March 2021: Donors gave a House candidate more than $8 million. Single firm took nearly half of it.

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Maryland Politics

Donors gave a House candidate more than $8 million. A single firm took nearly half of it.

By Meagan Flynn and Michael Scherer
March 2, 2021 at 4:00 p.m. EST

U.S. House candidate Kim Klacik walked onto Mike Huckabee’s cable talk show last August as the latest conservative celebrity, riding high on a viral campaign ad that had attracted 10 million views and was shared on social media by President Donald Trump and his eldest son.

“We raised close to $2 million,” the Republican congressional hopeful said of the three-minute spot, which showed her marching in a red dress and high heels past abandoned buildings in Baltimore, asserting that Democrats do not care about Black lives.

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But later that night, Klacik’s staff told her it would be best to stop disclosing how much money the ad had raised for her campaign against Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D) — because she wouldn’t be keeping much of it, Klacik recounted in an interview.

The company that produced the video, Arsenal Media Group, would take a cut. And a firm hired to promote the video, Olympic Media, would keep up to 70 percent of the money it generated, some of which was not disclosed in Klacik’s initial campaign finance filings.



Then-House candidate Kimberly Klacik while shooting her viral campaign ad in August. (Courtesy of Kim Klacik)

Klacik, a self-described college dropout who launched a nonprofit organization to help disadvantaged women before running for office, said she did not personally approve or know about the contract with Olympic Media until that conversation. ... “When I saw it, I almost passed out,” she said.

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Anu Narayanswamy, Erin Cox and Alice Crites contributed to this report.

By Meagan Flynn
Meagan Flynn is a reporter on The Washington Post's Morning Mix team. She was previously a reporter at the Houston Chronicle and the Houston Press. Twitter https://twitter.com/Meagan_Flynn

By Michael Scherer
Michael Scherer is a national political reporter at The Washington Post. He was previously the Washington bureau chief for Time magazine, where he also served as the White House correspondent. Before joining Time, he was the Washington correspondent for Salon.com. Twitter https://twitter.com/michaelscherer