WASHINGTON (Pakistan Point News / Sputnik - 09th November, 2022) Midterm federal elections in the US have attracted a record $2.1 billion in outside spending from corporations, megadonors, and dark money groups, backing candidates with unlimited funding independent of the campaigns, according to the Open Secrets watchdog group, citing official data.
As the result of a 2010 US Supreme Court decision, corporations and other organizations can spend an unlimited amount of money to influence election campaigns as long as it is not done directly or in coordination with campaigns and individual candidates.
In many cases, donors send money in secret to so-called "dark money" groups, who are not required to disclose the spending to the Federal Election Commission (FEC).
Ten groups accounted for half of overall spending, topped by the Senate Leadership Fund, an independent group aligned with Senate Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, which has spent $230 million on races.
Following the conservative Congressional Leadership Fund ($224 million) is a group tied to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, which spent $154 million.
Other notable spenders include The Club for Growth, a conservative economic group, which has spent $80 million, and the League of Conservation Voters which has spent $31 million.
Nearly 25% of the outside spending came from 10 individuals, topped by George Soros ($125 million) and conservative megadonors Richard Uihlein ($77 million) and Ken Griffin ($67 million).
Dark money groups tied to Republican and Democratic Party congressional leadership have sunk $295 million in the 2022 federal elections, an Open Secrets analysis found.
Some of the top issue-focused dark money groups include Gun Owners of America, Black PAC, American Energy Action Fund, and the Climate Reality Action Fund.
More than half of the spending has targeted ten Senate contests, including six of the tightest. Topping the list is the race in Pennsylvania between Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman, a Democrat, and Republican candidate Dr. Mehmet Oz.
The race has attracted a staggering $233 million of outside spending, roughly 11% of the total, with the pro-Fetterman factions outspending Mehmet's backers by about 15%.
Both sides have allocated over 70% of the funds "against" the opponent rather than "for" the candidate they purportedly support.
The McConnell-linked fund accounted for nearly 60% of the total spend against Fetterman while the Schumer-linked outside spending group accounted for 44% of the total attacking Oz.
Rounding out the top five are senate races in Georgia ($161 million in outside spending), Nevada ($127 million), Arizona ($123 million), and Wisconsin ($122 million).
Wisconsin Democracy Campaign Executive Director, Matt Rothschild, said outside spending in the state's midterms surpassed the previous record by over 50 percent, which has provided donors with outsized influence in the political sphere.
"These outside groups come into Wisconsin and tell us who to vote for or who not to vote for with all these sleazy negative ads that have been splattering our screens for months now," Rothschild told Wisconsin Public Radio last week. "With all this outside spending by outside groups the voices of everyday Wisconsinites are getting drowned out."
Overall, Open Secrets watchdog group has projected that a total of $16.7 billion will be spent on the 2022 midterm elections at both the federal and state level combined, making them the most expensive in US history.
