The campaign literature that arrived in North Carolina Republican mailboxes this week was disturbing. One side had an ultrasound image of a human fetus with a message that read: we all know that. Only a few brave people can protect her. ” On the other side was a call to action: “You have the courage and conviction to vote for Randall Terry.”
But the sender of the mailer was not a supporter of Terry, a third-party presidential candidate and longtime leader of the anti-abortion movement.
Rather, the fine print reveals that it is a sneaky initiative called Civic Truth Action, funded by millions of dollars in hard-to-trace funds tied to Democrats seeking to elect Vice President Kamala Harris as the next president. It showed that it was the work of an early super PAC with a name. president.
The final days of high-stakes elections are often a time for political shenanigans. The message promoted by Civic Truth Action, purported to support Terry, may be one of the most cynical yet aimed at siphoning votes from former President Donald J. Trump. I don’t know. But it’s by no means unique. Across the country, Ms. Harris and Mr. Trump’s allies are taking advantage of a patchwork of lax laws that allow partisans to funnel millions of dollars into powerful campaign tactics through a daisy chain of opaque groups. They are trying to shake up the power of scale. Some voters in battleground states could make a difference.
Campaign workers and donors have long deployed creative accounting techniques to hide the flow of political money. But in the decade and a half since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision paved the way for unrestricted spending on political advertising, large flows of money have not flowed in the weeks before Election Day, despite the majority’s assertion that: has become particularly difficult to follow. Prompt disclosure of political spending allows voters to make informed decisions.
“It’s clear now that the court got those predictions wrong,” said Ian Vandewalker, an attorney at the Brennan Center for Justice, a progressive nonprofit that works to reduce the influence of big money in politics. That is something that cannot be denied.” Vande Walker this week published an analysis of the rise in hard-to-trace funding to super PACs. “Being able to hide the funding for these types of things is attractive to people who want to get involved in dirty tricks,” he said in an interview.
If done effectively, operatives could hide the source of this money until an election is called, or perhaps forever.
Here’s how: Large donors donate to so-called underground financial organizations. They are typically nonprofit organizations that are not required to disclose their donors. These groups then pass the money to super PACs, which are technically required to disclose their donors. But the situation turns murky when the super PAC lists underground financial institutions rather than individual donors.
This cash, also known as “gray money,” has become increasingly popular among both parties, especially for delayed spending that operatives and donors try to hide.
About $240 million went to super PACs from groups that don’t disclose their donors between Oct. 1 and Oct. 16, according to a review of Federal Election Commission filings by The New York Times. of gray money was donated.
Gray money is especially useful when partisan operatives and donors want to interfere on the other side of the aisle, such as when supporting third-party candidates and siphoning votes.
The same appears to be true of a new super PAC called Badger Values, which was founded by a Republican consultant in late September. As of October 16th, the amount raised was $0. But two days later, the super PAC somehow became a seven-figure campaign in Wisconsin supporting Green Party presidential candidate Jill Stein, who appears to be receiving support primarily from Harris. He had at least $225,000 in a safe to spend on his campaign.
Texas-based Badger Values did not respond to requests for comment, and there is little public information about it.
There are a few more breadcrumbs around Civic Truth Action. The super PAC was registered with the Federal Election Commission in July, but has been inactive for several months. And in the past two weeks, it has spent nearly $2.5 million on direct mail and text messages supporting Terry and more than $1.5 million on digital ads promoting Libertarian Party presidential candidate Chase Oliver.
The group also includes two veteran Democratic operatives, Jesse Ferguson and Drew Godinich.
Godinich suggested that Civic Truth Action is a response to Republican efforts to field third-party candidates that could harm Harris. But he rejected the idea that his group was up to dirty tricks, instead saying in a statement that it was “promoting competition in America’s political system by informing voters of the full range of options for holding political office.” “I am doing so,” he said. He added: “The stakes in this election could not be higher.”
