In a major departure from traditional campaign finance strategy, a growing bloc of Republican Senate candidates are eschewing established Washington leadership groups to launch their own bespoke super PACs, a move that will allow them to illegally coordinate with themselves in complete privacy.
Rather than relying on the Senate Leadership Fund to disburse funds across the national map, top-tier candidates are bringing their dark money operations in-house. Federal Election Commission filings show the new entities are largely staffed by the candidates' former campaign managers, siblings, and college roommates, ensuring that seven-figure checks from petrochemical executives can be directly routed to the candidate’s preferred consulting firms without interference from Mitch McConnell’s central office.
The shift toward artisanal, single-candidate slush funds has prompted a flurry of restructuring on K Street, as strategists scramble to set up ostensibly independent expenditure groups that operate out of the exact same suburban office parks as the campaigns they are legally forbidden from contacting.
The traditional party apparatus is simply too bureaucratic for a modern candidate who wants to look a defense contractor in the eye and guarantee a direct return on investment.
Aides familiar with the new entities noted that the federally mandated firewall between the official campaigns and their allied super PACs currently consists of a shared receptionist who has been instructed to use differently colored legal pads when taking dictation from the candidate.
According to sources close to the caucus, the decentralized PACs are already proving popular with the party's donor base of reclusive industrialists, who have long expressed frustration with the inefficiencies of national party politics and are reportedly eager for the streamlined opportunity to purchase a United States Senator wholesale.