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In July, as the coronavirus pandemic raged, Joseph R. Biden Jr. made one trip to a battleground state. In August, he again visited just one swing state. And on the second weekend in September, less than eight weeks before Election Day, Mr. Bidens only activity was going to church near his Delaware home.

Mr. Bidens restraint has spilled over into his campaign operation, which was late to appoint top leaders in key states and embraced a far more cautious approach to in-person engagement than President Trump, and even some other Democratic candidates. While the Trump campaign claims it is knocking on a million doors a week, the Biden team is relying heavily on TV ads and contacting voters largely through phone calls, text messaging programs and other digital outreach.

That guarded strategy reflects the bet Mr. Bidens campaign has made for months: that American voters will reward a sober, responsible approach that mirrors the ways the pandemic has upended their own lives, and follows scientific guidance that Mr. Trump almost gleefully flouts.

Yet as Mr. Trump barrels ahead with crowded, risky rallies, some Democrats in battleground states are growing increasingly anxious about the trade-offs Mr. Biden has made. With some polls tightening since the beginning of the summer, they are warning him that virtual events may not be enough to excite voters, and urging him to intensify in-person outreach.

Mr. Biden has begun to accelerate the pace of his travel, and this week is one of the busiest he has had in months, with two speeches in Delaware, a trip to Florida and an appearance at a CNN town hall on Thursday near his hometown, Scranton, Pa. On Friday he will campaign in Minnesota.

Yet the concern among these Democrats is whether, in closely fought states that may be won on the margins, the Biden campaign is engaging every possible voter with an affirmative case for his candidacy, when the other side simply has more traditional tactics they are willing to use.

It feels like asymmetric warfare, said Matt Munsey, the Democratic chair in Northampton County in eastern Pennsylvania, one of the counties Mr. Trump narrowly flipped in 2016, referring to Mr. Bidens approach versus Mr. Trumps.

Livestreamed events were not necessarily reaching people, Mr. Munsey cautioned. And though he praised Mr. Biden for getting out there more, he expressed frustration that his in-person events were kept so small: The campaign has been so wary about exceeding crowd limits, he said, that local leaders have complained of not being invited.

Compounding the challenge is an on-the-ground operation that was weak during the primary season and was slow to scale up in the general election. Strapped for cash after the primaries and uncertain about how to campaign amid a national lockdown, the Biden team initially refrained from greatly expanding its staff. It entered the summer without state directors in critical battlegrounds like Michigan, Florida and Pennsylvania, and efforts to establish local operations stretched deep into the summer.

Now Democrats from Florida to Nevada have worried that the team is behind where it should be in engaging some core constituencies, a problem that may also have implications for new voter registrations.

In Erie County, Pa., for instance, local party leaders have been imploring the Biden campaign to have more of a presence on the ground. They became so impatient to begin interacting directly with voters that they took it upon themselves to go from house to house to distribute campaign signs, drop literature and speak with people at a pandemic-acceptable distance.

Only recently has the campaign begun to rev up its field program in the Erie area and across the state, local officials said.

If you complain as much as I do and you beat on the doors of the national campaign, theyre eventually going to respond to you, said Ryan Bizzarro, a state representative from the county, a onetime Democratic stronghold that Mr. Trump flipped in 2016.

Beyond the risk of leaving voters feeling overlooked, Mr. Bidens limited travel schedule provided ammunition to Mr. Trump, who has repeatedly mocked him for rarely straying from his Delaware home. You need a lot of energy to do this job properly, Mr. Trump said at a campaign event in Phoenix on Monday, adding that you cant be sitting in your basement for four days.

Democrats have no interest in replicating Mr. Trumps rallies, which pose health risks and also turn off voters who are alarmed by the dangers of Covid-19. Mr. Biden has been eager to make the race a referendum on Mr. Trump and his stewardship of the pandemic, a game plan that polls generally suggest is working, including with traditionally Republican-leaning constituencies like seniors.

