Dems decried ‘dark money,’ then won with it in 2020 election

For much of the last decade, Democrats complained — with a mix of indignation, frustration and envy — that Republicans and their allies were spending hundreds of millions of difficult-to-trace dollars to influence politics.

The left warned of the threat of corruption posed by corporations and billionaires spending unlimited sums through loosely regulated nonprofits, which did not disclose their donors’ identities.

Then came the 2020 election. Spurred by opposition to then-President Donald Trump, donors and operatives allied with the Democratic Party embraced so-called dark money with fresh zeal, pulling even with and, by some measures, surpassing Republicans in 2020 spending, according to a New York Times analysis of tax filings and other data.

The analysis shows 15 of the most politically active nonprofit organizations that generally align with the Democratic Party spent more than $1.5 billion in 2020 — compared with roughly $900 million spent by a comparable sample of 15 of the most politically active groups aligned with Republicans.

The findings reveal the growth and ascendancy of a shadow political infrastructure that is reshaping U.S. politics.

A single entity that has served as a clearinghouse of undisclosed cash for the left, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, received donations as large as $50 million and disseminated grants to more than 200 groups, while spending a total of $410 million in 2020 — more than the Democratic National Committee.

Nonprofits do not abide by the same transparency rules or donation limits as parties or campaigns, although they can underwrite many similar activities.

The scale of secret spending is such that, even as small donors have become a potent force in politics, undisclosed money dwarfed the 2020 campaign fundraising of President Joe Biden (who raised a record $1 billion) and Trump (who raised more than $810 million).

Headed into the midterm elections, Democrats are warning major donors not to give in to the financial complacency that often a±icts the party in power, while Republicans are rushing to level the dark-money playing field to take advantage of what is expected to be a favorable political climate in 2022.

The Times’ analysis of 2020 data is likely incomplete: Lax disclosure rules and the groups’ intentional opacity make a comprehensive assessment of secret money difficult, if not impossible.

Yet a number of strategists in both parties said their own understanding comported with the Times’ findings that the left eclipsed the right in politically oriented nonprofit spending and sophistication in 2020.

That shift was fueled by several factors.

The big-money right was fractured over whether to support Trump’s reelection. Anti-Trump Republicans started new groups that were welcomed into the left’s big-money firmament: Defending Democracy Together, co-founded in 2018 by conservative pundit William Kristol, spent nearly $40 million in 2020 — $10.5 million of it from the Sixteen Thirty Fund.

On the left, the prospect of a second Trump term spurred a new class of megadonors and helped allay lingering qualms about the corrosive effect of secret money among some Democrats.

“A range of donors — not just traditional progressive Democrats — had a wake-up call around 2019 where they realized that our constitutional republic was at risk, and that they had to compete through whatever financing vehicles they could, which resulted in a tremendous outpouring of support,” said Rob Stein, a longtime Democratic strategist.