The Sixteen Thirty Fund sent the cash to groups that aided the Democrats’ effort to unseat former President Trump and Republicans’ Senate majority.
Sixteen Thirty Fund had doled out a whopping $410M in 2020 and had aided the Democratic efforts to unseat then-President Trump and win back control of the Senate.
The group financed attack ads against Trump and other vulnerable Republican senators and funded massive “get out the vote” and issue advocacy campaigns amid the pandemic, as detailed in a new tax filing obtained by POLITICO. It exploded in size during the Trump administration, going from a few tens of millions of dollars per year to raising and spending hundreds of millions.
Sixteen Thirty Fund Had Powered Some Major Organization On The Left
Sixteen Thirty Fund’s million-dollar grants had singlehandedly powered some other organizations on the left. It had also incubated other groups, as a sponsor, that fought against Trump’s SC nominees, backed liberal ballot measures and policy proposals in different states, and organized opposition to Republican tax and health care policies.
The massive 2020 fundraising had illustrated the extent to which the leftists had embraced the use of “dark money” to fight for their causes.
After decrying big-money Republican donors over the last decade, as well as the Supreme Court rulings that flooded politics with more cash, Democrats now benefit from hundreds of millions of dollars of undisclosed donations as well.
Sixteen Thirty Fund rejects comparisons to the Koch network and had cast both its mission and its model as different than the longtime bogeymen. Sixteen Thirty Fund’s fiscal sponsorship model, in which it serves as an incubator and administrator to help get new progressive advocacy organizations off the ground, is a point of emphasis for the group, as is its backing of campaign finance reforms that would require it and other nonprofit groups to disclose donors and potentially reduce their influence on politics.