Now flush with cash, the Biden team is active on the airwaves, and on Wednesday announced it would spend more than $65 million on paid advertising in battleground states this week.

Asked if Mr. Biden has been visible enough in Hillsborough County home to Tampa, Fla., where he traveled on Tuesday Ione Townsend, the Democratic chair there, replied, No.

But I also dont want him to have the kind of events that Trump is having, because I think those are superspreader events, she said ahead of his trip. In these last few weeks he needs to do more of that kind of stuff that hes now doing.

In early May, Mr. Biden also held an event focused on a Tampa audience a virtual rally riddled with technical glitches. The campaign soon moved away from such efforts in favor of a series of policy rollout speeches as well as online activities, and Mr. Biden devoted considerable time to receiving briefings on the virus and the economy.

Joe Biden is working to earn every vote with a groundbreaking campaign that meets this moment, said Andrew Bates, a Biden campaign spokesman. And hes doing it in the way he would govern: by putting the well-being of the American families hed fight for every day in office first.

In a briefing with reporters earlier this month, Mr. Bidens campaign manager, Jennifer OMalley Dillon, said the team had more than 2,500 staff members who were supporting the organizing across our battleground states, and had made a $100 million investment in on-the-ground organizing.

Still, Mr. Biden has visited Wisconsin only once in 2020, for a one-day trip to Kenosha two weeks ago after the police shooting of Jacob Blake. Until last week, he had made no trips to Michigan since the primary election there in March. He has yet to travel this year to Arizona.

In New Hampshire, where Mr. Bidens wife, Jill Biden, campaigned on Wednesday, some Democrats have raised alarms as polls show a tightening race in a state Hillary Clinton barely won.

Ive been telling them they need to get their signs out, said State Senator Lou DAllesandro, a veteran New Hampshire Democrat and early Biden supporter. We need to be doing more in direct engagement. We are beginning to see that.

In Ohio, Danny OConnor, the county recorder in Franklin County, which includes Columbus, urged Mr. Bidens campaign to start hitting doors in order to make sure were getting as much turnout as we can, because the other sides out knocking.

A Zoom connect or whatever just doesnt replace standing on someones door and asking them to commit to vote and looking them in the eye and telling them why youre supporting someone for the most important position in the world, added Mr. OConnor, who ran unsuccessfully for Congress in 2018.

Rogette Harris, the Democratic chair in Dauphin County, Pa., said the campaign had deployed six staff members about three weeks ago to the central part of the state and planned to open distribution centers in Harrisburg within the next week, where supporters could pick up campaign materials and yard signs.

But Ms. Harris said it was imperative that Mr. Biden and his running mate, Senator Kamala Harris, campaign across Pennsylvania, and not just in the big cities of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.

I do think the polls have tightened because of the lack of presence, she said.

Many party officials say they are confident that Mr. Bidens strategy is both sensible and effective. Local officials in Wisconsin say they are seeing great enthusiasm for Mr. Biden and expressed confidence that he would win the state in November.

Mary Arnold, the Democratic chair in rural Columbia County, said she heard many pleas for Mr. Biden to come to Wisconsin a few months ago. But recently, she said, people have been more accepting of Mr. Bidens strategy, including keeping his events small.

Im getting this much stronger sense that people respect him for that decision because he doesnt want to kill people, she said.

Many of Mr. Bidens allies said they were content to have Mr. Biden mostly remain at his house in the summer, not wanting to interrupt what they viewed as Mr. Trumps self-sabotage. Still, in late August, as Mr. Trump intensified his law and order message and painted Mr. Biden as a Trojan horse of the liberal left, demands among Democrats to see Mr. Biden traveling more and speaking to voters directly reached a fever pitch. Aides in early September previewed a fall strategy that included an escalated travel schedule, a promise the candidate has made good on the last two weeks.

