Earlier today, we released an analysis of dark money spending in this year's election. For those who want to play around with the underlying data, here is the raw data: Dark Money Groups
Continue readingLatest Dark Money Tallies: $213 million in the general election and counting, 81% on behalf of Republicans; 34 races with $1 million or more
Back in July, Senate Republicans successfully blocked the DISCLOSE Act, which would have required all organizations spending $10,000 or more to reveal their donors. Now we understand why. Though Nov.1, $213.0 million has been spent by “dark money” groups to influence the 2012 elections. Of that, $172.4 million (81%) has been spent to help Republican candidates, as compared to $35.7 million (19%) to help Democrats. (By “dark money” we mean groups that do not disclose their donors and only are required to disclose their congressional race spending within 60 days of House and Senate elections and their presidential race spending following the national party conventions).
Continue readingOutside Money in the House: Six Graphs and Seven Takeaways
Outside money is flooding into U.S. House races, primarily from party committees, but also significantly from dark money groups and super PACs. And though Democrats need to win 25 seats to take back the House (which most forecasters deem unlikely), nobody is giving up on anything, judging from the recent cash infusions. We are now at $218.8 million in House outside spending, with almost one-third of that money coming in the last 10 days, and more than half of it coming since October 1. Republicans lead in outside money $119.6 million to $96.7 million, including a two-to-one lead in dark money. Democratic super PACs, meanwhile, have outspent Republican super PACs. What this money all adds up to, we are still waiting to see. For now, the best we can do is to give our best take on the current state of play.
Continue readingOutside Money in the Senate: One map, four graphs and seven takeaways
Outside money continues to pour in at a record pace this election cycle, and beyond the presidential race, the biggest general election spending totals are all in Senate races: $29.7 million in Virginia; $24.6 million in Ohio; $22.2 million in Wisconsin; $18.5 million in Nevada; $16.3 million in Montana. And counting. All told, outside groups have dropped $189.4 million into Senate races as of October 23.
And no wonder: the Senate remains very much up for grabs, and the parties are very close in their levels of outside spending – unlike both the presidential and House races, where Republicans have the outside spending edge. In the Senate outside money chase, Republicans have a very narrow lead, $97.3 million to $92.1 million.
Of particular interest is that Republicans are relying much more on non-party organizations – primarily Crossroads GPS and the Chamber of Commerce – that don’t have to disclose their donors and only have to report their spending within 60 days of an election. Among these types of groups, Republicans lead Democrats $56.2 million to $24.6 million. And significantly, while party committees are limited in the amount of money they can raise from any one individual ($30,800 per cycle), groups like Crossroads GPS and the Chamber can receive unlimited contributions. By contrast, Democrats are still relying much more on the traditional party structure.
First, an overview of the outside spending, by state:
Did campaign spending buy Bush the 2000 and 2004 elections?
Did higher levels of campaign spending buy George W. Bush the presidency in 2000 and 2004? And will all the money being spent on this year’s election move voters too? That’s the conclusion of an intriguing new political science paper that estimates that between 1972 and 2004, 13.6 percent of voters “incorrectly” pulled the lever for Republicans in presidential elections, while 8.7 percent “incorrectly” voted Democratic. Study author Sean Richey (a Georgia State University Professor) found that money was a factor. Republicans spend more of it, and that money often buys convincing and/or misleading ads.
Continue readingMoney in the Senate elections, in 8 charts
With just over a month until Election Day, most forecasts have Democrats in a strong position to hold their majority in the Senate and have strengthened their position in the last few weeks, moving ahead in close seat polling. But when it comes to the money, the Senate remains very competitive. In this analysis, we look at the money in 19 close races that the Cook Political Report has deemed “Toss-up”, “Lean”, or “Likely” races within the last month. (We’ve excluded the three-way race in Maine for analytical purposes.) The quick summary is that, by our count, the Democrats have the lead in 11 of the 19 races. If money is determinative, this is not a great position for Democrats, since of the 19 seats we analyze, 15 are seats currently held by Democrats.
Continue readingMoney in the House elections, in 8 charts
With just over a month before the election, the general consensus is that Democrats will have a tough time picking up the 25 seats they need to win back the house, despite some protestations. But when it comes to the money, Republicans appear to be in solid shape. Republicans have a fundraising lead in 57 of 90 races that the Cook Political Report has deemed “Toss-up”, “Lean”, or “Likely” races within the last month. Of these races, Republicans are the incumbent party in 54, and Democrats in 30. There are also six new districts in which it does not make sense to speak of an incumbent.
