Politics

Secretive super PAC funding is skyrocketing in primaries

Published

4 months ago

June 14, 2026

A record number of groups are exploiting a gap in campaign finance law to flood this year’s primary elections with money — without disclosing their donors until long after the race is over.

More than $48 million has already been spent on House and Senate primaries this year by super PACs that did not have to reveal their donors before elections took place, according to a Blue Light News analysis of data from the Federal Election Commission. That is more than double the total at this time in the 2024 cycle, and 10 times higher than in 2018.

The groups are taking advantage of the campaign finance calendar. A super PAC formed after the last pre-election FEC deadline can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money in the crucial final days of an election without disclosing its donors until afterward. The practice has been used for years, but never to the degree of this year’s midterms.

Roughly 1 in 10 dollars in outside spending that has flowed into primaries so far this year has been through these secretive groups.

In some cases, the pop-up super PAC spending has the characteristics of one political party meddling in another’s primary to help boost a candidate seen as more beatable in November, which is what happened in competitive races in Texas’ 35th District, Maine’s 2nd District and most recently New York’s 17th District. In other cases, groups sought to hide their connection to controversial sources, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.

“It’s certainly a very strategic effort to avoid providing transparency for voters,” said Saurav Ghosh, director of federal campaign finance reform at the nonprofit Campaign Legal Center. “So even if they’re acting within the letter of the law, they are ultimately undermining in spirit. Because disclosure requirements exist so that voters — when they’re deciding who to cast their ballot for — have the information about who has spent money backing these candidates.”

The path for secretive spending on primaries is relatively straightforward. New groups launch after a monthly or quarterly FEC deadline. They spend millions of dollars to support their preferred candidates, bombarding voters in the final days when they are most engaged with an election. And by the time they have to report their money, weeks after the end of the month or quarter, the election they were aiming to influence is already over.

The tactic is more common in primaries than general elections because outside groups have to file pre-general reports in mid-October, leaving only a relatively small window before the November election where they would be able to launch and spend without disclosing financial information.

The efforts to hide sources of funding have happened across the country this cycle and to support and oppose candidates of widely varying ideologies. More money has been spent in Democratic primaries than Republican ones so far.

Since the beginning of May, two super PACs widely suspected of being tied to Republicans — Lead Left and Real Change — have spent $4.3 million across Democratic primaries in five competitive House districts to boost progressive candidates that are seen as weaker in the general election. Neither group will have to reveal their donors until mid-July.

In Kentucky’s 4th District, where GOP Rep. Thomas Massie was seeking reelection after President Donald Trump endorsed his challenger Ed Gallrein, a newly created super PAC spent a whopping $6.7 million to attack Gallrein. The PAC shut itself down shortly after the primary, revealing only then that most of its funds came from a Texas-based firm. (The PAC is now facing an FEC complaint alleging it was a straw donor scheme.)

In Illinois’ March primaries, three newly created groups tied to AIPAC spent $16 million on House races. While news reports linked AIPAC to the groups throughout the primaries, it wasn’t revealed until afterward that United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s main super PAC, was the leading funder. That allowed AIPAC — which has become politically controversial in Democratic primaries — to attempt to influence the elections without officially declaring its involvement as ballots were being cast.

In the special primary election to replace the late Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-Va.) last year, a newly launched super PAC called Fight for Virginia’s Future backed Connolly’s former chief of staff, James Walkinshaw. After the election, which Walkinshaw won, it was revealed that the group’s funding was transferred from Connolly’s campaign account.

Not every newly launched super PAC is inherently secretive. In some cases, new groups are clear about their affiliations even if they don’t immediately report their donors to the FEC.

And there are other ways for super PACs to hide their sources of funding beyond taking advantage of the FEC’s timing. Many get transfers from 501(c)(4) nonprofits, which face far fewer disclosure requirements.

As the practice of pop-up super PACs has become more common, it’s also become more sophisticated.

In past cycles, new super PACs that hid their sources of funding were sometimes linked to existing interests through the little information they do have to share when they are formed or spend money: their vendors, address and treasurer name and contact info. But many groups have developed workarounds and now use unknown treasurers or new vendors that also popped up around the same time as the PACs themselves.

In a handful of Democratic primaries in competitive districts this year, pop-up super PACs that have been linked to Republicans through PO boxes and website metadata have run ads that closely mimic the logos and official materials of Democratic campaigns in the race.

