The Political Spam Pipeline: Data Brokers and the Broken 'Stop' Button
AI-generated image · US National Wire
A deep dive into the labyrinth of rented lists and AI-driven voter profiles reveals why opting out of campaign texts is often futile.
Political fundraising texts have become a relentless fixture of American life, often targeting the wrong recipients through a complex web of data brokers and rented lists. As Wired first reported, author Dhruv Mehrotra detailed receiving 1,735 campaign texts from 812 different numbers since March 2022, despite having made no political donations himself.
Mehrotra discovered that many of these messages—including those from the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (DCCC), the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, and House Majority PAC—were intended for a relative in California named John. Despite replying "STOP" 49 times since 2021, the messages continued. For example, after telling Jon Ossoff’s campaign to stop in November 2025, Mehrotra received 13 more texts from nine different numbers.
According to Wired, the persistence of these messages is driven by data brokers like Sterling Data Company. Forbes previously reported that Sterling assembled a database of approximately 30 million political donors; Sterling appears to gather data from other brokers, using AI to predict potential donors by combining information on age, location, and donation histories. Mehrotra found that nearly half of the 725 texts he received this year contained tracking codes referencing Sterling, suggesting the firm's profiles are rented or sold to various PACs and campaigns.
Other figures mentioned in the fundraising appeals included Nancy Pelosi, Cory Booker, Barack Obama, James Talarico, and James Carville, as well as Montana congressional candidate Sam Forstag.