Pop-Up PACs”: What Delayed Disclosure Can Teach Us About Dark Money Donors

• In Event: Donors, Lobbyists, and Democracy

Abstract

The Citizens United decision of the Supreme Court in 2010 opened new pathways for anonymous giving that allowed political donors to circumvent existing disclosure laws and introduce hundreds of millions of “dark money” dollars into American elections at the state, federal and local level. While prior research on disclosure laws have focused on their effects on aggregate giving and the donation calculus for smaller donors, little is known about what types of elite donors--the ones that are responsible for the bulk of political giving in U.S. elections--select into non-disclosing organizations for their campaign contributions.


The emergence of “Pop-Up PACs” in the 2018 election allows researchers a useful stand-in for dark money organizations. These super PACs form just after the last disclosure federal deadline before an election, which allows them to postpone revealing their donors until after voters have gone to the polls. In total, 63 super PACs employed this tactic to avoid disclosure, spending a combined $21.6 million in the 2018 cycle.

I test several pre-registered hypotheses created before their donor information to these PACs was disclosed to the FEC. In particular, I test whether donors to “Pop-Up PACs” are more ideologically distant to the candidates they supported as compared to donors to super PACs that disclose donor information prior to an election. In addition, I examine the balance of individual donors to organizational donors in late-disclosing super PACs compared to traditional super PACs, as well as the tone of advertisements produced by each.

Author

• Stan Nguyen Oklobdzija, Claremont McKenna College