Partisans, PACs or Purists : Where Does Dark Money Fall in the Interest Group Typology?

“Dark money”–or political spending from nonprofits who don't disclose their donors to the public–has become an increasingly prominent feature of elections at all levels of American government. I posit that the new pathways for anonymous giving that emerged from a series of Supreme Court decisions in the first decades of the 2000's allowed for more “ideological” giving than in cycles prior. Freed from social pressures surrounding their giving, donors to dark money groups will give instrumentally and as such, dark money activity in elections will most resemble the behavior of ideological interest groups long active in American politics. Testing this theory, I find strong support that both dark money groups and ideological interest groups back more extremist candidates—especially during primary elections—than either formal party organizations or access-oriented interest groups. These results indicate that the anonymous pathway to giving offered by dark money has created a new font for ideologically money in American elections