From campaign finance and foreign lobbying scandals ensnaring politicos at all levels of government to Supreme Court battles to Presidential Foundations and the most expensive Congressional elections in American history, the year 2018 certainly knew how to keep our OpenSecrets journalists busy. We can only imagine how overwhelming the pace of the news cycle must have been for our readers!

For those of you who haven’t had time to read every word of OpenSecrets News this year, don’t worry. As an end-of-year gift, we have compiled our best stories of the year into the holiday reading list below. Enjoy!

Our biggest scoop of the year came when we obtained tax documents that show funds for the dark money nonprofit Secure America Now, which ran racially provocative ads throughout the final weeks of the 2016 election, mostly from just three donors, including the secretive multimillionaire donor (and Trump ally) Robert Mercer.

At the one-year anniversary of President Trump’s inauguration, we took a look back at the companies and donors that helped shatter records by giving $107 million to the festivities. Some of the event’s biggest donors went on to join the administration, while others stayed close in different ways. As the year wore on, we began to uncover more and more information about these donations, some of which came from a web of “dark money” groups and a network of conservative judicial activists which spent a good deal of 2018, along with liberal dark money groups, on efforts to influence Brett Kavanaugh’s confirmation to the Supreme Court.

One of OpenSecrets’ most read articles of 2018 took a look at the lobbying efforts behind H.R.392, also known as the Fairness for High-Skilled Immigrants Act, which would have eliminated “country caps,” restrictions on the number of people from a given country allowed to move from a skilled worker visa to a green card.

As the year wore on, we began to turn our attention to 2020, as did many across the country. With President Trump having already surpassed $100 million in fundraising, we took a look at how the current Democratic favorites, including those who faced re-election themselves in 2018, might do against his unprecedented fundraising skills. One factor weighing heavily on any 2020 candidate’s prospects is the continuously growing “No PAC” pledge trend – but will making that pledge be anything more than symbolic for Democratic candidates next cycle?

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As for President Trump’s re-election efforts, an OpenSecrets investigation found that the Trump campaign funneled money to the ad buyers alleged to have facilitated illegal coordination between the campaign and the NRA by routing funds through a secretive LLC that appears to be little more than a shell company.

We also took a look at one of the biggest names in Campaign Finance – Citizens United – now almost nine years in the back mirror.

One of our proudest achievements this year was the introduction of our new and improved Foreign Lobby Watch tool, which allows you to sort through documents filed under the Foreign Agents Registration Act (FARA) to calculate the countries with the highest spending, learn more about different registrants acting on behalf of foreign interests, and more! Learn how to use the tool here.

We also expanded our tracking of dark money to the state level with the New Mexico Political Nonprofits Portal, which allows journalists and watchdogs to hold the political operatives and wealthy donors accountable without having to reinvent the wheel.

Thank you for joining us on the wild ride that was 2018 – our 35th year in existence. From the record-breaking special elections to the expensive and competitive primaries filled with “No PAC” pledges to the blue wave of fundraising and small-donor enthusiasm that allowed for a Democratic takeover of the House, we enjoyed giving you a money-in-politics spin on the top stories of the year.

We’re not going anywhere – stay tuned for more coverage in 2019.



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