In one case last month, the Republican-linked Lead Left PAC spent nearly $1 million backing Democrat Maureen Galindo over Johnny Garcia in Texas’ 35th District. Galindo had been widely condemned by her own party for calls to turn a local ICE detention center into a “prison for American Zionists.”

The spending on her behalf led to the moderate Blue Dog PAC leading a rescue mission for Garcia: It spent more than $1 million to boost the former Bexar County sheriff’s deputy.

Neither Real Change or Lead Left responded to requests for comment sent to the emails listed on FEC filings. Other groups, including Fight for Virginia’s Future, Kentucky 4th PAC and UDP also didn’t respond to requests for comment. Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC tied to House GOP leadership that is widely speculated to be behind some of the pop-up PACs, did not respond to a request for comment.

Phil Gardner, a senior adviser to the Blue Dog PAC, said the Lead Left ads were “literally trying to impersonate other campaigns.”

Garcia — who ultimately won his race by more than 20 points — said in an interview that news reports linking Lead Left to Republicans helped show voters the importance of the race.

“It showed just how scared they were of our campaign, that they were willing to invest in a candidate that was clearly antisemitic that they knew they would defeat very easily in the general election,” Garcia said.

A similar pop-up PAC also spent heavily for progressive Matt Dunlap over state Sen. Joe Baldacci in Maine’s battleground 2nd District, which Trump won in 2024 and is open this cycle because moderate Rep. Jared Golden (D-Maine) opted not to seek reelection.

Ian Russell, a national Democratic strategist who is working on Baldacci’s race, said the GOP-linked ads could trick voters who don’t realize they aren’t coming from Dunlap’s campaign.

“They’re literally running a positive ad for Matt Dunlap,” Russell said. “They’re using his campaign logo. They’re using B-roll off of his YouTube page.”

That race is still uncalled as it goes to a ranked-choice count this week.

In recent years, some Democratic and Republican lawmakers have pushed for tightening campaign finance law, saying sources of funding should be more readily disclosed. But there have not been meaningful advances in campaign finance legislation.

Just last week, Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) introduced a bill that would require super PACs to disclose every large donation they receive in the final 20 days of an election — which would make it harder for pop-up PACs to hide their sources of funding.

“All this dark spending money is just skyrocketing,” Crow said in an interview. “Super PACs, corporate donations, pop-up PACs. It’s out of control and it’s getting worse every cycle.”

Politics

‘A warning sign for polling’: Why one GOP pollster thinks a blue wave may fall short

Published

18 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Democrats are salivating over, and Republicans are bracing for, a potentially massive blue wave. One GOP pollster is urging everyone to calm down.

Patrick Ruffini, a founding partner at Echelon Insights, has been loudly throwing cold water on Democrats’ hopes of sweeping the red state Senate seats that have become battlegrounds in a worsening national environment for Republicans.

“The polls are, I think, intentionally inflating the size of the battleground,” Ruffini told Blue Light News.

Democrats are pushing to flip Senate seats in Iowa, Texas, Ohio and Alaska — all states that President Donald Trump won by at least 11 points in 2024 — with dreams of going even deeper into the map Kansas, South Carolina and even Mississippi. Sensing a potential disaster, Republicans have significantly curtailed their investments in North Carolina and Georgia to direct resources elsewhere.

Ruffini, who isn’t polling for candidates or party committees in any federal races, said he’s skeptical of Democrats flipping some of those seats, particularly in the Midwest, and gives the GOP a coin flip’s chance at keeping control of the Senate.

If a blue wave were to come, he said it would defy the ingrained partisanship in deep-red states that has mirrored growing political polarization around the country.

“I think it would be somewhat of a historic shift if that were to happen,” he said.

Here’s more from Blue Light News’s chat with Ruffini, edited for length and clarity. A more condensed version of this interview ran in Blue Light News’s Morning Score campaign newsletter.

You’ve been pretty publicly skeptical of polling that indicates a big tsunami for Democrats in November. Why is that?

I think we can read the environment right, but the map wrong.

The pretty large shift towards Democrats that we’re seeing on the generic ballot and in a lot of individual races, I’m not saying that’s not going to materialize. What I am more skeptical of is… the ability of any major party in this polarized era that we’re in to rack up significant gains in states that went double digits for the other side.