Representative Andy Levin of Michigan had been especially vehement that Mr. Biden should visit Macomb County, a blue-collar region in southeast Michigan that twice voted for Barack Obama before turning to Mr. Trump in 2016 and last week, Mr. Biden did. Mr. Levin said in an interview this week that he wanted the former vice president to keep doing just what hes doing.

Every time he appears in public, he demonstrates that he will be the public health president that he takes the pandemic seriously, Mr. Levin said. People can get anxious, I guess, that Trump is holding all these big events and Biden isnt, and I say, keep on going. Keep on demonstrating that you will not advance your self-interest at the expense of the American people because that is the nub of who Donald Trump is.

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Does Biden Need a Higher Gear? Some Democrats Think So - The New York Times

The shift comes after a national legal campaign has successfully resulted in expanded access to mail-in voting in nearly every state -- prompting an unprecedented shift in the way millions of Americans will be able to vote due to the coronavirus pandemic.

But as voting is set to begin in more states in the coming weeks, Democrats have settled on a strategy of emphasizing that all voting options, including in-person early and Election Day voting, are safe amid the pandemic.

"We've got to vote early, in person if we can," Obama said, as she urged Democrats to cast their ballots ahead of an election in which she said democracy itself was at stake.

The former first lady also did not miss an opportunity to urge voters to request their mail-in ballots as soon as possible. But her message to "grab our comfortable shoes, put on our masks" and head to the polls was a notable change of emphasis compared to her party's laser-like focus on mail-in voting since the coronavirus pandemic began.

Just Monday, Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his wife, Jill Biden, cast their ballots in-person a day before Delaware's primary. Biden and his allies have routinely encouraged mail-in voting, and Delaware allows all registered voters to cast their ballots by mail.

Increasing anxiety

"Maybe 98% of the Black people I'm talking to are not trusting mail-in voting," said LaTosha Brown, co-founder of Black Voters Matter. "I think there is a major consideration around voting in-person."

"We also share some of the concerns around mail-in voting, but we want to keep that an option. The sweet spot for us is to vote early," Brown said.

Brown said her organization and partner groups are securing thousands of cloth masks in anticipation of supporting in-person voting. She also expects that get-out-the-vote efforts, which have been modified due to Covid-19, will start treating the beginning of early voting in most states like the beginning of a series of Election Days in order to avoid a "disaster" on November 3.

Some Democrats have long expressed concerns that some of their own constituents could be most hurt by rejected ballots or other problems like late-arriving ballots that are more likely to occur during mail-in voting.

A shift in message and strategy

Democratic operatives in Senate campaigns in battleground states across the country say the messaging around voting has become more nuanced; they're avoiding the implication that in-person voting is not safe.

"The last thing we want to suggest to our voters is voting in person is necessarily a trade off with your health," said one senior Democrat on a Senate campaign. "The overarching message is however you want to vote, it is safe and secure."

"(President Trump) has succeeded in making people scared and distrustful of the post office," that operative told CNN. "There were large swaths of voters who already weren't sure about the post office, so people need to understand they have other options."

Recently, Dr. Ezekiel Emanuel, who served as an adviser in the Obama administration, analyzed the relative risk of contracting coronavirus while voting and came to a simple conclusion.

"There's a lot of conversation about voting, but we looked at the data. It seems most like shopping at the grocery store. And that has some risk but it's pretty low risk," Emanuel said in an interview.

Emanuel said that conclusion is based on a better understanding of how the virus spreads, the widespread availability and use of facemasks and other precautions, as well as evidence suggesting that voting, like grocery shopping, has not led to any widespread outbreaks since the beginning of the pandemic.

"There are ways and reasons to vote in person," Emanuel said. "People should not fear for their lives by going out and voting. It's a hell of a lot safer than going to a restaurant."

In April and May, as the pandemic ravaged parts of the Midwest, the East and the West Coasts, Democrats had a clear message: Americans should not be forced to risk their lives to cast their ballots.

One by one, states postponed their presidential primaries and other elections scheduled for early summer, concerned that indoor polling places, sometimes located in poorly ventilated school gymnasiums, would be hotbeds for viral spread.

