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“Gray Money” Is Fueling a Bipartisan Arms Race for Control of Congress

Nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors have funneled at least $642 million to PACs so far in the midterms.

At least $642 million in secret money has flowed into PACs so far this election cycle through nonprofits that do not disclose their donors, a Sludge analysis of federal campaign-finance records found.

The money has financed some of the country’s largest political spending groups while leaving voters unable to know which individuals or companies originally supplied it.

Known as “gray money,” the practice has exploded over the past decade. A New York Times analysis published earlier this year found that organizations that do not disclose their donors supplied nearly one in five dollars contributed to super PACs in the 2024 election, up from roughly one in 100 in 2012.

Sludge’s analysis shows that the surge has carried into the 2026 midterms. Through late August, more than 130 nonprofits that do not disclose their donors have given at least $642 million to super PACs and hybrid PACs, which both make independent expenditures and donate directly to candidates. The total represents 14 percent of the $4.6 billion in itemized contributions of at least $5,000 examined by Sludge and is almost certainly an undercount.

Some of the biggest sums are financing the battle for control of Congress. One Nation, the dark-money nonprofit aligned with Senate Republican leadership, has given $70.7 million to its affiliate Senate Leadership Fund, the main super PAC backing Republican Senate candidates, as of data available from the FEC website on August 27, 2026. Majority Forward, its Democratic counterpart, has given $61 million to its super PAC affiliate, Senate Majority PAC. On the House side, American Action Network, the nonprofit tied to Speaker Mike Johnson’s Congressional Leadership Fund, has given that hybrid PAC $44.3 million, and House Majority Forward, aligned with House Majority PAC, has given it $21.7 million.

Combined, the four party-leadership-aligned nonprofits have funneled $197 million through their affiliated dark-money nonprofits this cycle, more than one dollar in every four the PACs raised in itemized contributions of $5,000 or more.

Michael Beckel, research director at the campaign-finance watchdog Issue One, described the trend as a bipartisan “fundraising arms race fueled by anonymous donors.”

Beckel said, “Voters across the political spectrum lose.”

Gray money gives secret donors a way to tap into the machinery of super PACs without publicly identifying themselves. Rather than having a nonprofit build its own political operation........

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