Democrats backed independent Greg Orman in race for U.S. Senate in Kansas

Campaign reports filed late last week show that key Democrats funneled money to Greg Orman’s campaign for the U.S. Senate in Kansas.

A political committee known as the Senate Majority PAC run by former advisers to Majority Leader Harry Reid sent about $1.5 million to two other campaign committees that were backing Orman’s campaign.

By law, Orman and his campaign could not have been involved in the transaction.

The money exchange was secret until last week’s reports because they were made on or after Oct. 16, meaning they didn’t have to be disclosed until last week.

In this case, Reid’s advisers wanted to keep the donations from public view because they didn’t want to fuel the idea that Democrats were backing Orman. One of incumbent Republican Sen. Pat Roberts’ chief arguments against Orman was that ideologically the independent was more closely aligned to the Democrats than to Republicans.

Orman had refused to say which party he would caucus with if he won.

Bloomberg reported that the Senate Majority PAC sent $1.31 million to the Committee to Elect an Independent Senate in five installments beginning on Oct. 16. The Reid-aligned PAC also sent $151,000 on Nov. 3-4 to Kansans Support Problem Solvers, which also backed Orman.

Meantime, the Huffington Post reported that former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg, an independent, gave $1 million to pro-Orman groups. Republican donors including Peter Ackerman, Greg Penner, Jeffrey Binder and John Burbank donated as well.

This story was originally published December 8, 2014 at 11:49 AM with the headline "Democrats backed independent Greg Orman in race for U.S. Senate in Kansas."