I’m not ruling out — I think there will be some [examples]. I think Alaska is one where it’s both an idiosyncratic state, and [Democratic nominee Mary] Peltola has shown some specific candidate-centered strength. Nor would it shock me if [Democrat] James Talarico wins, despite the history in Texas. That would not surprise me, just given the candidate quality disparity, particularly on the Ken Paxton side.

Where I get more skeptical is when you move into the Midwest, where there has historically been pretty large polling errors [overstating Democrats’ chances] in states like Iowa, Ohio. And I think you can extend that to the Democratic enthusiasm around Kansas.

Is your skepticism coming more from the quality of the individual polls that you’re seeing that are showing massive Democratic surges in the Midwest, or is it the history of these states that you’re betting will ultimately win out?

I think fundamentals are going to play an important role, particularly in states where there was a solid Trump advantage. We’re not talking about a state like North Carolina or Georgia that’s only for Trump narrowly, where Democrats, at least in the Senate races, are clearly favored.

Historically the presumption is that states tend to converge on their base partisanship in the closing days of an election, but especially that’s been the pattern in the Midwest.

Specifically as it relates to the polls this year, I think any pollster you would talk to, including myself, is experiencing significant non-response bias favoring Democrats.

When you’re seeing high-propensity Democrats [responding to polls] at twice the rate of high-propensity Republicans, when we know that the turnout on both sides would be roughly evenly paired, that’s a warning sign for polling in this cycle.

It seems like there’s some GOP internal polling saying that Republicans are worried about these states, because they are moving money around to triage certain races. I’m curious if you feel like they’re wrong to be making those decisions?

Absolutely not. They’re not wrong. You do have to take the polls somewhat seriously in the sense of, if you do get a poll that’s within the margin of error, I think you’re duty-bound to spend money in those places and not to ignore what could be a potential signal.

I think that control of the Senate comes down to Texas, so they’re right to be spending money there. If you just look at the amount of money being spent in Texas versus Kansas, obviously it’s a much, much bigger state, and you need to spend much more money.

But it’s not something along the lines of ‘the battleground has shifted. It’s a foregone conclusion. Democrats are going to win the Senate,’ and then the battleground entirely shifts to a state like Kansas or to Iowa, right? I don’t think we’re seeing that.

It sounds like the issue you have is how the broader public is interpreting these polls rather than the polls themselves?

The polls are, I think, intentionally inflating the size of the battleground. And to some extent it’s happening both ways. The polls showing a margin-of- error race in Minnesota is possible, right? I’m not as concerned about a polling error in Minnesota as I am in Kansas.

But because of the number of Democratic internals and because of the incentive of Democratic internals to show close races across the battleground, what you generally tend to see is more of an inflated sense of how big the battleground actually is. A lot of these races just break a certain way.

We’ve reported that Republicans are privately conceding that the House is lost. Is that your reading of the data too?

That’s the best reading of the data. That said, if there’s a three-point polling error or something, then I think it gets very, very tight and anything can happen. But I think that’s the most likely outcome.

What is your prediction for the number of Senate seats Republicans will have?

My prediction for both the probability and the seat count is 50-50. There’s a 50-50 chance Republicans hold the Senate. I think if they do, it’s with 50 seats, probably. But obviously, that can tilt very easily.

Which of these states do you think are going to flip for Democrats?

Alaska is clearly favored. I mean, I don’t know if it’s clearly favored, but I think it’s at least still Democrat. I think Texas is going to be very, very close. I just think the partisanship of the state is — people forget it’s a little bit more Republican than it was back in 2018. I think Republicans are probably being underestimated in Ohio because of the past Midwestern polling error.

At the same time, I would say it’s still uphill in Maine and Michigan to some degree. I think Susan Collins has really been the lone bright spot, at least in terms of the conventional wisdom, the narrative in the Senate for Republicans. I think she has a fighting chance, but I think Republicans are still probably under a 50% chance in both Michigan and Maine, just due to the nature of their partisan lean.

If at the end of all of this it is a real blue wave in the Senate, what will have happened to have made you wrong?

If that happens, we will have seen a level of depolarization in the electorate that we haven’t seen since around 2012. You really have to go back in history for a state like Kansas to flip.That would be pretty unique historically, where it’s a flip where you have an incumbent losing.

