The pro-guns-everywhere National Rifle Association has long been a potent force in American politics, but that potency may be waning.
So far, the NRA’s political action committee and political non-profit arm have spent just over $1.6 million in 2018 on outside expenditures, such as political attack ads, and direct campaign contributions to federal candidates and groups, compared to more than $16 million on similar expenses at this point in 2014.This ninety percent cut in election spending comes as the organization reels from nationwide attacks over their policies and advocacy; an ongoing series of mass murders, from Parkland, Florida, to Las Vegas, Nevada, has resulted in condemnations of the NRA specifically as the force behind lax gun regulations that contributed to each. The NRA is also under FBI investigation for its links to Russia and whether allies of the Putin government laundered foreign funds intended to manipulate the 2016 elections through NRA coffers. A Russian gun advocate who insinuated herself into NRA leadership circles now stands accused of acting as a Russian spy.
To get a feel for just how unusual the NRA's spending was in 2016, the group spent a whopping $31 million on Donald Trump's election—three times as much as they did in the presidential election before that. A key topic of the FBI investigation against them will be identifying just how they came into that massive sum.
This year, even though the stakes would seem to be just as high, they are maintaining silence in all but a handful of races. Did they spend all their cash two years ago? Did their money well dry up after being singled out as bearing special responsibility for recent shootings, or after the FBI started looking into their funds?
We'll likely know eventually. For now, all we know is that the NRA isn't the driving force in political campaigns it has long bragged of being.
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