But as the November election approaches, states have shifted their strategies, opting for larger "voting centers" like sports arenas that allow for better air flow and require fewer poll workers. Some states have also expanded early voting in addition to expanded absentee voting.

That effort is being boosted by a multi-million dollar effort led by athletes, including basketball star LeBron James, to recruit poll workers for in-person voting sites in Black districts ahead of the November election.

The National Basketball Association and the NBA Players Association agreed to offer up arenas to serve as large polling locations that can more safely accommodate in-person voters.

All of this has led some public health experts like Emanuel to say that the risk inherent in in-person voting is not as significant as other activities.

"If the consequence of us not talking about it is that turnout is low, that's a bad thing," Emanuel said.

A partisan divide

Much of the resistance to voting by mail is due to Trump's repeated, false attacks on the practice. He has deemed it the "ballot hoax" and accused states that have moved to mostly mail-in voting of rigging the election.

Trump and White House aides have suggested that the results of the election must be known on election night, and White House press secretary Kayleigh McEnany left open the possibility that Trump's acceptance of the election results would depend on the results.

"The President has always said he'll see what happens and make a determination in the aftermath," McEnany said in a press briefing when asked about Trump's claim that the only way he would lose the election is if there were massive fraud.

That partisan divide has fueled new worries that the in-person vote on Election Day could differ dramatically from the mail-in vote.

Early in the pandemic, Pildes was among the experts pushing for expanded vote-by-mail options. He acknowledged that making the pivot to emphasizing in-person voting might be a challenge for Democrats now.

"I don't think it was wrong to want to open up options for people to vote by mail," Pildes said. "But I think it makes it difficult to pivot now and get the message out that while you should use that option if you feel like you are at particularly significant risk health-wise, it would actually be better for the election overall if more people voted in person."

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Democrats scramble to soothe voter fears about in-person voting ahead of November election - CNN

A new poll shows Democrats leading Republicans in Maine in elections for president, U.S. Senate and U.S. Representative from the 2nd Congressional District.

The poll, released Friday by the New York Times and Siena College Research Institute, has Democrat Sara Gideon leading Republican Sen. Susan Collins by a margin of 49 percent to 44 percent.

Numerous polls have shown Gideon with a slight lead over Collins. This week, a Quinnipiac University survey gave Gideon, who serves as Maines speaker of the House in the Legislature, a 12-point advantage, although the poll failed to account for ranked-choice voting or the races two independent candidates.

The Times/Siena College poll released Friday did include the two independents in the Senate race, Lisa Savage and Max Linn, and accounted for ranked-choice voting, which gives voters the option of ranking candidates on the ballot in their order of preference.

Collins was polling at 40 percent, Gideon at 44 percent, Savage at 4.5 percent and Linn at 2 percent prior to the application of ranked choice.

After ranked-choice voting eliminated the two independents, the poll had Gideon with a 5-point lead on Collins. The ranked-choice process would only come into play if no candidate gets 50 percent or more of the vote when ballots are first tabulated.

In the presidential race, the poll shows Democrat Joe Biden leading Donald Trump by 55 percent to 38 percent in Maine, with 6 percent undecided and 1 percent indicating they would not be voting for president.

The poll also asked voters about the race for U.S. Representative in Maines 2nd District, where Democrat Rep. Jared Golden is facing Republican Dale Crafts. The findings showed Golden up 56 percent to 37 percent, with 6 percent undecided.

The poll surveyed 663 likely Maine voters between Sept. 11 and 16 and had a margin of error of 5.1 percentage points.

In addition to Maine, the Times and Siena College surveyed voters in Arizona and North Carolina over roughly the same time period and released those results Friday as well. All three states are seen as having key Senate races this election cycle, and in each state the poll showed Democratic candidates leading by five points or more.

The poll also asked voters about how they think Trump has performed as president and whether Trump or Biden would do a better job of addressing the coronavirus pandemic.

