Robert Maguire and Ashley Balcerzak in the Daily Beast:
If hypocrisy is the coin of the realm in politics, then spending by a Democratic dark money group in New Hampshire’s Senate race could be Exhibit A.
For years, Democrats have blasted Republicans’ use of unlimited secret money in elections. Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid has very publicly tangled with the billionaire industrialists Charles and David Koch, whose network of dark money groups have spent hundreds of millions of dollars trying to influence races over the last five election cycles. And in New Hampshire, Democratic Gov. Maggie Hassan, running to unseat incumbent GOP Sen. Kelly Ayotte, is selling herself to voters as someone who has stood up to “dark money groups like the Koch Brothers’ Americans for Prosperity.”
There’s one problem: Hassan herself is receiving millions of dollars in ground support from a 501(c)(4) social welfare organization called Majority Forward, which is run by Democratic operatives close to Reid. Not only has the group not disclosed its donors to the public, but it’s also timing its spending to avoid reporting the New Hampshire electioneering to the Federal Election Commission.