Primary The Swamp (SuperPAC) was founded by Christian Berrigan in late December 2024 for the specific purpose of holding republican politicians accountable to the top-level issues of the 2024 Election Mandate. He believes that organized and credible pressure must be put on politicians NOW, in advance of their expected usual betrayal of the desires of the people.
Mr. Berrigan’s political background is grounded in his activism and consulting in Washington State from 2012 through 2018. After taking a break from politics between 2019 and 2024, the exigent circumstance of assuring America takes full advantage of the opportunity presented by the significant electoral affirmation of President Trump’s America First policies coerced him into entering the fray again.
Although highly interested and lightly involved in local politics for years prior, he decided to engage in serious and impactful efforts in 2012, resulting in a full-time commitment for several years despite his work being voluntary and uncompensated other than a small number of lightly paid consultations. His initial focus was to implement major reforms in the establishment-controlled Clark County Republican Party, an endeavor that was an empirical success.
The first goal was to replace the leadership of the local county party. To do so in Washington requires a majority vote of the county’s publicly elected Precinct Committee Officers. At that time, Clark County had more than 230 precincts from which PCOs could be elected. Mr. Berrigan conceived of a political strategy which had never been attempted before in the region and fortunately was able to convince a small group of people to share his vision and make it a reality.
Brief Summary:
- United grassroots activists from the Tea Party and the Ron Paul Liberty Movement for the common purpose of taking an establishment-captured county party and turn it into a grassroots directed constitution/liberty oriented organization.
- Recruited approximately 150 qualified and like-minded PCO candidates to run for their local precinct level positions.
- Organized these candidates into a unified county-wide political campaign called the “PCO Liberty Alliance”, aggregating individual funding to leverage campaign materials, signs, events and messaging into a single county-wide campaign effort instead of the typical 150 meagerly funded and unsupported individual neighborhood efforts, including:
- 4′ x 8′ highway signs across the county – something never done before for PCO races.
- Produced individually named business cards, flyers, yard signs and more for candidates in 70++ competitive races.
- Organized public events attended by hundreds of people to promote the endeavor.
- Conceived and directed political activism specifically designed to generate massive earned-media, giving county-wide TV, radio and newspaper attention to races which otherwise tended to go unnoticed by the public.
- Developed and promoted new proposed county party by-laws to fully reform the local county party, requiring adoption at the same meeting where the new board would hopefully be elected.
Result:
- Secured victory for a large majority of the PCO campaigns.
- Completely replaced all eleven county-board positions by margins of 60%-67% per position at the end-of-year organizing meeting.
- Resounding approval of the new bylaws.
Some Notable Subsequent Outcomes:
- Mr. Berrigan served as the Operations Director of the county party for four subsequent years, with many notable accomplishments during that timeframe, including electing a conservative republican majority to the Clark County Board of Commissioners, and supporting other successful local elections.
- Elected and served as State Committeeman for a two-year term from 2015 through 2016.
- Elected to and served on the Washington State Republican Party Executive Board for a two-year term.
- Drove innovative technical strategies and solutions in the local party, many of which had not previously been conceived of nor attempted.
- Designed and directed 26 concurrent but individually separate digital campaigns targeting 26 separate state legislative and senate districts on a major tax issue where representatives’ political positions were in contradiction to the majority of voters in their districts.
A great archive produced by one of the co-conspirators of this endeavor can be found here: Called Unto Liberty | One activist’s perspective on Clark County politics.
Mr. Berrigan moved to Arkansas in 2019 to live near his aging father in NW Arkansas. He married his wife in 2020 and intended to stay out of political activism for the foreseeable future. The opportunity to actually restore America as evidenced by the 2024 election convinced him to take the plunge and begin a SuperPAC for the specific purpose of applying significant pressure to politicians in Washington DC, many of whom could be otherwise expected to betray the mandate clearly delivered by the people in that election.
Mr. Berrigan believes that mere talk and issuance of political threats on social media is insufficient to motivate real behavior modification of potentially unfaithful politicians. To actually effect behavioral change in captured republican (and other) politicians requires an organized, well-funded and credible political threat, assuring real political consequences be faced by politicians unfaithful to the 2024 Election Mandate. He believes the best course of action is to bring these consequences to the forefront NOW, when desired outcomes can still be realized instead of waiting to react after defeat has already been suffered.
The best possible outcome of Primary The Swamp is to have no GOP politician deserve opposition in their next primary election. The reality is that perfect outcome is unlikely. Hence the organizing of this federal SuperPAC.