American Crossroads is the original modern conservative super PAC and one of the most historically important political committees of the post-Citizens United era. Founded in 2010 by Republican strategist Karl Rove, former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie, former U.S. Senator Norm Coleman, and GOP fundraiser Fred Malek, the group emerged in the immediate aftermath of Citizens United and SpeechNow as a vehicle for unlimited independent expenditures in federal elections.
In the 2010 and 2012 cycles, American Crossroads and its affiliated 501(c)(4) dark-money group Crossroads GPS combined to spend hundreds of millions of dollars supporting Republican candidates — pioneering the structural template (super PAC paired with a dark-money nonprofit) that nearly every major party-aligned outside-spending operation now uses. After mixed electoral results in 2012, including criticism from then-citizen Donald Trump on Twitter, the group’s profile diminished. It remains operational but is no longer the dominant force it once was; many of its functions and key personnel migrated to Senate Leadership Fund and One Nation, both run by the same chief executive, Steven Law.
American Crossroads is included here as the foundational example of a modern major super PAC. Its history is essentially the history of the early super PAC era.
Website: americancrossroads.org · OpenSecrets profile: Searchable as “American Crossroads” at OpenSecrets