In Maine, 29 percent of voters strongly approved of Trumps handling his job as president, 10 percent somewhat approved, 7 percent somewhat disapproved and 53 strongly disapproved. One percent refused to answer or didnt know.

On the handling of the virus, Biden led Trump 60 percent to 35 percent with five percent refusing to answer or saying they didnt know.

Maine voters also said they disapproved of Collins vote to confirm Supreme Court Justice Brett Kavanaugh, by a margin of 55 percent to 38 percent, and disapproved of her vote against impeaching Trump by a margin of 55 percent to 43 percent. On Collins 2017 vote against the Republican bill to repeal and replace the Affordable Care Act, Maine voters approved by a margin of 50 percent to 39 percent.

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Poll shows Democrats including Gideon and Biden ahead in Maine - Press Herald

In more than a dozen interviews with Republicans and Democrats on Capitol Hill, most members of Congress said they stand ready and willing to take any potential Food and Drug Administration-approved coronavirus vaccine. But Democrats insist that they will need more than a promise from Trump that it will work, and argue that the President does not have credibility on the issue at a time when his administration has stumbled to contain the pandemic and has made sweeping promises about the timeline for a vaccine and treatments.

"The person I trust is Dr. Fauci," Democratic Sen. Mazie Hirono of Hawaii told CNN. "When people need to rely on the information we are getting from institutions that are supposed to be telling us the truth, and when they have to walk back certain things that they say, that does not help. The person I trust is Dr. Fauci."

Sen. Brian Schatz, another Hawaii Democrat, said that "if Anthony Fauci says it is safe to take, I will take it. If Donald Trump just announces a vaccine, I will want to understand what scientists say."

Some Democrats went as far as to say that FDA approval may not even be enough for them to know a vaccine works.

Asked specifically whether FDA approval was enough to know a vaccine was safe and effective, Democratic Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island said, "I would like to say FDA approved and CDC recommended, but given how those two agencies have gotten screwed up by President Trump, there is an asterisk by that. Unfortunately, they aren't the gold standard any longer, so you need to take a slightly closer look."

"If something was the gold standard and you damage it for political purposes, which Trump has done, it creates a harm. I think to point that out is not the problem. To do the harm is the problem," Whitehouse said.

Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut also said that questions about whether there was political interference from the Trump administration over the FDA were important to ask when it came to a vaccine.

"Assuming the FDA process is free of FDA interference, that is a big assumption that should be unnecessary even to state, but I have confidence that thorough clinical testing combined with objective and independent assessment by the FDA will yield a vaccine that is safe and effective," Blumenthal said.

Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer of New York said in a news conference on Tuesday that "the American people have overwhelming doubts" about the Trump administration's ability to facilitate the development and distribution of coronavirus vaccines.

"If the President had any modicum of fidelity to science, no one would have any doubts," Schumer said. "The American people have overwhelming doubts. ... We just want science to govern. No political interference one way or the other."

The way Democrats are responding to the potential release of a Covid-19 vaccine with Trump in office has become a flashpoint on the campaign trail in the run-up to the November elections.

Cal Cunningham, a Democrat running for the seat of GOP US Sen. Thom Tillis of North Carolina, made headlines this week for saying during a debate that he would be "hesitant" to get a vaccine approved this year.

The comments came after the moderator raised the possibility that the pace of vaccine development "could mean condensing timelines from years to months," as well as "compromises and risks." Cunningham clarified to reporters after the debate that he would take a vaccine approved by the FDA.

Republicans, including Tillis, have been quick to criticize the Democratic candidate. "I think that's irresponsible," Tillis said during the debate, adding, "That statement puts lives at risk and makes it more difficult to manage the crisis."

Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden and his running mate, Kamala Harris, have also faced scrutiny over their approach to the issue.

Biden has said that if he could get a vaccine tomorrow, he'd take it, but he has expressed concern that the President has undermined public confidence, saying earlier this month, "I'm worried if we do have a really good vaccine, people will be reluctant to take it."

