Presidential contender Pete Buttigieg (Joshua Lott/Getty Images)

In the increasingly competitive Democratic primaries, Pete Buttigieg is being accused by his opponents of using weak campaign finance laws to coordinate with outside groups to boost his presence ahead of Tuesday’s New Hampshire primaries.

While several frontrunning Democratic presidential candidates earlier distanced themselves from outside spending, many have since softened their stances as the primaries neared. Multiple groups spent almost $900,000 supporting Sen. Bernie Sanders’ (I-Vt.) while over $6.6 million was spent backing former Vice President Joe Biden.

Buttigieg, the former mayor of South Bend, Ind., never refused super PAC endorsements, but a recent tweet from an adviser is facing flak for allegedly signalling the super PAC VoteVets, which endorsed the veteran, to advertise more on Buttigieg’s behalf.

“Pete’s military experience and closing message from Iowa work everywhere especially in Nevada where it’s critical they see this on the air through the caucus,” Michael Halle, a senior strategist, tweeted last week.

“Was this meant to be a [direct message] or did you mean to tweet out this instruction to your super PAC?” tweeted Roger Lau, Sen. Elizabeth Warren’s (D-Mass.) campaign manager, in response to Halle’s post. “Fun fact about how some campaigns exploit our broken campaign finance laws: if it was a DM it would be illegal.”

Buttigieg also spoke at an event organized by VoteVets in Merrimack, N.H., a day after Warren’s team raised questions.

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Since federal campaign finance laws prohibit candidates from coordinating with such groups, the organization is allowed to make independent expenditures in support of the candidate. Outside groups and candidates often are suspected of abusing loopholes in campaign finance law to legally coordinate their efforts. But the law is rarely enforced.

VoteVets has spent almost $1.7 million supporting Buttigieg. Brian Sheth, the co-founder and president of private equity fund Vista Equity Partners, is the group’s largest donor with a contribution of $100,000. Defense policy consultant Mathew Jones is the second highest donor at $50,000. Several PACs also donated the maximum limit of $5,000 to VoteVets, including corporate PACs that Buttigieg had pledged to not take help from. These PACs include Cigna Corp., Dell Technologies, Pfizer and Edison International.

Following the confusion at the Iowa caucuses, the Democratic presidential candidates increased their advertising budgets for the primaries scheduled in New Hampshire on Tuesday. It also coincides with FiveThirtyEight’s average of polls, which places Buttigieg at a comfortable second. He made a significant jump of 8 points to 21.1 percent compared with his 13.1 percent a day before the Iowa caucuses.

VoteVets has spent over $7.9 million backing Democrats in the presidential race, three Senate races and two House races. Its “dark money” nonprofit arm has spent millions more on issue ads that are not reported to the Federal Election Commission.

In the Senate races, VoteVets has spent nearly $2.6 million on behalf of state Sen. Cal Cunningham in North Carolina. In Texas, VoteVets is spending over $3.3 million backing MJ Hegar, in a crowded Democratic field a month before the primary. Like Buttigieg, both Cunningham and Hegar are veterans.



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