BUSTED

Owner of Dems’ Fave Data Firm Has a Jaw-Dropping Side Hustle

An investigation by Mother Jones found that TargetSmart’s owners also run a firm that helps to elect Stop the Steal leaders and Jan. 6 apologists.

A firm that the Democratic Party heavily relies on to develop key voter data is tied to a second company that has worked to elect Republicans who are fans of, among other things, overturning the presidential election, voter suppression, and the Capitol riot. A new investigation by Mother Jones uncovered that the parent company of TargetSmart, a firm that had a $3 million contract with the Democratic National Committee last year, also owns an agency called Access Marketing Services.

Access Marketing is on the payroll of the National Association of Realtors, which has hired the firm to work on campaigns in multiple states, according to Mother Jones. Some of these campaigns have been for candidates that have advocated for Stop the Steal, co-sponsored Texas voting bill HB6 (roundly criticized as a suppression tactic), and expressed views linked to QAnon. In Georgia, TargetSmart has worked with Rep. Stacey Abrams, while Access Marketing helped to elect Gov. Brian Kemp in the 2018 gubernatorial race, when he defeated Abrams. The two firms share administrative, financial, and human resources services, provided by holding company the TARA Group, which itself is owned by two of the four original founders of TargetSmart. A spokesperson insisted that “each company makes its own decisions… independent of each other” and “none of the TARA Group companies do any direct work for Republican candidates or organizations.”