In the 2024 U.S. presidential race, Vice President Kamala Harris is receiving a significant financial boost from dark money groups, which have outspent similar efforts backing former President Donald Trump by a striking margin. According to an analysis by political watchdog Sludge, these groups have funneled eight times more resources into supporting Harris than Trump, marking a substantial shift in how these secretive funds are being distributed.
Dark money groups, which operate without disclosing their donors, have become a controversial aspect of American politics, according to The Washington Examiner. Despite Democrats’ long-standing criticism of these opaque funding methods, Harris is now benefiting from them at an unprecedented scale.
Approximately 90 percent of the independent expenditures in the 2024 campaign, including those in favor of or against both Harris and Trump, come from super PACs and dark money organizations, the newspaper revealed.
“The public has a right to know who is trying to influence their votes and who is trying to curry favor with political candidates through large contributions to outside groups like super PACs and dark money groups,” said Michael Beckel, the research director for a transparency watchdog group called Issue One. “Wealthy special interests can use dark money contributions to help ingratiate themselves with their preferred candidate without any public scrutiny.”
Super PACs can raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to boost candidates, often through disbursements on advertising. Following a flurry of Supreme Court decisions over the last several decades, super PACs have become a staple in American politics, breaking new barriers each election cycle to back candidates with hundreds of millions of dollars from their, in part, anonymous-backed war chests.
That’s because super PACs often receive large transfers from nonprofit organizations that are affiliated with them and registered under 501(c)(4), a section of the IRS code that allows “social welfare” groups to receive tax-exempt status and not disclose their donors. In 2024, the biggest super PAC in politics is Future Forward, which is supporting Harris through ads, is bankrolled by the ultra-wealthy, and has a tax-exempt arm registered in Washington, D.C.
Future Forward’s nonprofit arm has shuffled over $130 million since 2018 to its super PAC affiliate, which counts some of its own donors as LinkedIn co-founder Reid Hoffman, philanthropist George Soros, and Facebook co-founder Dustin Moskovitz. However, funding that goes to Future Forward’s nonprofit group is difficult, and often impossible, to fully trace due to a lack of federal laws requiring disclosure.
Hoffman may ring a bell because he was mentioned in court documents related to Jeffrey Epstein. He has said that he wants to be Donald Trump’s biggest problem and following the assassination attempt against the former president, Hoffman’s top political consultant began pitching conspiracy theories that the former president staged the attack that nearly cost him his life.
Harris, despite benefiting from dark money groups, has publicly criticized their influence in previous election cycles. She has accused Trump of relying on similar networks, stating, “Trump has megadonors, huge corporations, and dark-money PACs willing to cut blank checks to buy him four more years in power.”
Meanwhile, Trump’s super PACs have raised approximately $23.2 million from dark money sources, including groups like Building America’s Future and Restoration of America. One of his key financial backers is a super PAC launched by Elon Musk, which has come under Justice Department scrutiny for controversial campaign practices.
As Election Day approaches, the role of dark money in shaping the outcome is expected to go into hyperdrive. Prepare to see more and more commercials on your televisions.
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