Five super PACs have spent $461 million on independent expenditures in the 2026 midterms, by their own reports to the Federal Election Commission. That is money spent on ads, mail and canvassing that no candidate controls and no voter chose. And the largest checks behind it often come from organizations, not people.
The five biggest spenders, by FEC independent expenditures reported so far:
- SLF PAC (Senate Leadership Fund): $173.3 million through Sept. 30.
- Texas PAC: $131.5 million through Sept. 30. Its FEC page shows its $158 million in receipts came from other committees, not individuals.
- CLF (Congressional Leadership Fund): $67.9 million on its independent expenditure line, with $257.6 million raised through Sept. 30.
- United Democracy Project: $53.4 million through Aug. 31.
- Texans for a Conservative Majority: $35.4 million through Oct. 5.
Follow the first dollar. SLF PAC’s single largest reported giver in these filings is not a person. It is One Nation, which sent $35.27 million at the end of 2025 and two more payments this year, $70.74 million across the three rows. Before SLF PAC’s third-quarter report posted, the biggest individual check BTP had read was $30 million from Miriam Adelson in March. The new report has bigger ones, below.
CLF tells the same story. American Action Network wrote four checks totaling $42 million, including $20 million on June 30. United Democracy Project took $30 million from AIPAC in two payments in 2025. Texans for a Conservative Majority took $5.55 million from Ohio Works Inc. and $3 million from America Works Fund Inc.
Each of those organizations shows up on the FEC form as one name and one amount. The form does not list who gave the organization its money. That is the gap: a voter can see that One Nation paid for the ad, and cannot see who paid One Nation.
What the new report shows. SLF PAC’s October Quarterly, FEC file 2025770, was received Oct. 15. It lists two checks from Elon Musk: $75,000,000 on Sept. 9 and $83,000,000 on Sept. 23. That is $158,000,000 in two weeks, from one person, and it is larger than any individual check in the earlier rows. The same report shows SLF PAC sending $83,000,000 to Texas PAC on Sept. 24, one day after the second Musk check and for the same amount.
The records BTP read do not show whether that transfer was funded by Musk’s checks. They show the amounts and dates, not which dollars paid for which transfer. BTP did not find a matching $75,000,000 transfer in the rows it read, and has not opened Texas PAC’s own filings. Final pre-election reports are due Oct. 22.
Updated Oct. 20, 2026, 8:39 a.m. ET: added Elon Musk’s two September checks to SLF PAC and the $83 million transfer to Texas PAC, read from the FEC filing. The chart above still shows independent expenditures only.
Two weeks out, the loudest voices in the campaign are not on the ballot. Some of them are not even on the form.