Trump, meanwhile, has lashed out at Biden and Harris, saying at a Labor Day news conference that they should "immediately apologize for the reckless anti-vaccine rhetoric."

To some extent, Democrats expressing reluctance may be responding to public sentiment on the issue.

Facing one of the most critical moments in its tenure since it was founded more than 100 years ago, officials inside the FDA have said the tension is palpable. A number of sources familiar with the internal workings have told CNN the responsibility feels immense and the environment is akin to that of a pressure cooker.

For the most part, Republicans said they had confidence in taking a vaccine.

"I have confidence that the FDA will evaluate the vaccine and its safety and efficacy in a way that has provided health to me over my lifetime," said Republican Sen. Mitt Romney of Utah.

Sen. John Cornyn, a Republican from Texas, said that "after the FDA has certified a vaccine is safe and effective," he will "of course" take it.

CNN's Jasmine Wright, Kevin Liptak, Shelby Lin Erdman and Alex Rogers contributed to this report.

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Democrats say they need to hear from scientists, not Trump, that vaccine is safe - CNN

WASHINGTON When allies of former President Barack Obama set up a super PAC to support his 2012 re-election, the White House disowned the group, The New York Times published a scathing editorial and former Democratic Sen. Russ Feingold of Wisconsin gave a speech warning Democrats would "lose our soul" if they allowed big money into the party.

But fears of being outgunned trumped those principled objections and, less than a decade later, Democratic super PACs are spending more than Republican ones. Liberal "dark money" groups, which obscure the source of their funds, outspent conservative ones for the first time in 2018. Even reform hawks like Elizabeth Warren and Bernie Sanders had their own personal big-money groups supporting their presidential campaigns.

"Their mantra of not 'unilaterally disarming' was really their justification for learning how to master super PACs and dark money and all that, and they're doing a better job of it right now than the Republicans," said Craig Holman, a lobbyist for the good-government group Public Citizen.

Advocates are concerned with super PACs, which can accept donations of unlimited size but have to reveal the names of their donors and regularly disclose their activity. But they're more worried about dark money groups: nonprofit organizations that can't be as explicitly political as super PACs, but can keep their donors secret forever and don't have to reveal much about activities before elections.

While concerns about campaign finance reform that once animated Democratic voters have been eclipsed by the desire to oust President Donald Trump, advocates are left to wonder if the party can really be trusted to follow through on its promises to dismantle a system that may help them get elected.

"If Democrats were to win the Senate and the White House, there is reason to be concerned that they may not carry through with their commitments," Holman added. "I have no doubt that we are going to have to hold their word over their head."

The Democratic National Committee adopted a platform last month calling for a ban on dark money, and Joe Biden says one of his first priorities as president would be signing the sweeping reform bill House Democrats passed last year that would, among other things, match small donations 6-to-1 to encourage grassroots giving.

But his campaign also says they'll take all the help they can get for now and that bill, known as H.R.1, would have to compete for limited legislative bandwidth with efforts to address the coronavirus pandemic, the economy and much more.

Republicans, who generally oppose major campaign finance reform efforts, cry hypocrisy.

"It's just like everything else Biden stands for. He believes it until it's of political benefit to reverse himself," said Trump campaign communications director Tim Murtaugh.

Democrats, however, argue that the only way they can rein in big money in politics is to first use big money in politics to win.

"We aren't going to unilaterally disarm against Donald Trump and right-wing conservatives, but look forward to the day when unlimited money and super PACs are a thing of the past, even if it means putting our own PAC out of business," said Guy Cecil, the chairman of Priorities USA, the super PAC first founded to support Obama's re-election.

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On principle, Democrats opposed Citizens United, the Supreme Court's landmark 2010 decision that opened the floodgates to virtually unlimited money in politics. But they also were against it because they were sure Republicans and their big-business allies would outspend them.

