Dark money groups have spent $1 billion on supporting Republican candidates this election cycle, funding the majority of their TV ads.
Campaign spending from outside groups has hit a new high this election cycle, and a new analysis shows that Republicans running for key Senate seats have been a major beneficiary of this dark money infusion., dark money groups have spent $1 billion on supporting Republican candidates this election cycle, with outside groups and campaigns spending over $1.6 billion overall on Senate candidates in a dozen races analyzed by the publication.
“Put simply: If it weren’t for these outside groups, Republican candidates would be swamped on the airwaves,” the report reads. “[T]he inability for Republican campaigns to keep pace with Democrats has meant these GOP outside groups have had to make up a lot of ground, spending more for less.”, as of mid-October, outside spending hit $1.3 billion in this election cycle — a record high for a midterm election.
Progressives and government watchdog groups have long maintained that dark money spending is a danger to U.S. democracy. Thanks to the Supreme Court’s decision inin 2010, dark money groups are able to spend unlimited amounts of money on elections, essentially only bound by the amount of money that billionaires and corporations are willing to spend on influencing politics.