In the couple weeks leading up to the primary runoff for South Carolina state Sen. Luke Rankin's seat, televisions in the Myrtle Beach area were flooded with political ads — at least $785,000 worth of them, to be exact. The ads were paid for by three different groups but, beyond those groups' names, not much else is known about them. That's because they're so-called "dark money" organizations that pour huge sums of money into political ads but don't disclose their donors. For this particular race, which pitted Rankin against a conservative challenger, those groups combined were able to spend more than three times what Rankin raised for his own campaign. This kind of political spending is becoming increasingly common in the U.S., but the system is particularly bad here in South Carolina because of the state's campaign finance laws. South Carolina is one of just three states that does not track or police this type of political advertising in any way.For this week's podcast, we talked with political reporter Jamie Lovegrove and business reporter Andrew Brown who followed the money with the race for Rankin's seat.They also discussed why this race in particular was targeted, which other S.C. elections have been influenced by dark money and how likely it may be to see legislation that reins in these groups in the near future. 

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