Politics

Democrats Betrayed Their Principles And Embraced Dark Money. They Lost Anyways

Vice President Kamala Harris visits the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington, D.C., on Election Day, Nov. 5, 2024.

Democrats used hundreds of millions of dollars from anonymous donors in their quest to take the White House, facing defeat and abandoning their principles in the process.

When the Democratic Party formally nominated Vice President Kamala Harris for President in August, it also adopted an official platform explicitly denouncing the presence of “dark money” in politics. Despite this stance, campaign finance disclosures show Harris relied heavily on outside groups funded by dark money to propel her failed bid for the White House.

Outside groups spent nearly $1 billion between January 2023 and election day working to put a Democrat in the White House in 2025, according to campaign finance records. The largest spenders among these groups received the majority of their cash not from individual Americans, but rather from advocacy groups with opaque sources of funding.

Future Forward PAC was responsible for most of the outside cash that flowed into the election to support the Harris campaign, constituting $496 million of the roughly $813 million in independent expenditures that went toward either opposing President-elect Donald Trump or supporting Harris, per campaign finance records. Future Forward PAC was chosen by President Joe Biden and his allies to be the primary super PAC handling the Democratic Party’s presidential operations, The New York Times reported in July 2023.

While the PAC had the party’s blessing, it was openly out of step with its purported stance on dark money.

Of the $204 million Future Forward PAC raised during the 2024 election cycle, just $89.7 million came from individual donors. The rest came from groups like Future Forward USA Action, the 501(c)(4) activist group affiliated with the PAC, which contributed over $56 million to it this election cycle.

501(c)(4) groups are one of the most common conduits used to shuffle dark money into the political process as they are not legally required to disclose their donors but can nonetheless donate to political committees. This gives individual donors the ability to shield their identities by directing their money through 501(c)(4) organizations.

The Democratic Party’s 2024 platform identified and promised to close this apparent loophole.

“Too much money flows in the shadows to influence our elections,” the platform reads. “Democrats will end ‘dark money’ by requiring full disclosure of contributors and ban 501(c)(4) organizations from spending on elections.”

The platform warned that “foreign entities” can use “dark money loopholes” to influence American elections. Sixteen Thirty Fund, one of the largest Democratic-aligned 501(c)(4) groups, receives tens of millions of dollars per year from Hansjorg Wyss, a billionaire who The Associated Press reported was a foreign national as recently as April.

Sixteen Thirty Fund poured millions in Democratic-aligned super PACs this cycle, including into American Bridge PAC, which spent nearly $60 million supporting the Harris campaign while raking in the majority of its revenue from non-individual sources, according to campaign finance disclosures.

Other PACs that spent big to elect Harris while raking in dark money included Somos PAC, the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund and Black PAC.

Somos PAC spent about $12.4 million boosting the Democratic presidential ticket, and got just over 10% of its funds from named individuals, campaign finance records show. Black PAC, meanwhile, spent almost $20 million assisting the Democratic presidential campaign while receiving less than 5% of its funds from named individual sources.

The League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, similarly, spent almost $13 million on operations designed to help Biden and Harris while receiving less than 20% of its funds from individuals.

Future Forward PAC, the League of Conservation Voters Victory Fund, Black PAC, American Bridge PAC and the Harris campaign did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment.