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Outside groups have poured nearly $2 billion into this election cycle with weeks of spending still to come, and a small cluster of groups is responsible for a growing share of that money.
The top six outside groups – the Senate Leadership Fund, Texas PAC, No Going Back PAC, WinSenate PAC, the Congressional Leadership Fund and Americans for Prosperity Action – spent more than $60 million apiece as of Oct. 5, according to federal disclosure reports analyzed by OpenSecrets.
Together, they accounted for more than $678 million – or more than a third of the outside spending by 794 groups tracked by OpenSecrets, and a sum nearly equal to the combined spending of the next 34 groups. Just 16 organizations account for more than half of all outside spending during the current cycle.
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Each of those groups serves a distinct purpose. For example, the Senate Leadership Fund works to elect Republicans to the Senate while the Congressional Leadership Fund does the same for the GOP’s House candidates and WinSenate PAC supports Democrats running for Senate seats. Texas PAC is a new SLF-linked organization created to back Ken Paxton, that state’s Republican Senate nominee. Americans for Prosperity Action is among the organizations backed by conservative billionaire Charles Koch. Another new group – the President Donald Trump-linked and MAGA Inc.-funded No Going Back PAC – spends to oppose Democrats in battleground races.
The money they’re pouring into races is becoming even more concentrated. As recently as Sept. 21, the top six groups accounted for 28% of all spending and 20 of them made up nearly half of all outside spending. That concentration still falls short of 2022, when the top six outside groups accounted for 45% of all outside spending tracked through that year’s election.
That concentration of spending isn’t new, California State University, Chico political science professor Diana Dwyre said.
“There are big spenders, and there aren’t that many of them, and I think that’s been a trend since” the advent of super PACs, Dwyre told OpenSecrets.
The modern outside spending landscape traces its roots to the Supreme Court’s decision in Citizens United v. FEC. That 2010 ruling opened the door for corporations, unions, nonprofits and PACs to spend unlimited amounts on elections as long as that spending remains independent of the campaigns they support. That, combined with a separate lawsuit against the FEC, paved the way for super PACs.
Sixteen years later, super PACs remain the dominant outside-spending vehicle. Formally known as independent expenditure-only committees, they account for the vast majority of outside spending – more than $1.5 billion of it. Four of the top six spenders are super PACs. The others – Americans for Prosperity Action and CLF – are hybrid committees. Also known as Carey committees, they can make both unlimited independent expenditures and capped direct contributions to candidates. Overall, hybrid committees account for nearly $406 million.
Conservative groups continue to dominate the spending landscape, pouring in more than $1.1 billion compared with nearly $727 million for liberal organizations. Another $120 million in spending was not tied to either side. Six of the top seven spenders were conservative, led by the Senate Leadership Fund, which has spent nearly $174 million.
Many of the biggest names are familiar: Three of the top four from the 2022 midterms are back near the top of the list this year under the same names, topped by the Senate Leadership Fund, which also led the way in 2022. Two are hybrid committees supporting the parties’ House candidates: The Congressional Leadership Fund, which spent $227 million four years ago, has spent $67.2 million so far in 2026 to rank fifth – four spots ahead of the Democrats’ House Majority PAC, which spent $145 million in 2022 and $49.3 million this year.
The exception is SLF’s Democratic counterpart – WinSenate PAC – which was registered in 2024 and is run by Senate Majority PAC. WinSenate ranks fourth with nearly $109 million in spending. Senate Majority PAC itself ranked third in 2022.
“All they care about is their team winning,” Dwyre said of the party-aligned super PACs. “And that’s a more pure goal. … They’re still political animals, but at least their motives are easy to understand.”
Another two of the top six in 2022 – the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee ($96.4 million) and the National Republican Congressional Committee ($87.1 million) – no longer need to route their spending through independent expenditures. The Supreme Court struck down federal limits earlier this year on how much political party committees can spend in direct coordination with candidates, a ruling campaign finance experts expected to shift some donor dollars away from super PACs and back toward the parties.
