❓WHAT HAPPENED: Campaign finance records suggest that an extensive dark money political action committee (PAC) operation financed by Democratic Party elites and Silicon Valley billionaires bolstered socialist Zohran Kwame Mamdani’s supposedly grassroots New York City mayoral campaign.
👤WHO WAS INVOLVED: Zohran Mamdani, Mamdani’s campaign finance chief Victoria Perrone, rival candidate Andrew Cuomo, New York City voters, Democrat donors, Silicon Valley billionaires, and forensic accountant Sam Antar.
📍WHEN & WHERE: Mamdani won the Democratic Party’s mayoral primary last month, with the dark money PAC operation revealed earlier this week.
💬KEY QUOTE: “What’s nonprofit dark money? We didn’t accept any of that on the campaign. Where are you getting this info?” — Victoria Perrone
🎯IMPACT: The dark money reports call into question claims by Mamdani that his campaign is a grassroots effort independent of the Democratic Party’s wealthy political elite.
Far-left socialist, Muslim extremist, and Democrat mayoral nominee for New York City Zohran Kwame Mamdani, has repeatedly claimed to be running a grassroots campaign free of political elite interests and billionaires. However, campaign finance data suggests an extensive dark money operation behind the Mamdani campaign, backed by progressive and Silicon Valley billionaires.
During the Democratic Party’s New York City mayoral primary, Mamdani frequently touted his allegedly grassroots campaign operation. However, the Democratic Socialist neglected to acknowledge the even larger campaign support network of political action committees (PACs) backing his campaign, whose funding primarily came from outside New York.
In total, Mamdani raised $1,708,494 in direct campaign funds while receiving $7,050,417 in public matching funds from the city. However, Mamdani’s campaign was bolstered even more by over $2 million in PAC spending, which an investigation by forensic accountant Sam Antar reveals came mostly from Silicon Valley billionaires and a cadre of elite Democratic Party donors. This calls into question the framing of the Mamdani campaign by supporters and the corporate media as a grassroots effort.
Finance records show that the Working Families Party National PAC served as the Mamdani campaign’s primary attack vehicle, spending $539,616 of its $701,792 expenditure on attacks against Mamdani’s primary opponent, former New York Governor Andrew Cuomo. Similarly, New Yorkers for Lower Costs—an independent expenditure PAC—which raised money off of Mamdadni’s message and image—served as a key positive messaging vehicle behind the socialist candidate. In total, the PAC spent $893,877 of its $1,320,446 expendire promoting Mamdani, with the remainder used to attack Cuomo.
Notably, the total PAC spending on behalf of Mamdani runs about $300,000 more than his campaign committee was able to raise, calling into question just how ‘grassroots’ the political operation really was.
When Sam Antar raised the PAC funding issue on social media, Mamdani’s campaign finance chief, Victoria Perrone, responded, “What’s nonprofit dark money? We didn’t accept any of that on the campaign. Where are you getting this info?” The National Pulse Editor-in-Chief Raheem Kassam later intervened, responding to Perrone by posting campaign finance records for the two pro-Mamdani PACs: “You’re a campaign finance person pretending not to know what dark money is? Ok, sure.”
Perrone, continuing to play dumb, replied, “That’s a PAC…”—the insinuation being that dark money allegations somehow do not apply to pro-Mamdani PACs, despite Democrats continually insisting that most Republican PAC dollars are dark money.
You’re a campaign finance person pretending not to know what dark money is? Ok, sure. Presuming you’re wildly unqualified for your job, I’ll help you: pic.twitter.com/hzyizzf8wK
— Raheem J. Kassam (@RaheemKassam) July 10, 2025
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