Tired of AIPAC trying to buy elections? Let’s do something about it.

Earlier this year, before their March primary election, voters in Illinois started getting inundated with ads from mysterious new groups with vague names. They sounded anodyne enough: Elect Chicago Women, for instance. 

Who are they? A front group for American Israel Public Affairs Committee and their biggest donors.

None of the ads said anything about Israel, but the goal was obvious: Defeat any candidate who dared to challenge the policies of the Netanyahu government — all while exploiting a campaign finance loophole to conceal the affiliations of those who funded the ads. 

But it’s not just AIPAC pulling these kinds of shenanigans. Deep-pocketed special interests like the crypto and AI industries are flooding the airwaves with phony ads that say nothing about who actually paid or what they stand for. 

Enough is enough. It’s time to unmask these shady super PACs. 

That’s where we come in. The Intercept’s major priority in this year’s all-important midterms is to track and reveal the donors who are secretly pouring billions into our elections. 

This year’s political reporting is some of the most ambitious and challenging we’ve ever done — and we simply won’t be able to do it unless readers like you step up to support it. 

So we’re asking all our readers to chip in whatever you can today to help expose the front groups trying to buy our elections. 

During the 2008 election cycle, the last presidential campaign before the Citizens United Supreme Court decision, outside spending in elections totaled $574 million. 

By 2024, with the caps on spending limits erased, outside spending — mostly super PACs — exploded to nearly $4.5 billion. 

That’s an eightfold increase. 

The reason wealthy billionaires and corporations are spending so much money is because they’re getting a great return on their investment in the form of corporate welfare, lax regulatory oversight, and other goodies. 

In the absence of new legislation that closes campaign disclosure loopholes, the only way we can find out who is funding the ads flooding our televisions and social media feeds is through the kind of deep-dive investigative journalism that few, if any, news outlets have the resources and independence to pursue. 

But we cannot take on ambitious investigations like this without the financial support of readers like you. 

That’s not just some fundraising pitch. It’s the literal truth.

Please donate to The Intercept today and help expose the dark-money front groups trying to buy our elections. 

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