Continue readingWhy has lobbying grown and made DC rich?
The news that seven of the ten highest income counties in the U.S. are in the Washington, DC area has prompted Wonkblog’s Dylan Matthews to investigate why the DC wage premium has grown. In digging through the data, he finds that the growing wage premium correlates most closely with growth of lobbying spending that “The rise of influence-peddling more broadly, more than just lobbying, is likely what’s driving this correlation.” Sounds quite probable to me. Ross Douthat is likewise convinced that DC’s increasing wealth comes “from the growing armies of lobbyists and lawyers, contractors and consultants, who make their living advising and influencing and facilitating the public sector’s work.” And Matt Yglesias, with a nod to Will Wilkinson, believes that “the area's rising affluence seems clearly to be linked to the rising investment in influence peddling that characterizes American politics and the economy” All of this begs the question, however, as to why lobbying would have taken off now, in this last decade or so? This was the question that I tackled in my Ph.D. dissertation (and soon, ahem, eventually, book). The short answer is that over the last two decades, corporate America came to see the value of politics and learned to play the Washington game.
Continue readingDebunking the Wall Street Journal’s odd case against disclosure
Wall Street Journal columnist William McGurn is a well-known champion of free market capitalism. As somebody who supposedly understands all the benefits of markets, it is strange to see him attack disclosure and full transparency, as he did in a Wall Street Journal column this week entitled “The Chick-fil-A War is Back On: Welcome to the new intolerance.” McGurn starts off with some complains about how poor ol' Chick-fil-A is being treated. Apparently Mr. McGurn finds something intolerable about fast food consumers exercising their freedoms of choice and speech and using market forces to affect change. Would he feel the same way if they were complaining that the chicken tastes like rubber? Is not a boycott the most capitalist-friendly method of pushing change, with its pure reliance on market forces? McGurn also has bigger chickens to fry. He also doesn’t like the market-oriented (again) way that consumers have been sending signals to corporations that belong to the American Legislative Exchange Council, a conservative group that writes model legislation in secret and has recently come under fire for pushing model “Stand Your Ground” legislation at the state level. And back in 2005, he didn’t like consumers pressuring Charles Schwab from supporting the libertarian Cato Institute. And though he does not discuss campaign finance disclosure directly, it is hard to ignore that for the last few months, there is been an ongoing debate as to whether so-called “dark money” 501(c) groups should be required to reveal their donors. In July, Senate Republicans filibustered the DISCLOSE ACT, which would have required these groups to disclose their donors. Our best guess is that just two dark money groups (Crossroads GPS and Americans for Prosperity) have already spent $174 million on this election. And that the total dark money figure could approach $1 billion. McGurn apparently thinks all these contributions should happen behind the scenes, so that consumers and citizens can remain blissfully ignorant of the political agendas of the companies that they support in the marketplace. He writes that while transparency “may sound fine in theory, in practice these requirements can conflict with the right of people to come together in free association.”
Continue readingFederal candidates depend on financial sector more than any other for campaign money
Candidates running for federal office are two-thirds more dependent on donors from the finance, insurance and real estate (FIRE) sector for campaign contributions than any other sector. Through the second quarter of 2012, federal candidates have relied on the sector for 15.2% of their itemized (over $200 contributions), solidly ahead of their dependence on the next closest competitors -- health interests (at 8.9%) and lawyers and lobbyists (at 8.8%). This is not a new phenomenon. In each of the last seven election cycles, federal candidates have depended on the finance sector for between 15% and 17% of their contributions at the same point in the cycle. But with tax reform being high on the agenda no matter who is elected and the finance sector eager to continue to shape the implementation of Wall Street reform, the contributions are as important as ever. What is different this cycle is that FIRE contributions are solidly supporting Republicans for the first time since 2000. Through the second quarter of 2012, 54.8% of finance industry contributions to federal candidates went to Republicans, up dramatically from 44.3% in 2010 (even after the passage of Dodd-Frank) and 42.2% in 2008. This shift has taken place in the House, the Senate, and as most frequently reported, the presidential race. In the battle to be president, our calculations show that 58.6% of all financial sector itemized campaign donations going to Republican candidates, up from 38.6% in 2008. To be clear, this total only includes money directly to candidates. If we looked at super PACs, finance money would be titled even more Republican. Through the second quarter, we calculate that Mitt Romney’s Restore Our Future super PAC depended on the finance sector for 43% of its money, and 75% of the finance money was coming directly from the securities and investment sub-sector (aka Wall Street). No other sector of the economy even came close in helping to “Restore Our Future.”
Continue reading
59063
