(From “Open Secrets.” I used their republish code to post this important story; formatting is theirs. We should be aware of this.)

The same dark money groups keep turning up in redistricting fights

• By Joedy McCreary
• The mid-decade fight to redraw congressional lines ahead of the November midterm elections has surged beyond statehouses and into ballot boxes and courtrooms – with millions of dollars pouring in to shape those outcomes, much of it from nonprofits that never have to say who is funding their activities.

Voters in California and, most recently, Virginia have weighed in on new House maps. A Colorado group wants to put its own proposal before voters. Missouri petitioners are trying to stop a new map from taking effect. And lawsuits are stacking up from Florida to Utah.

One through-line: dark money from 501(c)(4) nonprofits. Free from donor-disclosure rules, these groups move large sums with little transparency and have helped turn state-by-state redistricting battles into nationalized, big-dollar fights bankrolled by tight networks of high spenders.

“It’s a perfect example of where money is trying to influence policy outcomes, and redistricting is so high-stakes that now it’s just part of the process,” said Alex Keena, an associate professor of political science at Virginia Commonwealth University who has co-authored two books about redistricting.

What began last year with President Donald Trump urging Texas to redraw its map has now gone national, fueled by a surge in dark money that “perfectly encapsulates what’s happening here,” said Doug Spencer, a law professor at the University of Colorado.

“Every single story really feels like a domino in a long chain of events that goes back to President Trump’s cajoling of Texas to start this,” Spencer told OpenSecrets.

‘A tsunami of money’

The latest epicenter of the redistricting fight was Virginia, where voters in April approved a mid-decade redistricting plan that could have helped Democrats win four additional House seats in November. The measure would have bypassed a bipartisan redistricting commission and allowed the state to use new districts drawn by the Democratic-led General Assembly. The state Supreme Court blocked it on May 8, declaring it unconstitutional because of a procedural timing dispute. Democrats filed an emergency appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court on May 11.

Virginia, which has no limit on campaign donations, is “basically the wild, wild west in terms of campaign finance,” said Kyle Kondik, managing editor of Sabato’s Crystal Ball, a political newsletter run out of the University of Virginia. The three key players in this ballot measure fight combined to raise nearly $100 million since February in large cash contributions alone. The Virginia Public Access Project found it to be the most expensive referendum in state history.

“This was the confluence of all of these variables that resulted in just a tsunami of money in a state with lax regulation, high stakes, a single vote involving redistricting that could lead to four or even five new members of Congress,” Keena told OpenSecrets. “And we just had a ton of money flow into the state in a relatively short amount of time, and the result of all that money was just a blitz coming from every medium.”

And on both sides of the debate, the vast majority of that money came from a handful of dark money groups. window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});

Virginians for Fair Elections, the main organization backing the redistricting effort, reported $63.2 million in large cash contributions, defined as any single contribution or loan of at least $10,000, between Feb. 6 and April 24. Nearly 97% of that total came from five 501(c)(4)s:

• House Majority Forward, which is aligned with Democratic leaders in the U.S. House of Representatives, contributed $39.3 million across 10 installments from Feb. 6 to April 10, the largest of which was $9.3 million on March 30.
• The Fairness Project, founded by a California-based healthcare workers union, contributed $11.7 million across five payments from Feb. 18 to April 9, including a $5 million contribution Feb. 18, in addition to $22,950 in in-kind contributions.
• The Fund for Policy Reform, funded by Democratic megadonor George Soros, donated $5 million on March 12.
• American Opportunity Action, which has been linked to former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, contributed $3.5 million.
• The Global Impact Social Welfare Fund, the 501(c)(4) arm of philanthropic organization Global Impact Ventures, donated $1.5 million across two contributions.

The same structure appeared on the opposition side. window.addEventListener(“message”,function(a){if(void 0!==a.data[“datawrapper-height”]){var e=document.querySelectorAll(“iframe”);for(var t in a.data[“datawrapper-height”])for(var r,i=0;r=e[i];i++)if(r.contentWindow===a.source){var d=a.data[“datawrapper-height”][t]+”px”;r.style.height=d}}});

The Virginians for Fair Maps Referendum Committee, which formed Feb. 9, reported $24.1 million in large contributions between March 2 and May 1. One organization – Virginians for Fair Maps, which shares a post office box in Alexandria with the committee – accounted for 98% of it. State records identify the group as a tax-exempt organization, but there is no corresponding listing for it or its classification in the IRS online database. Co-chaired by former House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Va.), it donated $23.5 million across nine contributions from March 6 to May 1, a sum that includes $5 million contributions on both March 31 and April 7 along with $4 million on April 6.

The Justice for Democracy PAC – founded by former state Del. A.C. Cordoza (R) and accused of distributing misleading mailers before the election – raised $10.2 million in large contributions between March 4 and April 24. More than 95% came from Per Aspera Policy Inc., a Massachusetts-based 501(c)(4) previously linked to billionaire tech investor Peter Thiel that donated $9.7 million – including four seven-figure contributions between March 26 and April 14.

“There’s a real question. … Who’s actually trying to influence our election, and to what end?” Keena said. “What are they hoping to get out of it and whose interests are hanging in the balance?”

Donor networks in multiple states

Some of those groups also spent big on similar efforts in other states.

Coloradans For a Level Playing Field wants a new House map for the 2028 and 2030 elections before allowing the state’s independent congressional redistricting commission to draw another one for 2032 based on the 2030 census. Under the plan, Democrats would be favored to win seven of the state’s eight House seats.

