At least $1 billion in anonymous political spending is flowing into the 2026 US midterm elections, according to a New York Times investigation that has exposed the growing scale and complexity of “dark money” in American politics.
Reporters Shane Goldmacher and Theodore Schleifer examined advertising data, Federal Election Commission filings and tax records to identify money being channelled into campaigns by organisations that do not reveal their donors.
Their findings suggest the total is a conservative estimate. Much of the spending can be traced through public records, but other forms of political activity — including direct mail, payments to social media influencers and door-to-door campaigning — are harder to identify.
The investigation found that anonymous funding is now reaching almost every major primary and battleground contest, sometimes outspending the official campaigns themselves. In some races, candidates have been reduced to bystanders as outside groups pour millions of dollars into advertising on their behalf or against their opponents.
How dark money is traced
Dark money generally refers to political spending by groups that conceal the identities of their financial backers, most commonly through non-profit organisations. It is distinct from super PACs, which can raise unlimited sums but are required to disclose their contributors.
Tracing the money begins with the spending rather than the donor. A political mailer normally identifies the organisation that paid for it. Television advertising can be tracked through media-buying records, while donations from non-profits to super PACs must be reported to the Federal Election Commission.
Those disclosures can reveal a chain of transfers in which one non-profit sends millions of dollars to another, which passes the money to a further organisation before it is used to fund an advert or campaign mailing. The final payment may be visible even when the original donor is not.
Goldmacher said the investigation began with a suspicion, shared by the two reporters, that it had become easier for political funders to avoid disclosure. They then tested that impression against a large collection of documents and found evidence that the practice had expanded substantially.
The reporters stressed that they could not establish the full amount of dark money being spent during the election cycle. Their estimate covers only spending that could be identified through available records, meaning the actual figure may be considerably higher.
Recent research by the Brennan Center for Justice found that non-profits and shell companies that do not disclose their donors spent at least $1.9 billion on federal races during the 2024 election cycle. The organisation said such groups had spent at least $4.3 billion influencing federal elections since the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling, which removed limits on supposedly independent political expenditure.
Secret funding reaches key contests
The New York Times investigation identified major spending in races across the country. In Michigan and Minnesota, tens of millions of dollars were used in Democratic Senate primaries in efforts to defeat progressive candidates.
In Kansas, secret funding supporting a little-known Democratic Senate contender was reported to have been 100 times greater than the candidate’s own available funds during the final stage of the primary.
In Texas, Republican-aligned groups used disclosure rules to spend secretly in an effort to influence the Democratic nomination. The investigation also found that about $43 million in anonymous funding was spent during Senator John Cornyn’s unsuccessful Republican primary campaign.
One newly established Wyoming group, Choose Freedom, reserved about $22 million in advertising supporting Republicans in two dozen House and Senate battlegrounds. Another Republican-linked non-profit announced a further $22 million campaign across 41 House districts, while a previously little-known organisation, Per Aspera Policy, placed a $3.7 million advertising order praising the Republican Senate candidate in Ohio.
The practice is not confined to one party. Democratic and Republican networks alike have developed methods for raising money through organisations that shield their contributors from public scrutiny.
In Maine, Senator Susan Collins attended a July fundraising dinner organised by Stronger America, a non-profit aligned with her campaign. While Collins would have known who attended, the group is not required to disclose its donors publicly.
Campaigns are generally barred from co-ordinating with outside groups, although political operatives say the boundaries are increasingly being tested. The New York Times reported that the event illustrated how candidates can appear alongside supportive organisations while voters remain unaware of who financed them.
Defenders of anonymous political giving argue that it protects people with unpopular views from retaliation. Sean Cooksey, a former chairman of the Federal Election Commission, said there was political value in allowing people to associate and speak anonymously.
Critics say the lack of transparency prevents voters from judging who is trying to influence them. Enforcement is also weakened: the Federal Election Commission currently has only two of its six seats filled, leaving it without enough commissioners to form a quorum.
Amy Gardner, a deputy editor on the Times politics desk, said the changing way voters receive information — through influencers, social media and online advertising rather than traditional television — was creating fresh uncertainty over how political spending works.
Schleifer predicted that the use of opaque non-profits would become even more widespread during the 2028 presidential campaign, as political organisations seek to conceal donors behind newly created groups with patriotic-sounding names.
