Much media attention in the 2024 elections has gone to the world’s richest person, the ubiquitous Elon Musk, whose political spending has exploded this cycle for former President Donald Trump and Republican candidates.
The frenetic cash outlays by Musk and his tech industry associates over the past six months have obscured record high spending in this election cycle by a more familiar conservative billionaire: industrialist Charles Koch and his Americans for Prosperity Action super PAC.
Overall, AFP Action’s spending in 2024 federal elections has more than tripled over its level in the 2020 contests.
About two-thirds of that amount this cycle has been to help Republicans hold control of the U.S. House and retake a majority in the Senate, where they need a net gain of at least one more seat if West Virginia elects the Republican candidate, as is widely expected.
“The Koch network’s premier PAC more than doubling its contributions over the last two election cycles is a clear indicator that our campaign finance system is badly broken,” said David Kass, executive director of the coalition Americans for Tax Fairness (ATF), which advocates for progressive tax reform.
“Ultra-wealthy donors like the Kochs are using their vast resources to influence key Senate races, aiming to make Trump’s tax cuts permanent, which would overwhelmingly benefit the wealthy and big corporations,” Kass said.
Only the two super PACs tied to Republican congressional leaders, the Congressional Leadership Fund and Senate Leadership Fund, have spent more backing Republican candidates for the House and Senate this year than AFP Action has, according to a Sludge review of Federal Election Commission spending data.
