From May through October last year, a company owned by a board member and treasurer of the Harris campaign’s top dark money group was paid nearly $18 million for media consulting by the group’s super PAC arm, Future Forward PAC, with more than $5 million of it coming in October.
The company is called GCJ Research, and according to tax filings from the dark money group, Future Forward USA Action, it is owned by the group’s treasurer Gaurav Shirole. The New York Times has reported that the company is named after the initials of Shirole and Future Forward’s other two founders, Chauncey McLean and Jon Fromowitz.
The payments to GCJ Research look like a form of self-dealing and may raise questions about whether they were the most effective expenditures for the Democrats’ cause in the 2024 election or if they were unduly influenced by Shirole.
GCJ Research conducts public opinion surveys via text messages and pays participants with Amazon gift cards. There are several threads on the r/scam subreddit from people who have gotten texts out of the blue from “Alex w/ GCJ Research” where people attest that the company is not a scam and that they have in fact received their promised gift cards. The company has created websites such as ncopinions.com where respondents would answer questions.
Future Forward took over from Priorities USA Action as the leading Democratic super PAC for this presidential election cycle. GCJ Research’s nearly $18 million in receipts disclosed to the Federal Election Commission (FEC) was a dramatic increase from what it had been paid previously—just $7,200 in 2022 from Jake Auchincloss for Congress. GCJ Research was Future Forward’s second highest-paid vendor as of Oct. 16, according to the FEC. GCJ Research has also received payments in past years from Future Forward's nonprofit arm, and any additional payments it received through that route during the 2024 election year won’t be disclosed to the public until its tax filings are made public later this year.
The Washington Examiner and independent journalist Lee Fang have both reported on GCJ Research’s payments from Future Forward, but not the full extent of the spending including payments that were disclosed to the FEC after the election.
McLean’s company PFB Media was also paid by Future Forward PAC. The company was paid more than $1.2 million by the PAC for ad production, according to FEC records.
Shirole and McLean were both part of the Obama 2012 digital team. According to his LinkedIn, Shirole, lead reporting and analytics for a $120 million digital advertising operation, including analyzing voter records and set-top box data. After the 2012 campaign, Shirole and McLean formed Analytics Media Group, which worked for the Democrats but also corporate clients such as Walmart and Uber before being acquired by Dolan Family Ventures in 2016.
Future Forward PAC spent more than $500 million during the 2024 campaign cycle, making it by far the highest-spending PAC ever. A substantial portion of its funding came from its nonprofit arm, which does not disclose its donors but reportedly received large donations last year from Bill Gates and Michael Bloomberg.
