We’ve told you about how much money local campaigns have brought in for the 2025 race. Especially for mayor, candidates have raked in hundreds of thousands of dollars in their effort to become the next boss of City Hall.
But there’s a lot more money being spent on local elections than that.
Ostensibly separate from official campaigns, monied outsiders buy flyers, television spots, radio ads and merchandise to try to push one candidate over another — or one issue over another. They do that through independent expenditures, or IEs, New York’s local version of a Super PAC.
In 2025, there are only four city-registered IEs so far as of mid-April, and only one that supports a candidate for mayor: former Governor Andrew Cuomo is backed by the group “Fix the City,” which currently has $4.9 million in contributions, according to campaign finance board records, and reportedly plans to raise $15 million.
Another large IE, “Affordable New York,” is a group backed by the vacation rental company Airbnb, and currently has $5 million to spend on local races, records show.
These “independent” groups are key to understanding how big money can influence local elections. And if you know what to look for, you can see exactly how they put their stamp on things — literally.
Here’s a guide on what IEs are and how to track them, from the flyer you get in your mailbox to the public databases that show you exactly who paid for it. Have a tip or question for us about money in local politics? Drop a line at ask@thecity.nyc.
What is an independent expenditure? And why should I care?
Let’s start with a definition: An independent expenditure is what happens when someone or a group of people come together to spend money on behalf of a candidate or a cause.
“ It means that a special interest group or a wealthy person can create a political spending account and use that money to express their political opinion,” said John Kaehny, executive director of the watchdog group Reinvent Albany.
IEs are basically local versions of Super PACs — the “political action committees” on the national level that are allowed to raise and spend unlimited amounts of money to influence campaigns, thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court’s 2010 “Citizens United” decision.
In essence, that ruling found that “money is speech,” said Kaehny, and that “a person’s ability to spend cannot be constrained by the government.”
“The government can constrain a candidate’s ability to spend and how much money they can raise, but it cannot restrain a person, and that includes corporate persons and organizations,” he added.
As with Super PACs, it’s illegal for independent expenditures in New York to associate with or coordinate with a campaign or candidate in any way. So while the IE group Fix the City is openly campaigning for Cuomo, and has made its mission to help him win, the group cannot lawfully talk or organize with his official campaign.
Enforcing that rule, however, can be really tricky, said Kaehny.
“How do you define coordination? In the real world, the answer is: It’s impossible,” he said.
Oftentimes, the people running an IE group are close allies or friends with a candidate, or former top advisors and aides. For example: the pro-Cuomo group Fix the City is led by several as his former advisors and allies.
The city’s Campaign Finance Board is responsible for enforcing the coordination rules, which come with a $10,000 penalty for each violation, said the agency’s spokesperson Tim Hunter.
Voters should care about IEs because they spend enormous amounts of cash to impact the polls — and appear all over the place. The groups can spend money on digital ads that show up in your social media feeds, phone calls to voters or television spots that show up during baseball games.
“We require that independent spenders disclose not only what they’re spending, but how much money they’ve raised and what communications they’re sending out to the general public,” said Hunter.
How can I tell when outside money is spent on a race in my neighborhood?
You’ve probably heard the term “dark money” before, a phrase used for the funds coming from national-level Super PACs. It’s called that because political action committee spending is notoriously hard to track.
But in New York, tracking money from independent expenditures is relatively easy, thanks to strong disclosure laws.
Not only do IEs have to report how and when they spend money on behalf of a candidate, they also must list their major funders — by name. That’s how in 2021, THE CITY was able to report on Alice Walton, the Walmart heir, spending serious money through a pro-charter schools independent expenditure called New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany to sway a Bronx special election.
Other big names you may see in local politics include James Dolan, the owner of the Knicks and Madison Square Garden, who “has multiple independent expenditures that he controls” that take contributions from Dolan himself, his companies and executives, said Kaehny.
A database of local independent expenditures is maintained by the city Campaign Finance Board, which not only shows how they spend their money and who is leading the IE, but shows information about how IEs communicate to voters. For example, the database lists scripts for digital ads, pictures of flyers and even a photo of a sweatshirt created for a Queens special election for City Council won by James Gennaro in 2021.
And all communication from the IE has to be well marked with a “paid for by” sign, said Hunter of the CFB.
“ All of these ‘paid for by’ signs have to be displayed in we call a conspicuous size and style. They have to be easy to read. And the entire notice has to be contained in a box within the body of communication. And if it’s spoken, it has to be stated in a clear pitch so you know exactly who is spending money.”
How to find out who paid for that campaign flyer in your mailbox
If you want to see if an IE bankrolled certain campaign literature, look for the “paid for by” tag. That marking must be included somewhere on the communication and will list a few things: The name of the independent expenditure committee and its top officer, the names of the group’s top three donors and a link to the CFB’s Follow the Money database, available at nyc.gov/followthemoney.
Important note: Lots of campaign literature and ads will be flying around during the 2025 election season and much of it will come directly from campaigns, not from independent expenditures. Those will have a “paid for by” ad, too, but not the “Follow the Money” hyperlink.
That “Follow the Money” link will take voters directly to the CFB’s donation tracking website, which lists all current spending by independent expenditures. The site also has a video and FAQ section explaining what IEs are and how they work.
If you see campaign literature or ads that aren’t following the disclosure rules, you can file a complaint with the CFB.
What are the IEs’ motives or allegiances?
Now you know how to use the city database to find basic information about these groups. But that doesn’t necessarily reveal motives, especially for groups backing an issue or idea rather than a candidate. Figuring that part out isn’t easy, especially since lots of IEs have “really vague names,” said Kaehny.
Those include the previously mentioned Fix the City, Affordable New York or cosmetics billionaire Ronald Lauder’s Safe Together New York Inc.
This is where a bit of detective work comes in. When you find out the name of the group sending you mail, or buying air time, put the name in a search engine or your favorite local news site for more information. That will hopefully reveal more about their motives.
The big, active groups that you may notice repeatedly are those backed by developers and other real estate interests — such as Common Sense NYC or the pro-charter school group New Yorkers for a Balanced Albany — and the political arms of New York’s large unions.
It’s also worth bearing in mind that independent expenditures can be focused more on issues than one particular candidate, for example, highlighting those with particular environmental platforms or who want more charter schools. This information might shake out in your search.
Whether that has an effect on you depends on how much you care about that issue — and whether you’re OK with outside money being spent in local elections at all.
I haven’t seen a lot of campaign literature or ads in my neighborhood yet. Why not?
Typically, the types of mailers and advertisements you’ll see that stem from independent expenditures pop up much closer to the date of an election.
“That’s your peak get-out-the-vote time. That’s when you start seeing a lot more campaign spending in general,” said Hunter. “A lot of people don’t even know that an election’s happening up until the week before it.”
The CFB updates its independent expenditure database weekly for now, and will start updating daily on June 11.
Bear in mind: IEs show up in the CFB database only when they have spent $1,000 or more. So sometimes an active IE that’s raising money and working will not appear in the record for weeks or months — until they start spending money in earnest.
To recap …
Check the fine print of political ads for candidates or groups you’re curious about.
Drop them into nyc.gov/FollowTheMoney to see where the cash is coming from and how much is getting spent on political ads and flyers in your local races.
Find the names of independent expenditure groups or their big funders.
Do a quick search online to see if you can figure out their motives.
Keep that information in mind as you head to the ballot box for the June 24 primary.
This article is adapted from THE CITY’s previously published article on IEs from the 2021 campaign season.
Have a question about spending in local politics, or anything else about the 2025 race? Ask THE CITY’s newsroom at ask@thecity.nyc.
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