Biden Reeled in More ‘Dark Money’ Than Any Other Candidate in History, Majorly Outpaced Trump Donations: Report
THE BLAZE | By Paul Sacca | January 23, 2021
President Joe Biden received a record-breaking amount of “dark money” from anonymous contributors that helped propel him into the White House. A Bloomberg report found that the Biden campaign accepted more dark money than any other presidential candidate in American history.
During the 2020 presidential campaign, Biden reportedly reeled in a record-breaking $145 million, topping the previous record of $113 million that Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah) received in his failed 2012 presidential bid against Barack Obama.
Former President Donald Trump’s dark money donations majorly dwarfed Biden’s, and he purportedly only received $28.4 million from anonymous donors.
A report from CNN in late November stated, “More than $320 million of so-called ‘dark money’ helped boost Democrats in the White House and congressional races — more than double the anonymous dollars that aided Republicans in this year’s federal elections, a new analysis shows.”
“It’s not surprising that Biden set the mark given that the $1.5 billion he hauled in overall was the most ever for a challenger to an incumbent president,” Yahoo News reported.
Meredith McGehee, the executive director of campaign finance reform advocacy group Issue One, told Bloomberg, “The whole point of dark money is to avoid public disclosure while getting private credit.”
Open Secrets, the self-proclaimed “most comprehensive resource for federal campaign contributions, lobbying data and analysis available anywhere,” defines dark money as “spending meant to influence political outcomes where the source of the money is not disclosed.”
The South China Morning Post said Biden’s campaign had previously “called for banning some types of non-profits from spending money to influence elections and requiring that any organization spending more than $10,000 to influence elections to register with the FEC and disclose its donors.”
Amy Kurtz, executive director of the left-leaning nonprofit Sixteen Thirty Fund, said, “We have lobbied in favor of reform to the current campaign finance system, but we remain equally committed to following the current laws to level the playing field for progressives.”
Despite running a super-PAC supporting Biden, Even Cecil said her group supports campaign finance reform, “We still look forward to the day when unlimited money and super- PACs are a thing of the past.”
Democrats enjoyed a record-breaking third quarter of 2020 where the political party raised $1.5 billion through left-leaning crowd-funding website ActBlue over three months, according to Politico.
A Biden spokesman did not immediately respond to requests for comment by Bloomberg.
For more information on Adina Kutnicki visit her blog or read her full bio here.
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