrat running in Arizona’s 3rd congressional district, and $35,000 on incumbent Sen. John Tester, a Democrat from Montana who’s in a tough reelection bid.

In Ohio, where Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown is in a dead heat against Republican Bernie Moreno, a separate NEA super PAC, Educators for Ohio, has raised $1.7 million. 

Earlier this month, the NEA teamed up with the American Federation of Teachers, the Service Employees International Union and the American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees – the nation’s largest public service unions – in a coordinated, multi-state voter outreach initiative across battleground states.

“This joint action represents a significant escalation of labor’s political engagement, with the unions pooling resources and mobilizing their combined membership of several million workers and includes people of all backgrounds working across the public service – as nurses, child care providers, sanitation workers, first responders, teachers, education support professionals and higher education workers, among others,” the announcement of the effort reads.

Notably, labor unions play an outsized role in many of the election’s most crucial swing states: 21% of votes cast in Michigan in the 2020 presidential election were from union households, representing approximately one-fifth of the electorate, according to the union. The same is true for Pennsylvania and Wisconsin, where union households accounted for 18% and 13% of votes cast, respectively.

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