That’s the kind of thing that used to happen in Senate races a lot, and then things, starting with Trump, got a lot more polarized. So what that would mean is, maybe this is the start of a new political era. But I think it would be somewhat of a historic shift if that were to happen.

Politics

Ohio returns as a bellwether

Published

21 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

Ohio returns as a bellwether

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Politics

Inside the quiet money pullback — for both parties — in Georgia’s Senate race

Published

22 hours ago

October 19, 2026

Blue Light Newsroom

The money spigot is sputtering in Georgia’s Senate race amid growing expectations that Democratic Sen. Jon Ossoff will win reelection.

The Senate Leadership Fund, Republicans’ top Senate super PAC, did not spend on broadcast television in the state last week — the first week they were off air in the race, according to tracking firm AdImpact. Neither did Democrats’ Senate Majority PAC.

Senate Majority PAC will also be dark again this week, the Chuck Schumer-aligned group shared first with Blue Light News. It was not immediately clear whether SLF would follow suit. The group declined to comment on their future spending plans in the state.

The spending slowdown underscores how dramatically Georgia’s place on the Senate map has shifted, as Ossoff maintains wide margins over Republican Rep. Mike Collins in public polling and fundraising. Georgia was expected to be one of the cycle’s most expensive and preeminent battlegrounds — now some of the biggest outside spenders are pulling back and turning their attention to more competitive races in redder territory.

The two major Senate super PACs have closely mirrored each other’s spending decisions in recent weeks, with neither fully retreating from the state. They still both technically have future ad reservations booked past this week, but those are not binding, leaving both sides with the flexibility to redirect money as they assess the Senate map. And with two weeks until Election Day and early voting already underway in Georgia, it’s unclear whether either will spend any more in the state.

“National Republicans are abandoning Mike Collins as he continues to show Georgians why he’s unelectable and unfit for office. We are committed to seeing Jon Ossoff through to victory as we come to the final days of this campaign,” SMP spokesperson Lauren French said in a statement.

Collins’ campaign, in a statement, said they were “grateful to every group that’s standing with Rep. Collins and welcome their continued support.”

“With early voting underway, he’s working every day to earn the vote of every Georgian, because Jon Ossoff is a radical leftist who wants to raise their taxes and make their families less safe. Rep. Collins will keep making that case until Ossoff is held accountable on Election Day,” Collins spokesperson Meyer Siegfried said in a statement.

Ossoff’s campaign didn’t respond to a request for comment.

SMP had pledged in the spring to spend $20 million on television for the race, but as of Friday had only spent or reserved $11.5 million, per AdImpact. SLF had announced an initial $44 million investment, but has so far only spent or reserved roughly $20 million.

No Going Back PAC, which is affiliated with President Donald Trump’s MAGA Inc. super PAC, has also dramatically scaled back its own spending on the race over the last two weeks, according to AdImpact.

Republican operatives are still monitoring Georgia’s governor’s race, where recent public polling shows GOP nominee Rick Jackson slightly ahead of Democratic nominee Keisha Lance Bottoms. Republicans believe Jackson’s strength could keep the Senate race closer than currently expected.

But they have grown increasingly pessimistic about their prospects of flipping Georgia’s Senate seat, as Collins trails Ossoff in the polls and the overall environment for the GOP continues to grow more difficult. SLF’s decision to go dark last week — so close to the election — raises questions about how much more the group will ultimately invest in the state.

“Every dollar Schumer spends in Georgia is one not spent on offense in red states. Republicans’ financial advantage doesn’t just show up in more ads, it keeps Dems on defense,” a person familiar with SLF’s spending plans told Blue Light News.

Ossoff also holds a massive fundraising advantage over Collins, who had just over $1 million cash on hand as of Oct. 1, giving Ossoff a major financial cushion in the final stretch even before the major Senate super PACs pulled back their spending.

The GOP has been triaging races across the map: SLF shifted money out of North Carolina, another perennial battleground, while moving resources toward defending GOP-held seats in states like Kansas and South Carolina, where the Senate contests have become increasingly competitive.

Still, even as the money going into Georgia has continued to slow, Trump appears to be prioritizing the longtime battleground.

At a rally in Dalton on Friday, he urged voters to “pretend” he’s on the ballot, while praising Collins and the state’s GOP governor’s nominee, Rick Jackson.

Meredith Lee Hill and Andrew Howard contributed.