David Hogg’s PAC Has Spent Millions on Consultants and Thousands on Workout Classes

Andrew Roth/Sipa USA via AP Images

Progressive activist David Hogg’s Political Action Committee, Leaders We Deserve, is not exactly fulfilling its promise so far.

Hogg, the short-tenured former Democratic National Committee vice chair, left the DNC after only months in his position amid uproar over his stated intention of using Leaders We Deserve to primary Democratic incumbents.

According to a new report from Axios, however, the Hogg-led organization has been a non-factor in Democratic primaries to date — although it has proven a boon to the political consulting and workout class industry.

Per Alex Thompson and Holly Otterbein, Leaders We Deserve, “hasn’t endorsed any challengers to Democratic incumbents in Congress” and “has been successful in just one” of the meager three contests it has participated in.

That lone success came in New York City’s mayoral race, which saw Leaders We Deserve dole out $300,000 to a PAC supporting Zohran Mamdani, the eventual winner of the Democratic primary. The other candidates backed by Hogg, Arizona’s Deja Foxx ($150,000) and Virginia’s Irene Shin ($5,000) lost by 39 and a half and 45.4 points, respectively.

The amount spent on those races pales in comparison to the amount spent on political consultants ($2.5 million) and digital ads for itself ($1.1 million).

Hogg himself has previously blasted other members of his party for listening “to the consulting class instead of the working class because increasingly, our party has surrounded itself simply with people who just constantly agree with it consistently rather than talking to actual people on the ground.”

“It [Leaders We Deserve] also spent about $4,900 on ClassPass, the fitness class subscription service,” noted Thompson and Otterbein.

Leaders We Deserve Executive Director Kevin Lata told Axios, “our projections show that every $1 we put into these investments will net $3-$5 by the end of the cycle …. This helps to make sure every donation goes farther than it otherwise would.”

“We provide a wellness benefit to our employees, like many employers across the country,” he added.