During other midterm elections, party committees like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee had been the biggest spenders. | J. Scott Applewhite/AP Photo Elections Super PACs were biggest spenders in 2018 midterms, report finds

Super PACs aligned with the two major political parties spent more in the 2018 midterms than the parties’ congressional committees did, the first time that’s happened in a midterm election cycle and a milestone that shows the power amassed by the big-money outside groups, a new report released Thursday found.

During other midterm elections, party committees like the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee have been the biggest spenders. But in 2018, preliminary totals indicate the three biggest spenders in the election were all super PACs, the Campaign Legal Center’s review found.


Congressional Leadership Fund, a super PAC that worked to elect House Republicans, spent at least $137 million, the report found. The Senate Democrat-aligned Senate Majority PAC spent $112.8 million, and Senate Leadership Fund, the Senate GOP PAC, spent $95 million. The fourth- and fifth-largest spenders were the DCCC and the NRCC, which spent $84 and $74 million respectively. House Majority PAC, which is aligned with House Democrats, spent $72 million.

“At the same time that more money was becoming concentrated in a handful of politically connected super PACs, those same super PACs were finding new ways to disguise their spending,” the report said.

Chief among those tactics, it said, were an increased tendency among super PACs to delay naming their donors and a habit among some groups of obscuring their identities while placing political ads on the internet, which is possible due to gaps in disclosure rules.

Morning Score newsletter Your guide to the permanent campaign — weekday mornings, in your inbox. Email Sign Up By signing up you agree to receive email newsletters or alerts from POLITICO. You can unsubscribe at any time. This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Politico and ProPublica in October identified more than 60 super PACs that had spent money in primaries or general elections but delayed disclosing their donors until after voters went to the polls. That practice sharply increased in 2018: During the 2016 elections, super PACs spent $9 million during congressional primary elections that they delayed disclosing until after voting finished. In 2018, that total increased to more than $15 million.

The trend continued during the final days of the election, the Campaign Legal Center found. The group identified 17 super PACs that spent more than $29 million that had not yet reported any contributors or had spent dramatically more than they’d reported raising.