Battleground Senate races drive outside spending
Three of the top six spenders this cycle share a common focus: Senate races. The eight races with the most outside spending are for seats in that chamber, with conservatives outspending liberals in each.
None has attracted more outside money than the Texas contest between state Rep. James Talarico (D) and state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R). It has generated nearly $287 million in spending – almost $253 million of it by conservatives, and much of it coming during the primary.
Texas PAC – which is run and partially funded by the Senate Leadership Fund – has emerged as one of the cycle’s most aggressive spenders in a short time. Formed Aug. 28, the group has spent nearly $134 million – more than doubling its total between Sept. 21 and Oct. 5. In a span of 13 days in September, it logged separate media buys of nearly $27 million and more than $28 million to oppose Talarico.
“The bigger question I have in mind is, is all this spending coming too late?” Joel Sievert, an associate professor of political science at Texas Tech University, told OpenSecrets. “One of the biggest things [spending] can do for challengers is it can help them define who they are, get their name out there. And so we went through this really long period with really lopsided spending, lopsided information being given out. You mix in with the fact that Ken Paxton was already pretty well known – lots of people already had an opinion. To me, I think that will be kind of the lingering question. … Did they wait too long?”
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In Michigan, more than $179 million has been spent in the race between former Republican Rep. Mike Rogers and Democrat Abdul El-Sayed. And in Ohio, the contest between Republican incumbent Jon Husted and Democratic former Sen. Sherrod Brown has generated $177 million in spending.
The most lopsided of the seven is in Kentucky, where Rep. Andy Barr (R) and former state Rep. Charles Booker (D) are running to replace Sen. Mitch McConnell (R), who did not seek an eighth term. Conservatives have spent $46 million there, compared with just $196,000 for liberals, but the vast majority of that money went toward the contested GOP primary.
Other super PACs focused mainly on Senate races include Pine Tree Results PAC, which has spent nearly $22 million while backing Sen. Susan Collins (R-Maine), and North Star Dawn PAC, which spent $14.2 million on the Minnesota Democratic primary in support of Rep. Angie Craig, who lost the Aug. 11 primary to Lt. Gov. Peggy Flanagan.
Single-issue super PACs carve out major share of spending
Party committees aren’t the only organizations dominating the rankings. Industry-backed and issue-focused groups continue to expand their footprint as well.
The United Democracy Project – the super PAC arm of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) – spent more than $53 million through Oct. 5. Think Big PAC spent $22.4 million supporting candidates aligned with artificial intelligence interests. Much of its funding originated from Leading the Future, a pro-AI super PAC funded in large part by venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz and founders Marc Andreessen and Ben Horowitz – who are also primary backers of the cryptocurrency industry’s network of super PACs.
“We’re talking about specific policies – do we want more AI regulation? Less AI regulation? Crypto regulation? Sports betting regulation? These are industries that want very specific things,” Dwyre said. “I’m not sure where this is going, but I think it’s very different than [what] we saw just 10 years ago.”
The three crypto-focused groups – Fairshake, Defend American Jobs and Protect Progress – combined to spend $97 million, which if counted as one operation would rank fifth overall. Defend American Jobs ($56.1 million) and Protect Progress ($27.6 million) lead the way. OpenSecrets previously reported that much of their funding arrives via transfers from Fairshake – which shares a mailing address with Protect Progress at a UPS Store in Minnesota.
The crypto spending network also illustrates another layer of concentration: influence flowing through multiple organizations connected to the same funding ecosystem.
The crypto groups “are more bipartisan – similar to groups supporting prediction markets – as they largely want regulatory concessions,” Christian Cox, an assistant professor of economics at Cornell University who has researched super PAC spending, told OpenSecrets in an email. The connections between the three crypto super PACs, he continued, “adds some interesting nuance” to the trend of concentration among outside spenders.
