THE DARK MONEY
THE HIDDEN DONORS.
Fire House PAC has spent $614,902 in this race. Every dollar of its first $300,000 came from Contours Inc. — a Delaware nonprofit that hides its donors from the public. That is the definition of dark money.
THE RECRUITERS.
In July the PAC took $400,000 more from Independent Candidates Action, the Washington, D.C. group that recruits independent candidates — the same group Nate Powell says recruited him. Contours gave that group $800,000.
THE SPENDING.
More than $800,000 in outside money has poured into this race for Nate Powell. Of every dollar spent promoting him, more than 90 percent came from a single out-of-state dark-money-funded super PAC.
HE SAYS NOBODY BOUGHT HIM. THE FEC RECORD SAYS OTHERWISE.
PROVEN FEC FILINGS
Powell’s ads say he has never taken a dime of corporate money. But PAC money entered his campaign, a dark-money-funded super PAC has spent hundreds of thousands promoting him and attacking his opponents, and more than half of his itemized individual donations came from outside Washington. New York donors alone gave $69,301 — more than half of what every Washington individual gave his campaign combined. Counting outside spending and his own fundraising, more than $1.1 million is behind this campaign.