A super PAC supporting Sen. Ted Cruz’s reelection campaign has received nearly $800,000 in receipts from the company that distributes the Texas Republican’s podcast, an arrangement that is attracting scrutiny from campaign finance experts and Democrats.
including corporate money, as long as they do not coordinate with the candidate they are working to elect. Allred, a congressman from Dallas, has made Cruz’s podcasting a major part of his campaign, accusing the senator of focusing more on being a media personality than serving Texans. Cruz has argued the podcast allows him to bypass traditional media to talk to his constituents about important issues.
On campaign finance reports, Truth and Courage PAC has described the money from the iHeartMedia subsidiary as “digital revenue” or “digital income.”A spokesperson for another iHeartMedia subsidiary, Premiere Networks, said in an email that Premiere Networks sells advertising inventory for Cruz’s podcast and that the money that has gone to the super PAC is “associated with those advertising sales.