As voting takes place across 14 states and American Samoa on Super Tuesday, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders wants to know who is spending big money on ads against him.
The Big Tent Project Fund, a nonprofit organization that promotes moderates in the Democratic Party, has already spent more than $5 million on anti-Sanders ads that ran ahead of the Nevada and South Carolina contests. The group is spending close to $1 million on advertisements aimed at promoting Sanders’s competitors with a digital campaign targeting 10 states with contests on Super Tuesday.
“Now, who is funding these ads?” Sanders asked at a news conference on Monday. “Why are they funding these ads? Well, because we have a corrupt political system.”
The Big Tent Project Fund, which is led by West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin’s former senior aide Jonathan Kott, has been labeled a dark money group by critics because they are not required to disclose their donor base. In one ad, the group blasted the socialist as a candidate who will raise taxes on the middle class and ensure four more years of President Trump.
Aides for the Vermont Democrat, who heads into tonight’s contests as one of the party’s front-runners, has promoted the notion that the Democratic National Committee and its donor class are doing everything in their power to stop his ascension to the presidency.
Centrist challengers accused the Sanders campaign of working in tandem with Our Revolution, a PAC advocating on behalf of the senator. However, the Intercept looked into the claims and found that only $75,000 had been donated to the PAC, which pales in comparison to the groups working against him.
