Sen. Bernard Sanders is leading a bloc of the Senate’s most liberal members to push Democratic Party leaders to require all the party’s candidates to reject billionaire‑ and corporate‑backed super PAC spending in their primary campaigns.
In a letter to Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer and Democratic National Committee Chair Ken Martin, the senators praised a recent DNC resolution condemning dark money but said it doesn’t go far enough.
“We cannot allow unlimited outside spending to distort our elections or drown out the voices of working people,” they wrote. “Protecting our democracy must begin within our own party. Democratic primaries should be decided by voters — not by billionaires or corporate-backed super PACs.”
Mr. Sanders, a democratic socialist from Vermont, was joined in the letter by Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, Jeff Merkley of Oregon, Tina Smith of Minnesota, Peter Welch of Vermont and Chris Van Hollen of Maryland.
Super PACs can pour unlimited cash into races, but they’re not allowed to coordinate with the candidates.
Mr. Sanders and Mr. Schumer have found themselves on opposite sides of several 2026 midterm primaries, with Mr. Schumer aligned with the Senate Majority PAC and Mr. Sanders backing far-left challengers.
The divide is playing out in Maine, where Mr. Schumer is supporting Gov. Janet Mills in the Democratic Senate primary and Mr. Sanders is backing Graham Platner.
A DNC committee voted this month to denounce dark money in Democratic primaries while sidestepping a separate measure that singled out the American Israel Public Affairs Committee.
The Sanders group, in their letter, called the resolution a welcome first step but said the party must do more to address the hundreds of millions of dollars flowing in from crypto‑ and AI‑aligned groups, as well as AIPAC.
AIPAC has drawn sharp criticism from grassroots Democrats opposed to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s military campaign against Hamas terrorists in Gaza.
“The DNC, state parties, and committees working to elect Democrats to the House and Senate have many potential tools at their disposal to enforce that pledge, including withholding endorsements for those who make endorsements in the primary, and they should use whatever tools necessary to do so,” the senators wrote.
The Washington Times reached out to the DNC for comment.
The letter also throws Mr. Schumer’s past words back at him, pointing to his earlier declaration that overturning Citizens United “is probably more important than any other single thing we could do to preserve this great and grand democracy.” The senators argue the party can’t wait for the Supreme Court to reverse course and must act now through its own rules.
They highlight the scale of the spending already underway: Crypto‑aligned groups are preparing to pour $200 million into the 2026 cycle, the AI industry’s campaign spending is surpassing $185 million this year, and more than $50 million in outside spending was injected into recent Democratic primaries in Illinois alone.
They said the Arizona Democratic Party could serve as a model for the national party.
Last year, the Arizona Democratic Party adopted a resolution calling on the party to establish a “People’s Primary” policy that seeks to ensure “to the greatest extent possible, that candidates in Democratic primaries are not benefited by, dependent on, or elected due to outside or independent electioneering spending funded by big donors who are circumventing legal limits on direct contributions to a candidate’s campaign fund to spend tens or hundreds of thousands and even millions of dollars of private wealth to elect the candidates of their choice.”
• Seth McLaughlin can be reached at smclaughlin@washingtontimes.com.
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