All posts tagged "Dark Money"

A mysterious right-wing political action committee has spent nearly $400,000 promoting a socialist running for the US Senate in Ohio, raising questions about an apparent effort to siphon progressive votes from Democratic candidate Sherrod Brown in a key midterm contest, according to reports published Monday.

The Columbus Dispatch and Cleveland.com are among the media outlets reporting that the newly formed Enough Promises Ohio PAC has financed mailers urging voters to support Greg Levy, an independent candidate affiliated with the Party for Socialism and Liberation (PSL), whose working-class platform includes implementing a $30 hourly minimum wage, ending the “US war machine” and “war on Black America,” and working to “save the planet from capitalism.”

The mailers were not produced by Levy’s campaign. Federal campaign finance filings trace the spending to a printing vendor with connections to President Donald Trump’s political network. Seven Farms shares a business address with Whistlestop Strategies, a direct mail operation associated with Big Dog Strategies, a Republican consulting firm that has worked with Republican candidates and has ties to MAGA Inc., Trump’s principal super political action committee (PAC)....

The main super PAC supporting Senate Republicans saw a “huge spike” in dark money contributions in 2025, a sign of the massive arsenal the GOP is building to protect its hold on Congress in November’s midterm elections, according to a new report from political reform group Issue One first reported by Raw Story.

As Democrats aim to capitalize on the growing unpopularity of President Donald Trump and his Republican party and regain control of Congress, the Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund skyrocketed dark money contributions by 581 percent in 2025 compared to 2023.

Michael Beckel, money in politics reform director at Issue One, said: “When you see an infusion of money like this, that usually means that these big money groups want to make sure that they have all of the resources they can muster to defend seats, to defend candidates, to defend their majority.”...

This story was originally published by OpenSecrets.

Timothy Mellon, heir to Gilded Age industrialist Andrew Mellon, has continued to pour tens of millions into the campaigns of former President Donald Trump, Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and Republican congressional candidates in 2024.

Mellon has pumped over $165 million into the 2024 election, making him the top donor fueling outside spending groups this year. Mellon is known as a “guardian angel donor,” a term given to contributors who are a political group’s top donor and account for more than 40% of the group’s funding....

CHICAGO — In ballrooms, barrooms and backrooms this week, the business of big business is getting done with Democrats out of public view.

Yes, Bernie Sanders on Tuesday railed before Democratic National Convention delegates about how “millionaires and billionaires” should “not be able to buy elections.” And sure, curtailing “the corrupting influence of money in politics” is a plank in the 2024 Democratic Party platform.

But most Democrats in Chicago are ignoring the socialist senator and stepping over and around that party plank while pursuing cash that corporations and moneyed special interests are all too keen to contribute....