Judging the Ads & Following the Money

Check out the ads and our attempt to find out about donors.

While it wasn’t hard to find the contributors to the candidates’ campaigns on the Ohio Secretary of State’s website, it was more challenging to “follow the money” spent by independent groups. The well-known Ohio Chamber of Commerce created an obstacle to easy transparency by running ads via their affiliate Ohioans for Healthy Economy.   

Ohioans for a Healthy Economy and the Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative (RSLC-JFI) spent big in 2022 and did so again in 2024. Both organizations’ ads focused on the familiar “tough on crime” and safety/danger tactics with ads like “We’re Not Safe” from Ohioans for a Healthy Economy and “Strong Judges” from the RSLC-JFI.

New “dark money” organizations came on the scene this election: Frecka PAC, Ohioans United for Public Education, and Ohioans for Judicial Integrity. The Frecka PAC supported the GOP candidates and leaned into crime fighters on the state’s highest court with an ad literally titled “Law and Order.” Ohioans United for Public Education attacked Deters’ record as state treasurer with “Joe Deters is Corrupt.”  Ohioans for Judicial Integrity ran four attack ads against the Republican candidates, focusing on corruption, voting rights, and Ohio’s reproductive rights amendment approved by voters in 2023.

On October 8, 2024, RSLC-JFI spent over $633,000 on independent expenditures, according to a filing the group submitted to the Ohio Secretary of State’s office on October 16, 2024. It is likely that RSLC ultimately spent more than this amount, but we will not have a record of how much for a number of weeks. On November 5, 2024, in celebrating the Republican victories, RSLC released a statement describing nearly $1 million in spending in the race, “The Republican State Leadership Committee’s Judicial Fairness Initiative launched a nearly one-million-dollar independent expenditure campaign in support of Deters, Hawkins and Shanahan in the final days of the cycle that included a $600,000 investment on television advertising alone.”

In its pre-general filing with the state of Ohio on October 24, 2024, Frecka PAC reported spending over $1.2 million on media production and placement between October 3 and October 15. According to filings that the super PAC made with the Federal Elections Commission (FEC), Frecka PAC spent a total of $1.77 million between August 19 and October 16, 2024, including $460,000 on an ad buy backing U.S. Senate candidate Bernie Moreno on September 20.

Ohioans for a Healthy Economy Action Fund reported nearly $2 million in total expenditures between October 7 and October 16, in its 12-day pre-general filing in Ohio on October 24, 2024.

Ohioans for Judicial Integrity reported spending a total of $2 million in statewide independent expenditures, just over $1 million on August 30, and $1 million on September 30, according to a filing made with the Ohio Secretary of State on October 18, 2024. In its October 15 quarterly FEC report, the super PAC reported the same expenditures.

It’s Time to Shine a Light on Dark Money!

Groups and individuals take great pains to make it hard to see who is paying for ads by using SuperPACs and nonprofit entities to buffer and hide the source of funding. This makes it difficult for voters to figure out which candidates share their values and will work to promote the voter’s interests—not the interests of the dark money donors. 

Secret money in elections can hide conflicts of interest and can obscure the influence of the wealthy on courts and other elected officials.