Top 25 Kansas PACs in Nov. General Election Filings
Kansas PACs spent over $11 million in 2024. One PAC spent nearly $2 million by itself.
Updated Dec. 5 with this note:
NOTE: On the Ethics Commission’s website of Submitted Forms & Reports in addition to the link about 2024 Political Action Committees there is a category for “By a Person Other Than a Candidate or Committee.”
Many might consider organizations in this "other list” to be PACs, but legally they are are not. Future versions of PAC rankings will include this “other” list since they work much like PACs but are not.
In particular, Americans for Progress is not a PAC but is in this “other” category. AFP’s Oct. 2024 report is here, but is not included in the analysis below.
2024 PAC Summary
Kansas Political Action Committees started raising money in late 2023 and reported the largest sum in their Jan. 2024 reports.
But the largest expenditures were reported in their Oct. reports before the general election.
The yearly totals give context for just how large the money flow was through the largest PAC.
Let’s look at rankings of the top 25 PACs based on their Oct. 2024 filings. A full list of rankings can be downloaded in an Excel file below.
Top 25 Kansas PACs (Oct. 2024)
Totals for all 189 PACs
While Kansas PACs spent nearly $6 million on the general election, they still had over $5 million in reserves.
Battle over legislative supermajority
A Watchdog Lab article on Monday showed four Republican PACs were mostly successful in thwarting Middle of the Road PAC in “last minute” expenditures in legislative contests.
In their full Oct. PAC filings these same four Republican PACs spent more on express advocacy on the legislative races than Middle of the Road PAC (when its issue advocacy expenditures are excluded).
In the final analysis, the #1 Kansas PAC in 2024 did not break the legislative supermajority of Republicans.
Republicans actually increased their supermajority in both chambers slightly. The Senate is now 31 Republicans vs 9 Democrats. The House is 88 Republicans vs 37 Democrats.
The huge issue advocacy efforts to impact legislative races orchestrated through Kansas Values Institute (see below) seems to have fallen flat, but that’s difficult to measure with obscure reporting by nonprofits.
#1 PAC for 2024: Middle of the Road
Here’s a summary of all three 2024 filings by Middle of the Road PAC.
In addition to “express advocacy” to help specific legislative candidates, Middle of the Road enabled “issue advocacy” through nonprofits to impact the same legislative contests.
Diverted spending through nonprofits
Kansas Values Institute ($500,000)
Middle of the Road PAC sent Kansas Values Institute $250,000 on Sept. 16 and another $250,000 on Sept. 30 according to their Oct. 28 campaign finance report.
KVI is an IRS 501(c)(4) nonprofit so their disclosures about how they spent this $500,000 may be in their IRS 990 filed in Nov. 2025 or later.
But Watchdog Lab articles as early as Sept. 18 noted the huge KVI ad buys to influence elections “in a nonprofit way.”
"Political nonprofit" Kansas Values Institute runs ads against Republican legislative candidates on streaming TV. Political ads on streaming TV appear to have no oversight. Sept 18.
Kansas Values Institute's political ads on Google had 4.6 million impressions and cost over $81,000 to target five Kansas Senate candidates the last two months. "Political nonprofit" KVI not subject to any disclosure of its political ads before the election, but Google's political ad transparency helps. Sept 30.
Perhaps KVI’s blaming Brownback in their ads is no longer fooling anyone.
Bluestem Foundation for Economic Freedom ($350,000)
Middle of the Road PAC sent Bluestem Foundation for Economic Freedom $250,000 on Aug. 29 and $100,000 on Oct. 23 according to their campaign finance report. According to IRS filings Bluestem is a 501(c)(4) nonprofit, and a 527 PAC.
Bluestem bought ads on Meta (Facebook/Instagram), but specific ads have not been discovered.
A new nonprofit, Kansans for an Affordable Future, sharing Bluestem’s Topeka address, was involved in mailings affecting county commission contests in Lawrence and Wichita. It’s unclear where it received funding.
By the numbers
Links in this Excel file take you directly to the recently-filed Oct. 2024 PAC PDF reports, or to the PAC’s statements of organization. A statement of organization shows the address of a PAC and names of the chair and treasurer.
Technical note
The “Final Rank” is based on the ranking of the product of the individual rankings. The intent is to roughly weight the three components equally: money raised, money spent and cash on hand.
Example overall rankings:
Middle of the Road PAC, rank product 1 * 1 * 4 = 4, Overall Rank #1
Kansas Realtors PAC, rank product 4 * 2 * 2 = 16, Overall Rank #2
Kansas Chamber PAC, rank product 3 * 4 * 8 = 96, Overall Rank #3
If the overall rank were based only on money raised and spent, Lift Up Kansas PAC would have had overall rank #2.
Related
Disclaimer
I was appointed to the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission in March 2024.
Views in Watchdog Lab articles are my own and in no way reflect the Kansas Governmental Ethics Commission.
Data above can be verified in official reports filed with the Ethics Commission.
@EarlGlynn on X