FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
October 10, 2024
Contact: Sam D’Arcangelo, RepresentUs, sdarcangelo@represent.us
Contact: OpenSecrets, press@opensecrets.org
RepresentUs, OpenSecrets Put Spotlight on Record-Breaking Pace of Election Spending by Big Donors
The groups have launched a campaign to raise awareness about the billions of dollars big donors and special interests are spending on the 2024 election, which has already topped $3.5 billion
FLORENCE, MA & WASHINGTON, D.C. - RepresentUs, the nation’s largest grassroots anti-corruption group, and OpenSecrets, the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy, have launched Unpacking Super PACs, a new effort to raise awareness of who is funding the 2024 election. Today, the groups unveiled a Public Service Announcement highlighting the fact that super PACs and hybrid PACs have already raised $3.5 billion and spent $2.2 billion on the 2024 election, with the vast majority of that money coming from a small group of wealthy donors.
Unpacking Super PACs will pull the curtain back on some of the most well-funded super PACs and their top donors, whose impact over our electoral process and elected officials has grown since a series of high profile court rulings (including Citizens United) weakened campaign finance restrictions in 2010. Polling indicates more than 7 in 10 Americans believe there should be limits on the amount of money individuals and organizations can spend on political campaigns, and more than 6 in 10 Americans believe reducing the influence of money in politics should be a top priority. RepresentUs and OpenSecrets aim to show voters how this money is used, who is behind it, and what those behind it want.
“Big Money is spending more than ever to influence our political system, and it’s working,” says RepresentUs CEO Joshua Graham Lynn. “The American people deserve to know where candidates are getting their funding and who’s trying to influence them. OpenSecrets is the industry leader in tracking money in politics, and RepresentUs is proud to team up with them to put a spotlight on who and what big money actually is.”
“Ensuring that the public has easy access to our data on money in politics is core to our mission at OpenSecrets,” says OpenSecrets Executive Director Hilary Braseth. “It’s a thrill to partner with RepresentUs to produce this series of educational videos to deliver our data and insights to a broader audience. We’ve been tracking this information for four decades, and we hope this is only the beginning for how we might experiment with different mediums to continue engaging awareness around money in politics.”
Unpacking Super PACs’ first video outlines the scale of super PAC spending and puts a spotlight on two of the biggest donors of the 2024 election cycle: Timothy Mellon, the heir to Gilded Age industrialist Andrew Mellon who has poured more than $160 million into Trump-aligned super PACs, and Future Forward USA Action, a “dark money” group that has given millions of dollars to a Democratic Party-aligned super PAC. Additional content will laser in on other deep-pocketed donors as well as nonpartisan, issue-focused super PACs that back candidates who advance their interests.
Super PACs came into being after the Supreme Court ruled corporations, individuals, unions, associations, and others could spend unlimited amounts of money advocating for or against political candidates—as long as the advocacy was done by entities that don’t coordinate directly with candidates’ campaigns. Since then, super PACs and the donors who fund them have quietly become some of the most influential players in American politics, pouring billions of dollars into ads, events, and other methods of influencing voters. As of September 22, the top 1% of donors account for 99.1% of all the money raised by super PACS and hybrid PACs, with the top 100 donors accounting for 63.1%.
RepresentUs is America’s leading nonpartisan organization fighting to protect and strengthen democracy. We unite unlikely allies from across the political spectrum who put country over party to pass pro-democracy laws, fight corruption, and defeat authoritarian threats. We have won 185 victories in cities and states across America since our founding more than 12 years ago. Each win brings us one step closer to our vision of making America the world’s strongest democracy.
Nonpartisan, independent and nonprofit, OpenSecrets is the nation’s premier research group tracking and reporting on money in U.S. politics and its impact on elections and public policy. Created in 2021 by the merger of the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in Politics, OpenSecrets’ mission is to track the flow of money in American politics and provide the data and analysis to strengthen democracy. Our vision is for Americans to use this knowledge to create a more vibrant, representative and accountable democracy.