The final weeks are full of subterfuge.
This is the high season for campaign-finance shenanigans.
As an election draws closer, outside groups and candidates sometimes make sneaky moves that are hard to catch on filings before voting is over. Such maneuvers are legal, but they leave voters in the dark about the true sources of money behind candidates.
And much of the money flowing to super PACs at the end of the midterms is from shadowy nonprofit groups that do not disclose their donors.
A new super PAC called Government That Works PAC is a prime example of Democrats’ rising use of dark money. The group raised about $28 million in the first 14 days of October, mostly from a coterie of Democratic nonprofit groups and partly from the liberal billionaire Reid Hoffman. During the same period, the super PAC then flipped close to that amount to other liberal super PACs, including about $4 million to VoteVets, a left-leaning veterans group that is spending big for Josh Turek, the Democratic nominee for Senate in Iowa.
Republicans also rely on murky funding sources. Substantial dark money flowed into the super PAC supporting Mr. Turek’s opponent, Representative Ashley Hinson, as well as the main ones backing Senator Susan Collins of Maine and former Representative Mike Rogers, the Republican nominee for Senate in Michigan.
In Ohio, a new super PAC that is promoting a third-party socialist candidate for Senate was revealed on Thursday to be entirely funded by a Republican-linked outfit. The group, called Enough Promises Ohio, received $2.5 million this month from Conservative Americans PAC, a Republican group that has been meddling in races to try to hamper Democrats and that gave $13 million to super PACs this month. The socialist candidate could pull left-wing votes away from the Democratic nominee, former Senator Sherrod Brown, in a tight race.
Beware: Any activity on or after Oct. 15 will not be public until after Election Day, meaning that it will be easier than ever to pull off surreptitious tricks.
About the data
For the fund-raising graphic, The Times included candidates in House and Senate races that the Cook Political Report rates as tossups, leaning toward Democrats or leaning toward Republicans. Those figures calculate total contributions to each candidate’s main campaign committee (including transfers from other committees) minus refunded contributions and contributions that candidates made to themselves.
The “major party committee” fund-raising figures include each party’s main committee, their Senate committee and their House committee. The “top super PACs” are the five for each party that have raised the most money this election cycle.
Super PAC and party fund-raising figures in the graphic include total contributions to the committees, minus refunded contributions, as well as transfers from other committees and receipts reported on line 17 of federal filings: “other federal receipts.” To avoid double counting, The Times subtracted transfers within the network (for example, transfers from the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee to the Democratic National Committee or internal transfers among a committee’s various accounts).
