August 5, 2021

Dark money behind Florida ‘ghost’ candidates has ties to Alabama political players, records suggest

Posted by Florida Trident staff | Jason Garcia and Annie Martin, Orlando Sentinel

Records link a nonprofit that spent $550,000 boosting “ghost” candidates in key Florida Senate races to political operatives in Alabama.

The source of more than half a million dollars spent last year promoting “ghost” candidates in key state Senate races remained a mystery even as the scandal rocked Florida politics, but newly public records suggest the money is tied to political players in Alabama.

At issue is $550,000 donated last year by a dark-money nonprofit to a pair of political committees that promoted little-known independent candidates in three key Senate races: Senate District 9 in Central Florida and Senate Districts 37 and 39 in South Florida. The money paid for nearly identical mailers apparently tailored to persuade Democratic-leaning voters to support the independent candidates in each of the three races, all of which were ultimately won by Republicans……..

The Florida Center for Government Accountability, a government watchdog group, helped the Orlando Sentinel obtain and review documents to trace the dark money’s path to Florida.

“It was extremely difficult to unmask this trail of records, which does not appear to be unintentional,” said Michael Barfield, the center’s director of public access.