More dark money than ever.

• Author: Fischer, Brendan
• Position: Election campaign spending

204 will almost certainly be the most expensive, most secretive Senate election in history. But just wait for 2016.

In just the first half of 2014, with months to go before the general election begins to heat up, groups other than the campaigns had already reported spending more than $100 million.

But that $100 million did not include spending from dark money nonprofits--like David Koch's Americans for Prosperity--that sidestep reporting requirements simply by avoiding words like "vote for" or "vote against." The Koch-backed group spent around $35 million in just the first half of the year, more than twice as much as it had spent at the same point during the 2012 election cycle.

"We've already seen a flood of secret money, but there is a lot more to come," says Robert Maguire, a researcher at the Center for Responsive Politics (which publishes OpenSecrets.org).

Americans for Prosperity has been by far the biggest secret spender in 2014. According to a leaked memo, the group is expected to drop $125 million in 2014. Yet a source familiar with Americans for Prosperity says that is a "very conservative estimate. We're on track for more than that."

And that's just one group. The vast Koch political network, which altogether raised at least $400 million in the 2012 election, has sprouted new patches of astroturf just in time for 2014. Audio from the most recent Koch donor summit indicates the Koch network plans to spend $290 million in 2014, almost all of it undisclosed.

After Obama's win in 2012 demonstrated that ad buys alone cannot guarantee electoral victory, some Koch groups began supplementing their ad spending with a ground game.

The Koch-backed Libre Initiative--which says it is focused on educating "Hispanic communities about economic freedom principles"--has begun spending not only on Spanish and English language ads, but also on doing direct outreach to the Latino community through English classes and health clinics. (See "The Koch Brothers' Latino Front," by Ed Morales, in the September issue of The Progressive.)

Generation Opportunity, the Koch millennial project described as a "free-thinking, liberty-loving, national organization of young people," started running its deceptive anti-Affordable Care Act ads featuring creepy Uncle Sam in 2013, and has continued to push its message throughout 2014. It too has gone on the road: Its cadre of young rightwingers staffed tables at mainstream summer festivals around the country throughout...