At first, Obama set the example for his party by trying to keep his hands clean of the super PAC game. "It was just this slog to try to get Democrats to think there was any benefit at all to giving to outside groups," said a Democrat involved in early efforts to raise money for a super PAC.

Quickly, though, party leaders concluded their position against unlimited donations and dark money wasn't tenable, and it turned out there was plenty of it flowing on the Democratic side, too. Obama eventually blessed Priorities USA, which helped kick off a proliferation of liberal big-money groups.

"If Democrats don't compete, it would be like preparing for a nuclear war by grabbing your fly swatter," said Jesse Ferguson, a Democratic operative who has worked for both campaigns and outside groups.

Democrats at first said they felt sick about doing it and vowed to hold themselves to a higher standard. They would support super PACs, which publicly disclose their donors, but railed against dark money groups, which don't. But that standard eventually eroded, the apologies grew more perfunctory and they ended up diving in head-first, looking for new loopholes to exploit. And Trump's election has supercharged the spending.

In 2016, conservative dark money dwarfed liberal dark money nearly 4-to-1: $143.7 million to $37.8 million. But two years later, in the 2018 midterms, the backlash against Trump helped liberal dark money groups outspend their counterparts for the first time, according to an analysis by Issue One, a bipartisan political reform organization. And they're on track to potentially do it again this year.

It's impossible to comprehensively track dark money spending in real-time, which is one of the most controversial parts about it. But the limited picture that has emerged so far in 2020 shows $14.2 million in dark money has been spent supporting Democrats or against Republicans versus $9.8 million to support Republicans or attack Democrats, according to Open Secrets.

"Campaign spending is frequently like an arms race. Once one side develops a new weapon, both sides want to have it in their arsenal," said Michael Beckel, research director for Issue One.

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics, which runs the campaign finance data warehouse OpenSecrets.org, said her group has tracked liberal groups "taking dark money in politics to a new level of opacity" and caught them trying new tricks, such as creating faux news sites to make their attack ads seem more credible.

While overall dark money spending is roughly even between the parties right now, Democrats have a clear edge in congressional races, Krumholz said. Around 65 percent of dark money TV ads in 2020 Senate races and 85 percent of dark money TV ads in House races are sponsored by liberal groups, according to Krumholz.

"Unfortunately, there has been comfort with this that has grown over time on both sides of the aisle," Krumholz said. "Nobody wants to be the sucker that is playing by the rules when someone is getting away with murder."

One large dark money group, the Sixteen Thirty Fund, has funneled millions of dollars to more than 100 liberal groups, accepting individual donations as large as $51.7 million and $26.7 million, all without having to reveal any information about who is behind those donations.

Amy Kurtz, the Sixteen Thirty Fund's executive director, said they're just playing by the rules.

"We support and have lobbied in favor of reform to the current campaign finance system (through H.R. 1), but we are equally committed to following the current laws to level the playing field for progressives in this election," Kurtz said in a statement.

Now, many super PACs, which disclose their donors, are routing money through allied nonprofits, which do not have to make their contributors' names public, further obscuring the ultimate source of the cash.

"For a voter who simply wants to know where the money is coming from and going to, you almost have to be a full-time researcher or investigative reporter to connect all the dots," Krumholz said.

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., remains one of the fiercest opponents of campaign finance reform, not only blocking bills like H.R.1 and disclosure measures, but even intervening in legal battles to overturn state campaign finance rules.

He sees it as a free speech issue, hailing the Citizens United decision as "an important step in the direction of restoring First Amendment rights."

All this leaves campaign finance reform advocates dependent on Democrats winning in November even if it takes some dark money to get them there.

"We are on the cusp of having the best opportunity to repair the campaign finance system since the Watergate scandal of the 1970s," said Fred Wertheimer, a veteran good-government advocate and president of Democracy 21. "But that depends on how the elections come out."

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Democrats used to rail against 'dark money.' Now they're better at it than the GOP. - NBC News