A Billion Dollars, No Name: The Most Patriotic Secret in American Politics

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A new review of campaign finance filings, tax records, and advertising data has found that at least $1 billion in anonymous money is sloshing through this year’s midterm elections, and that the people spending it have, in a word, declined to be identified. The New York Times has called it the least transparent midterm in American history, which is a fair description, the way calling a hurricane “a weather event” is a fair description.

What makes the number remarkable is not the size. A billion dollars is roughly the price of a mid-sized aircraft carrier, and American politics has long had the capacity to absorb an aircraft carrier without blinking. What makes it remarkable is the namelessness. A super PAC, by law, is supposed to disclose its donors. The money, however, is not going to the super PAC. It is going to a dark money group, which then gives the money to the super PAC, and the super PAC’s one legal obligation is to disclose that the money came from a dark money group. The donor, at every step of the journey, remains available to be described as “an American.”

The scale was laid out in a new analysis from Issue One, which found that the four main super PACs focused on House and Senate races raised a combined $197.7 million from their affiliated dark money groups between January 2025 and June of this year — more than one dollar of every four these organizations collected, out of a total of $714.6 million.

What stands out, to anyone who has spent time around the vocabulary of anonymous political giving, is the naming. The Republican-aligned Senate Leadership Fund receives its money from a group called One Nation. Its House sibling draws from the American Action Network. On the other side, the Senate Majority PAC is fed by a group called Majority Forward, and the House Majority PAC by House Majority Forward. One Nation. It is a more patriotic name than most press releases. It is, in fact, the kind of name that belongs on a fundraiser in a small town, and it is, instead, the name of the entity funneling $24.29 million a quarter into a super PAC.

The increase is worth noting. In June alone, the Senate Leadership Fund took more than double what it received the prior quarter from One Nation, and the Congressional Leadership Fund did the same with the American Action Network. Both parties are participating in the trend, which is the part of the story the coverage tends to underweight. Anonymity, it turns out, is a bipartisan institution. It does not check your registration before it opens.

Critics have a straightforward objection, which is that a voter who does not know who is paying for the ad on the television cannot factor that person into the decision. The counterargument, advanced by at least one group of donors who prefer to remain nameless, is that the concern proves the system is working: the money is flowing, the ads are running, and no one is being forced to say a single word about it. That is not a bug in transparency. That is transparency with a coat on.

The practical effect, per the people who have studied it, is that a substantial fraction of the most powerful political advertising in the country is being purchased by someone who, as a matter of law and custom, does not exist. The ad has a sponsor card. The sponsor card has a name. The name belongs to a group whose entire business is receiving money from people it is not required to name. It is the closest thing American politics has to a drive-through.

At press time, a spokesperson for one of the four super PACs said the organization was “proud to accept contributions from Americans who value privacy,” and declined to say whether those Americans were, in fact, American. The answer, per the spokesperson, was a question for the donor, who, per the structure of the donation, was not available to answer questions.