CHART: In 2012, $8 out of $10 Dark-Money Dollars Supported Republican Candidates

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.

If on November 6 Mitt Romney wins the White House and Republicans retake the Senate, they’d be remiss not to thank dark money in their victory speeches.

That’s because $8 out of every $10 in dark money—campaign cash whose source is hidden from the public—spent so far in the 2012 elections went to electing Republicans and defeating Democrats. Through November 1, dark-money groups, including politically active nonprofits, trade groups, and labor unions, spent $213 million on elections, and 81 percent of that money backed GOPers, according to a new analysis by the Sunlight Foundation. US Senate races attracted the most dark money, at $86.4 million; the Senate fights seeing the most dark-money seep in are Virginia ($19 million), Ohio ($13 million), Nevada ($12 million), Wisconsin ($10 million), and Montana ($7.5 million), Sunlight found.

All told, the amount of dark money spent by November 1 accounted for 22 percent of all outside cash in the 2012 elections. Here’s a breakdown of dark money spending so far:

Dark-money groups have, to no one’s surprise, ramped up their spending in the final weeks before Election Day. But the uptick in dark money is especially true for pro-GOP groups as they dump money into the presidential race and House and Senate campaigns:

And below is a breakdown of the biggest dark-money players in American politics. Shocker: Eight of the top 10 biggest spenders back Republicans. Not only that, but those top five players—Karl Rove’s Crossroads GPS, the US Chamber of Commerce, Grover Norquist’s Americans for Tax Reform, Americans for Job Security, and American Future Fund—account for 64 percent of all dark-money spending.

Sunlight Foundation’s entire analysis is worth the read. But as Sunlight’s Lee Drutman notes, his report doesn’t fully capture the extent of secret spending in US elections. Dark-money groups not only mask their donors; they fail to even disclose all their spending. “Ultimately,” Drutman writes, “we will probably never know where this dark money comes from, nor the true spending numbers.”

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate