Dark Money Strategies Evolve to Keep Funders Hidden
By Eric Petry
The problem of dark money in elections is getting worse. It’s not just that the amount of spending from groups that don’t disclose the source of their funds keeps rising — though it does. It’s also that groups and donors are using a web of approaches to avoid transparency, including the increasing use of unregulated online spending. And even when it’s possible to trace the source of funds, groups are gaming the rules to avoid meaningful transparency before Election Day. The result is a political system with less information and less accountability.
Dark money hit record highs in the 2024 election cycle. Nonprofits and shell companies that don’t disclose their donors spent at least $1.9 billion on federal races, nearly double the record set in 2020, which in turn was a significant jump from 2016. Altogether, since Citizens United — the Supreme Court’s 2010 decision invalidating limits on supposedly independent expenditures — dark money groups have spent at least $4.3 billion to influence federal elections.
These totals don’t include many types of online spending, where existing campaign finance rules largely don’t apply. As elections increasingly move into digital spaces, disclaimer requirements and voluntary disclosures from some digital ad platforms reveal that candidates, parties, and outside groups are spending billions of dollars to buy traditional political ads online — many of them from anonymous sources. But other types of spending remain a relative black box.
For instance, payments to social media influencers, a growing form of political spending, are largely invisible. They are not covered by Federal Election Commission rules that apply to other types of campaign spending. Nor are they covered by Federal Trade Commission disclosure rules, which apply to influencers paid to promote commercial products but not political advertisements. Still, it’s clear that paid influencers have become a significant channel for political money. During the 2024 election, for example, more than a quarter of digital content creators reported being approached about promoting political content as both presidential campaigns and political parties routed millions of dollars to social media personalities to target specific audiences.
This trend shows no signs of stopping. In California, where state law requires a disclaimer on all paid political promotion, several gubernatorial candidates have lined up influencer support. For example, candidate Tom Steyer paid a popular influencer $100,000 to help on issues related to Latinos. The California election has seen accusations that influencers are failing to use the required disclosures, however, muddying the picture. Sitting officials are also joining in. Earlier this year, influencers acknowledged that they were hired to criticize a reporter who wrote a story about Montana Sen. Tim Sheehy’s billionaire campaign donors.
Candidates and outside groups are also increasingly using anonymous accounts to boost their support on social media. Rather than build a following from scratch, political operatives can instead buy an established account with thousands of followers, wipe its history, and rebrand the profile. This approach gives the new owner a fresh account with immediate clout to amplify their preferred narratives and inject stories into public discourse, often attacking their opponents, that are nearly impossible to trace back to the source.
Even with traditional advertising, where spenders are typically required to be identified, groups often try to obscure their motives from voters, for example by running ads that have no nexus to their industry, interests, or identity. While this is not a new practice, it has become routine among the biggest-spending industries, such as AI and cryptocurrency, which have funneled more than $321 million into their super PACs this election cycle.
In the Democratic primary to replace retiring New York Rep. Jerry Nadler, for instance, dueling super PACs bankrolled by AI have spent heavily on ads discussing immigration, health care, and other hot-button issues — but not AI or tech. Think Big, a super PAC funded by OpenAI, has already spent more than $2 million targeting Democrat Alex Bores, while other groups funded by Anthropic have lined up to defend him. Both companies have constellations of super PACs with tens of millions of dollars ready to wade into congressional races across the country.
AIPAC, the pro-Israel advocacy group, used a similar approach in several Illinois congressional primaries. The group funneled millions through a series of generically named organizations and ran millions of dollars’ worth of ads discussing unrelated issues, such as immigration and affordability.
Another tactic that allows groups to avoid transparency is gaming disclosure schedules. By funneling money through other political committees shortly before the election, spenders can keep their identities secret until after voters cast their ballots. While the recipient group may ultimately have to file disclosures revealing the original sources of their funds, that information doesn’t come to light until after the race has already been decided.
This practice is happening in congressional primaries across the country. A new super PAC called Kentucky 4th PAC sprang up and quickly spent $6.5 million to support Rep. Thomas Massie in the final weeks of his unsuccessful bid to keep his seat in Kentucky’s 4th congressional district. A mysterious super PAC with ties to known Republican operatives has spent at least $3.1 million across several Democratic primaries in Nebraska, Pennsylvania, and Texas. The group has apparently tried to elevate candidates viewed as weaker opponents in the general election, including a political newcomer accused of using antisemitic language. And in Illinois, AIPAC funneled over $5 million to two other groups shortly before congressional primaries. In each race, these groups didn’t have to file their federal fundraising reports until after the election, meaning primary voters did not know who was behind the ads when they cast their ballots.
Of course, dark money is not unique to federal races. Anonymous spenders are also targeting state and local races, where relatively small amounts can make a big impact. Virginia’s redistricting referendum, which was approved by voters before being voided by the state high court, drew nearly $100 million from dark money sources. And in Washington, DC, where voters will soon choose a new mayor, hundreds of thousands of dollars from anonymous sources has flooded in ahead of the June primary. Significant dark money is also targeting other races across the country, including in Georgia, Pennsylvania, and Tennessee.
The prevalence of dark money is one problem that is not an inevitable result of Citizens United. The Supreme Court held in that case by an 8–1 vote that the government can require political spenders to disclose their donors because voters have a right to know who is trying to influence their decisions so they can “make informed decisions and give proper weight to different speakers and messages.”
Reforms to end dark money, such as the Disclose Act and Honest Ads Act, would require all groups that spend money on federal campaigns to disclose their major donors, extend campaign finance rules to online political ads and social media, and bolster enforcement. These measures have passed the House multiple times. States, too, can pass similar disclosure laws. Eliminating unaccountable dark money spending from elections is likely to remain central to the campaign reform agenda.