According to its May 4 report, the organization raised $246,747 between Feb. 18 and April 29. Two of the key donors in Virginia also supplied more than 97% of the Colorado group’s total: House Majority Forward contributed $150,000 on Feb. 25, and the Fairness Project provided $90,000 on April 29. Of the 149 other cash donations made during that time, 148 averaged just $32.

That breakdown reflects the uneven appetite for redistricting in the state, Spencer said. Sometimes, it draws attention; other times, he said, “it really feels like it’s gone by the wayside – or, at least when you dig underneath, you don’t see a big push or a lot of local money.”

And in Missouri, the Democratic-supported group People Not Politicians, which opposes the state’s new GOP-drawn map, in December submitted more than 300,000 signatures for a petition seeking to block the map from being used. In its April 14 campaign finance report, it reported raising $6.1 million during the cycle. Of that total, $1.7 million came from American Opportunity Action, a Democratic-aligned dark money group supporting ballot measures. Additionally, the Fairness Project donated $250,000 on Nov. 17, 2025, along with four $1,000 payments in late 2025 and early 2026 for “strategic guidance.”

“I think, to the layperson, this all just looks like gerrymandering,” Spencer said. “But up close, every state’s doing this slightly differently.”

Massive spending around California’s Prop 50 fight

The biggest spending took place in California – where more than a quarter of a billion dollars was poured into its redistricting measure.

Voters in a November 2025 special election passed Proposition 50, which responded to the Texas redistricting push by redrawing the map used in the 2026 midterms and in 2028 and 2030. It generated more than $256 million in fundraising from both sides combined. Roughly two-thirds came from groups supporting the measure, and 87% of that $171 million came from two organizations, both of which have received noteworthy contributions from dark money groups:

• Democratic Gov. Gavin Newsom’s Ballot Measure Committee raised more than $102 million through Nov. 3, 2025. The Fund For Policy Reform provided its largest single contribution, $10 million on Sept. 18, 2025..
• HMP for Prop 50, the House Majority PAC, raised $46 million. That group’s largest single contribution in 2024 ($34 million) came from House Majority Forward, which also contributed $11.2 million in late 2025, according to Federal Election Commission filings.

On the opposition side, two organizations combined for an even higher share of the spending – 92% of the $84 million that flowed into the race.

• The No on Prop 50 Congressional Leadership Fund raised $44.3 million. That group received four separate $10 million donations in 2024, from hedge fund founder Ken Griffin, Aon founder Patrick Ryan, Mellon banking heir Timothy Mellon and Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwartzman. Billionaire megadonor Miriam Adelson donated $10 million on March 11, according to the FEC.
• Protect Voters First reported $32.8 million, with Charles Munger Jr. – a physicist and the son of a late billionaire – loaning the organization nearly the full amount.

“It does not seem like the states themselves have been going out of their way to clamor for this,” Spencer said. “California responded to Texas. Texas was responding to Trump.”

How dark money fuels the legal fights 

While some states decided redistricting questions in the voting booth, others are fighting the same battles in courthouses – and some groups funding those fights are just as nationalized, donor-driven and opaque.

The National Redistricting Foundation has partnered with the left-leaning Elias Law Group in suing to challenge Florida’s new map. It filed a legal brief urging the Supreme Court to reject Alabama’s request to fast-track its redistricting case and filed a motion to intervene in Utah’s. 

The foundation is the 501(c)(3) nonprofit arm of the National Democratic Redistricting Committee. As a 527 organization, it is tax‑exempt and may spend unlimited amounts on issue advocacy. It is chaired by former Attorney General Eric Holder, and in 2018 it received $2.6 million from Soros. Its largest contribution in the 2024 election cycle, the most recent available to OpenSecrets, was $500,000 from PAC to the Future, former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi’s leadership PAC. The committee also provided nearly $20,000 in in-kind contributions to the pro-redistricting group in Virginia.

The foundation makes up one part of an apparatus that also includes the National Democratic Redistricting PAC and a 501(c)(4), the National Redistricting Action Fund. The PAC raised $423,000 in the first quarter of 2026, has raised $2 million during the current election cycle and had $250,000 in cash on hand, according to FEC documents. The 501(c)(3) foundation reported $9.7 million in contributions and grants in 2023, according to its most recent IRS filings, but does not identify those donors. Neither does the action fund, whose latest IRS filing shows $5.2 million in total revenue in 2023 – and the same Washington address as the foundation.

A similar structure is in place at the nonpartisan Campaign Legal Center, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit that on May 4 joined the UCLA Voting Rights Project in suing Florida over its redistricting plan. It has also moved to intervene in the Utah case. It shares a Washington address with Campaign Legal Center Action, a 501(c)(4) dark money nonprofit.

Campaign Legal Center’s most recent IRS documents show $13.9 million in total revenue in 2024, with most coming from contributions and grants, and $36.7 million in net assets. But its donors are not identified. Campaign Legal Center Action also does not disclose donor names on its IRS filings.

On the Republican side, the American Redistricting Project – a 501(c)(3) also known as Fair Lines America Foundation Inc. – has been active in redistricting debates in recent years. Its most recent IRS filing shows roughly $1.9 million in both revenue and expenses in 2024. It maintains an online repository tracking redistricting legislation, but it is unclear whether the organization is providing financial support or filing motions in the current legal fights. OpenSecrets reached out to the group but did not immediately receive a response.

This article was originally published by OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization that tracks money in politics. View the original article.