Leftist Nonprofits Play Major Role in Elections

More than 150 progressive nonprofits spent $1.35 billion on political activities in 2021 and 2022, way outstripping conservatives.

In our current topsy-turvy political world, “the more you know” is getting tougher to follow. By that we mean you gotta know where and how to find the facts, but you gotta know who the players are and then filter what you learn through that lens to try to determine the truth.

We believe our election system is flawed, and it’s disturbing to see the Left taking full advantage of the flaws that conservatives on the Right pretty much refuse to acknowledge. Not only that, but the Left is much better at maneuvering the system to achieve their Marxist-centered goals, as is readily apparent to anyone who’s paid attention over the last few election cycles.

RealClearInvestigations has researched how tax-exempt progressive nonprofits are aggressively supporting the Democrat Party’s platform with huge buckets of fairly unrestricted money. You know the old saw: “Money is the mother’s milk of politics.”

As RealClearInvestigations points out, “Their get-out-the-vote efforts are replacing those of political campaigns, which traditionally relied on their own staffers to engage voters.” And, it’s not just engaging voters, it’s the shaping of the “truth” about the nation’s most important topics.

The Fair Elections Center, for example, calls those who questioned the outcome of the 2020 presidential race “election deniers” who oppose the right to vote. Their stance echoes President Biden, who said last year that there were “more than 300 election deniers on the ballot” for the midterms, adding that “It’s damaging, it’s corrosive, and it’s destructive.”

These groups present a double-edged threat, as well, because their fund-raising has far outstripped what conservative Republicans have been able to do:

Even as Democrats such as Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse warns of the “right-wing dark-money network seeking to undermine the future of democratic elections in the United States,” progressives have far outstripped Republicans in harnessing the power of putatively non-partisan, nonprofit organizations that push the boundaries to win elections.

More than 150 progressive nonprofits spent $1.35 billion on political activities in 2021 and 2022, according to data compiled by Restoration of America, a conservative political action committee. Although there are no readily available estimates of comparable conservative efforts, observers say they are overmatched.

“The liberal nonprofit sector is much bigger than the conservative nonprofit in the political arena,” said Bradley Smith, a former commissioner with the Federal Election Commission and founder of the conservative Institute for Free Speech.

RealClearInvestigations concludes that

Courting, creating, and funding nonprofits by progressives is now a core Democratic Party strategy, one that has proven successful as Democrats have prevailed or outperformed historical expectations in national elections.

“They are after a new American majority, and that includes people of color, women, students, LGBT, and [progressives] have a strategy for each group,” said Ned Jones, deputy director of the conservative Election Integrity Network. “It’s all about registering voters and getting a ballot in their hands, and they know what they’re doing…”

Will the Republicans catch up? Here’s a better question: “Are the Republicans engaged to win the 2024 election?”