More than $48 million has been spent on House and Senate primaries this year by super PACs that did not have to reveal their donors before elections took place.
That total is more than double the amount at this point in the 2024 cycle and 10 times higher than in 2018.
New groups frequently launch after the last pre-election Federal Election Commission deadline, spending in the final days of a race and reporting their funding weeks later, by which time the targeted election is already over.
Roughly 1 in 10 dollars in outside spending that has flowed into primaries so far this year has been through these secretive groups.
Pop-up super PAC tactics have sometimes resembled one party meddling in another party’s primary in competitive districts such as Texas’ 35th, Maine’s 2nd and New York’s 17th.
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; neither group will have to reveal its donors until mid-July.
In Illinois’ March primaries, three newly created groups tied to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee spent $16 million on House races, and it was revealed afterward that United Democracy Project, AIPAC’s main super PAC, was the leading funder.
In Kentucky’s 4th District, a newly created super PAC spent $6.7 million to attack Ed Gallrein; the PAC shut down shortly after the primary and revealed most of its funds came from a Texas-based firm, and the group is now facing an FEC complaint alleging it was a straw donor scheme.
Pop-up groups have also run ads that mimic campaign logos and materials and have used tactics such as PO boxes and website metadata to obscure ties; Ian Russell, a national Democratic strategist working on Joe Baldacci’s race, said, "They're literally running a positive ad for Matt Dunlap. They're using his campaign logo. They're using B-roll off of his YouTube page."
"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." Rep. Jason Crow (D-Colo.) introduced a bill last week that would require super PACs to disclose every large donation they receive in the final 20 days of an election, and he said, "All this dark spending money is just skyrocketing. Super PACs, corporate donations, pop-up PACs. It's out of control and it's getting worse every cycle."