In early October, the super PAC raised all of $4.4 million from an underground finance group called Evidence for Impact, which was incorporated this year and is represented by the office of Democratic political lawyer Marc Elias. The group also represents Harris. campaign. A company spokesperson declined to comment on Evidence for Impact. Mr. Godinich did not respond to questions about the group’s funding sources.
Impact for Impact quietly donated millions of dollars to other Democratic nonprofits before the fall, according to people familiar with its finances.
In mid-September, the company began making its first public donations, which totaled $16.8 million the following month, FEC records show. That includes $10.2 million in donations to Future Forward, the main super PAC supporting Harris.
Evidence for Impact also invested $2 million in a super PAC founded in August called Voters of These 50 States of America, providing two-thirds of its funding to date. Voters in those 50 states did not respond to requests for comment.
Its super PAC and Citizen Truth Action have devoted much of their resources to fielding third-party candidates, such as Mr. Terry and Mr. Oliver, who could eat into Mr. Trump’s votes. In addition, Civic Truth Action’s sister organization, an underground finance nonprofit called Civic Truth Coalition, donated $430,000 this summer to a super PAC called Retire Career Politicians, which recently ran ads supporting Mr. Oliver. I started.
“One side doesn’t take us seriously, but the other side takes us for granted,” the narrator says in the Civic Truth Action digital ad. “You know what I’m saying? It’s messed up. I’m voting for Chase Oliver.”
The problem, of course, is that this ad is the product of a super PAC firmly aligned with one of these sides.
Other big money operatives are taking advantage of related rules, such as that super PACs that are inactive before Oct. 16 are not required to disclose their donors until after Election Day. This is a loophole that strongly urges smart operatives to wait until the last minute to launch strategies that are most likely to generate backlash, without disclosing financial information, including funders, budgets, and vendors. It is nothing but what you do.
For example, Republicans last week spent $19 million on ads linking Trump to former Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg and trying to minimize the potential fallout from Trump’s positions on abortion. Ta. The identities of the donors to RBG PAC, the organization behind these ads, will not be made public until December 5th.
Or perhaps ever.
That’s because of the large amount of gray money flowing into recent US elections, especially at the end of election season. When super PACs file paperwork with the FEC, it’s not uncommon for nearly all of their largest donors to be these nonprofits, ignoring any real transparency. These nonprofit organizations (known as those registered under Section 501(c)4 of the Tax Code) are required to file public tax disclosures with the Internal Revenue Service, but often It is not filed until more than a year after the election. . Tax returns reveal how much money they raised, but importantly, they don’t reveal who donated it.
Such nonprofits cannot spend the majority of their funds in super PACs. To maintain a nonprofit’s tax-exempt status, most of its cash must be spent on its “social service” mission. But if a nonprofit is large enough, even a fraction of its budget can overwhelm a super PAC’s campaign funding.
For example, the largest donation to Future Forward in the first half of October came not from an individual but from its own nonprofit, Future Forward USA Action, which put $170 million into a super PAC. This includes $40 million in early October.
The main Democratic spending in the final weeks of the election, but one that has received less scrutiny is a super PAC launched in August called Your Community PAC. The super PAC has raised and spent about $10 million on billboards and other messages to support Democrats like Harris, but most of that money is from a 501(c) affiliated with Arabella Advisors. ) come from 4 groups. A philanthropic network for liberal donors. These groups associated with Arabella have not disclosed the identities of their donors. The super PAC declined to comment.
Republicans are using the same technique. The main donor to the Republican campaigns that voted no this month was a super PAC called America Fund, which raised $13.6 million in the first 15 days of October. All that money went to other big-money Republican super PACs, including some that were just starting up. The super PACs identified America Fund as their source of funding, but did not respond to requests for comment.
But where does that money really come from? Almost all of it will come from the American Prosperity Alliance, the nonprofit arm of America Fund, which will likely never reveal its donors.
Rachel Shorey contributed to the research.
