Campaigns Are Leaving The Invitation For Outside Help Wide Open

LANSING (Oct. 19, 2020) — When national groups get involved in Michigan races with outsize sums to spend, they may be in unfamiliar territory, where the maxim “all politics is local” still holds.

Luckily for them, campaigns and political party apparatus are there to guide them.

Candidates cannot legally coordinate with these organizations, which can hide the sources of their funding and avoid federal oversight. Instead, several prominent Michigan campaigns have left the information those groups would need in plain view, turning the creation of political ads into paint-by-numbers.

This is not a new approach, but the sheer volume of spending in this election has made the strategy seem more apparent than ever.

"Super PACs have been trying to work hand-in-hand with the candidates that they are seeking to help elect and there are a number of creative ways that political operatives continue to push the envelope and skirt the anti-coordination laws," said Michael Beckel, research director at the political reform organization Issue One.

In some places it really shows, like the race for the third U.S. House district being vacated by U.S. Rep. Justin Amash (L-Grand Rapids), where Democrat Hillary Scholten is in a close race against Republican Peter Meijer.