The sprawling independent expenditures by Americans for Prosperity Action were largely made to support GOP House and Senate candidates through canvassing, digital advertisements, mailers, and other campaign-related services, according to Federal Election Commission filings. AFP Action’s spending has more than tripled since 2020, when it dropped $47.7 million, whereas the Koch-linked group spent $70 million in 2022.

“This kind of grassroots effort isn’t built overnight, it takes years of sustained community engagement and data that’s continuously refined,” Bill Riggs, a spokesman for AFP Action, told the Washington Examiner. “We started as an emerging field program and have consistently grown into a grassroots force capable of contacting nearly 20 million voters in one cycle.”

AFP Action is the flagship super PAC of the Koch network, a web of right-leaning groups bankrolled by philanthropists Charles Koch and David Koch. The spending spree is, in part, a result of the super PAC targeting Senate races in Pennsylvania and Ohio in support of Republican candidates David McCormick and Bernie Moreno. The Republicans are facing Sens. Bob Casey (D-PA) and Sherrod Brown (D-OH), respectively.

AFP Action’s spending also heavily targeted Senate races in Nevada, Montana, Wisconsin, and Michigan. Riggs, the AFP Action spokesman, told the Washington Examiner that the super PAC engaged in a total of 647 races to reach 12.4 million voters.

To the Koch-linked group, its spending is “to prevent one-party progressive rule in Washington,” AFP Action recently said.

The super PAC was an ally of Nikki Haley in the 2024 GOP presidential primary but pivoted away from financially backing Haley after she lost the primary in South Carolina, her home state. AFP Action poured $31 million into digital ads, canvassing, and mailers supporting Haley, records show.

Since the Supreme Court’s 2010 ruling in Citizens United v. FEC, super PACs such as AFP Action have become a force in U.S. politics, raising and spending unlimited sums of money to influence elections. This election cycle, AFP Action has pulled in $40 million from Koch Industries, Charles Koch’s behemoth corporation in Wichita, Kansas.

Meanwhile, tens of millions of dollars also flooded into AFP Action from the Koch network’s Stand Together Chamber of Commerce. Between 2021 and 2022, $150 million of Stand Together’s funding also came from the Koch-backed CCKC4 nonprofit group, tax forms show.

CCKC4, based in Wichita, counts its director as Chase Koch, one of Charles Koch’s sons.

“If we want a government that works for all of us and not just the wealthy few, we must curb the political influence of the ultra-rich,” David Kass, the executive director of the progressive Americans for Tax Fairness, told Sludge.

At the same time, left-wing billionaires have also shelled out historic sums this election cycle to boost Vice President Kamala Harris and other Democrats, the Washington Examiner reported.

Progressive groups often raise concerns over the influence of “dark money” in politics — though records show that anonymous and hard-to-trace donations are favoring Harris over Trump at a faster and more substantial clip in 2024.