What Campaign Filings Don’t Show: Super PACs’ Growing Sway
Via The New York Times
WASHINGTON — Presidential contenders are set to provide a glimpse inside their campaign war chests on Wednesday, releasing financial statements that will give the first detailed accounting of how the candidates are raising and spending hundreds of millions of dollars in pursuit of elected office.
But while the reports, to be filed with the Federal Election Commission, provide an early look at the campaigns’ financial operations, they promise to tell only part of the story because they do not include any of the money being raised by the “super PACs” and other outside groups supporting many of the candidates. In many cases, the money raised by those groups is likely to dwarf what the campaigns bring in.
The Republican presidential candidates are almost uniformly relying on these groups, which can tap unlimited corporate and individual contributions, to amass the financial firepower they need to break through a crowded primary field, as long as they do not coordinate with candidates. This is a stark departure from past campaigns and has made most of the candidates deeply reliant on a small handful of ultra-wealthy donors.
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