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Lockwood Strategy Lab

Website:

www.lockwoodstrategy.com
Location:

Washington, DC
Formation:

2017
Type:

For-profit corporation
Founder:

Tara McGowan

Lockwood Strategy Lab is a left-of-center digital ad consultancy for political campaigns. Lockwood was founded by ACRONYM and PACRONYM president Tara McGowan, both of which she founded just after the creation of Lockwood Strategy Lab. Lockwood began doing political consulting for local and state campaigns for various Democrats in 2016. In 2020, it focused on the Presidential election, opposing President Donald Trump’s re-election campaign. 1

Lockwood Strategy is named after Belva Lockwood, one of the very first women to run for President of the United States. 2

Tara McGowan

Lockwood Strategy president Tara McGowan also runs the liberal “social welfare” advocacy group ACRONYM, which she founded one month after founding Lockwood Strategy Lab. Lockwood Strategy Lab is completely owned by ACRONYM. 3 4

On October 10, 2018, American Society on Aging wrote a letter to McGowan calling on her to take down an ad that was considered ageist and “not a worthy complement to a progressive agenda”. 5

Clients and Funding

McGowan has stated that Planned Parenthood was Lockwood Strategy Lab’s first client. 6

The Democratic Party of Virginia paid Lockwood $150,000 on October 1, 2019 for “internet advertising”. One month earlier, The Democratic Party of Virginia received a $150,000 from Lockwood’s parent group ACRONYM. As well, The Democratic Party of Virginia paid Lockwood $25,000 on August 12, 2019 for “digital consulting services.” 7 8 9

Planned Parenthood Votes paid $72,000, part of which about $3,000 was for “digital advertising production” in November 2018. 10

National Democratic Redistricting Committee paid $10,000 to Lockwood Strategy Lab to conduct political advertising for Wisconsin State Sen. Patty Schachtner’s (D-Somerset) election in 2018. 11

Lockwood Strategy Lab’s largest client is PACRONYM, ACRONYM’s affiliated Super PAC. PACRONYM paid Lockwood $1 million in 2018 for races in Pennsylvania. 12

Between 2017 and 2018, Super PAC Win Justice paid $245,000 to Lockwood, with Senator Jeff Merkley’s (D-OR) campaign paying $10,500 to Lockwood as well. 13 In addition, Super PAC Change Now paid $480, 500 to Lockwood during the same timeframe. 14 15

Community Change Voters, which received $5 million from George Soros during the 2018 election, paid Lockwood $282,000 for their services, of which at least $13,000 was for ad placement. 16 17

Women Vote! paid $158,499 to Lockwood on September 6, 2018. 18

Courier Newsroom

After the announcement of a $75 million advertising campaign by its parent group and client PACRONYM, Lockwood Strategy supported a journalism project focused on news reporting in the same five states as PACRONYM’s targets states for political advertising. 19

Lockwood is affiliated with Courier Newsroom, a collection of left-wing “news” sites headed by former Democratic Wisconsin State Senator Pat Krietlow. Lockwood also posts job listings for Courier Newsroom on its website. 20 21

Lockwood financially supports the Dogwood, a Virginia digital “news” outlet that is part of the ACRONYM-affiliated Courier Newsroom led by Meghan McCarthy. 22 23

References

  1. Kotch, Alex. “Who’s Behind Dems’ New $75 Million Ad Campaign.” Sludge. November 6, 2019. Accessed February 4, 2020. https://readsludge.com/2019/11/06/whos-behind-dems-new-75-million-ad-campaign/
  2. “About.” Lockwood. Accessed January 28, 2020. https://www.lockwoodstrategy.com/about-us.
  3. Kotch, Alex. “Who’s Behind Dems’ New $75 Million Ad Campaign.” Sludge. November 6, 2019. Accessed February 4, 2020. https://readsludge.com/2019/11/06/whos-behind-dems-new-75-million-ad-campaign/
  4. “ACRONYM 2017 990.” Internal Revenue Service. 2017. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/6540290-ACRONYM-2017-990.html#document/p20/a534064
  5. American Society on Aging. “Letter to Tara McGowan and Jeremy Crisp.” October 10, 2018. Accessed February 7, 2020. https://www.asaging.org/sites/default/files/files/Letter-to-ACRONYMN-Nail(1).pdf
  6. Markay, Lachlan. “Untangling the Dizzying Network Behind the Dem Caucus Blowup”. The Daily Beast. February 6, 2020. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/untangling-the-dizzying-network-behind-the-dem-caucus-blowup
  7. “Democratic Party of Virginia.” Virginia Department of Elections. January 15, 2020. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://cfreports.elections.virginia.gov/Report/Index/202038
  8. “Democratic Party of Virginia.” Virginia Department of Elections. January 15, 2020. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://cfreports.elections.virginia.gov/Report/Index/202038
  9. Cawthorne, Cameron. “Virginia Democratic Party Receives $150,000From Dark Money Group.” The Washington Free Beacon. September 11, 2019. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://freebeacon.com/politics/virginia-democratic-party-receives-150000-from-dark-money-group/
  10. https://projects.propublica.org/itemizer/independent_expenditures/2018/nv/senate
  11. “Post Election reporting period for special elections 2018: National Democratic Redistricting Committee.” Wisconsin Campaign Finance Information System. 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://cfis.wi.gov/Public/Registration.aspx?page=FiledReports
  12. Kotch, Alex. “Who’s Behind Dems’ New $75 Million Ad Campaign.” Sludge. November 6, 2019. Accessed February 4, 2020. https://readsludge.com/2019/11/06/whos-behind-dems-new-75-million-ad-campaign/
  13. Kotch, Alex. “Who’s Behind Dems’ New $75 Million Ad Campaign.” Sludge. November 6, 2019. Accessed February 4, 2020. https://readsludge.com/2019/11/06/whos-behind-dems-new-75-million-ad-campaign/
  14. “Vendor/Recipient Profile: Lockwood Strategy.” Open Secrets. Accessed August 24, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/campaign-expenditures/vendor?cycle=2018&vendor=Lockwood+Strategy
  15. “Change Now PAC PAC Expenditures.” Open Secrets. Accessed August 24, 2022. https://www.opensecrets.org/political-action-committees-pacs/C00683599/expenditures/2018#topvendors 
  16. “Win Justice PAC.” Open Secrets. 2018. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/pacgave2.php?cycle=2018&cmte=C00672394
  17. “Community Change Voters.” Open Secrets. 2018. Accessed February 66, 2020. https://www.opensecrets.org/pacs/expenditures.php?cycle=2018&cmte=C00612820
  18. “Vendor/Recipient: Lockwood Strategy.” Open Secrets. 2020. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.opensecrets.org/expends/vendor.php?year=2018&vendor=Lockwood+Strategy
  19. Markay, Lachlan. “How a Dem Dark-Money Group is Invading the News.” The Daily Beast. November 22, 2019. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-dem-dark-money-group-is-invading-the-news
  20. “Rickert, Chris. “With 2020 in sight, dark money sites look to distribute their versions of the news.” WiscNews. January 4, 2020. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.wiscnews.com/news/state-and-regional/with-in-sight-dark-money-sites-look-to-distribute-their/article_6be41ff7-ae1b-53a7-9ebd-aa04526ec813.html
  21. “Current Openings.” https://lockwoodstrategy.bamboohr.com/jobs/ Bamboo HR. 2020. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://lockwoodstrategy.bamboohr.com/jobs/
  22. Markay, Lachlan. “How a Dem Dark-Money Group is Invading the News.” The Daily Beast. November 22, 2019. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.thedailybeast.com/how-a-dem-dark-money-group-is-invading-the-news
  23. Fischer, Sara. “Progressive non-profit ACRONYM to invest $1M in local media effort.” Axios. July 9, 2019. Accessed February 6, 2020. https://www.axios.com/ACRONYM-investment-dogwood-31891461-9f8c-474c-b94e-5bd7d113e077.html

Directors, Employees & Supporters

  1. Tara McGowan
    Founder
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Lockwood Strategy Lab


Washington, DC