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As with the presidential race, conservative outside groups who dropped the most money on heated Senate contests didn't get a great return on their investments. But that doesn't mean the new or returning senators that emerged victorious weren't also backed by big money. These groups, dominated by labor, will be asking for something in return for their support.
Virginia: Sen.-elect Tim Kaine
This race drew the attention of the biggest players in the outside spending game, who dropped more than $50 million in ...
Continue readingTo the victors go the spoils: What top donors want
With the election over, a Congress full of lame ducks -- along with next year's class of soon-to-be sworn-in lawmakers, ready for freshmen orientation -- returns to Washington next week. Lobbyists and special interests that opened their wallets for candidates are poised to call in chits in a tense environment dominated by the budget impasse that threatens to impose sweeping automatic cuts to defense and social programs if Congress doesn't act.
Top CEOs of more than 80 companies issued a statement on October 25 calling on Congress to solve the issue by considering tax increases along with spending cuts. In ...
Continue readingHouse freshmen faring well as incumbents
A vast majority of the freshmen swept into office two years ago on an anti-incumbency tide managed to survive their first reelection as incumbents, and while some appear to have been helped by last-minute infusions of cash from outside spenders, in many cases, independent expenditures don't appear to have made much of a difference.
Continue readingMore than two-thirds of outside spending backed losing candidates
Republican-leaning outside groups got trounced in Tuesday's election results, with the biggest spenders getting little return for their investment. Labor unions had a much better track record, with some directing 75 percent of their money--or more--to winning causes.
Overall, of the 1.07 billion spent on the general elections by some 629 outside groups, just 32 percent yielded the desired results, an analysis based on the results and independent expenditure reports filed with the Federal Election Committees shows. We looked at candidates that groups supported and opposed to determine their desired candidates in specific races, and calculated what percentage ...
Continue readingFour House races where outside money may have pushed the needle
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Outside spending can have its biggest impact in smaller races. And in a number of contests for congressional seats where there was a significant money advantage for one side, independent expenditures seemed to help push the needle.
Here are four members of the 113th Congress whose chances of winning increased after receiving a significant boost from outside nonprofits and super PACs attacking their opponents or praising them.
At some point in the fall, for each of these winners, the non-partisan Cook Political Report shifted its ratings ...
Election Night Snapshots
Late last week, we had an idea: election night was sure to be a confusing rush, and the closeness of the race in many states made result-reporting snafus seem possible. And the basic shape of election night data is deeply lousy (outside of media outlets that subscribe to the AP). Why not try to keep a record of what election authorities disclosed, so we could have a closer look in the morning?
Drew and Kaitlin adapted some of Politwoops' code, and we quickly researched as many URLs for election results as we could. The results are necessarily incomplete: some states don't aggregate their results in a central place, and some only went online during election night. But we managed a pretty good start.
We also decided to throw in a few media outlets, just for fun (and then a few more once the results began to come in and it became clear which sites might have to back off their predictions in a maximally screenshottable way). The results includes screenshots and HTML snapshots. Everything's timestamped -- the frequency of snapshots was determined both by when things changed (we only recorded new snapshots when something had been updated) and by the round-robining of the system (which was somewhat variable, based on the speed of the screenshot process).
We haven't had time to go through all of this data, but we'd love your help (or just the chance to satisfy your curiosity). So if you'd like, head over to electionshots.sunlightlabs.com. The content is organized by state -- ZZ is the media. We're working to put together bulk download options now.
Continue readingObama campaign falls short of billion dollar goal–by $1.8 million
In the presidential fundraising race, President Obama came out on top, raking in $998.2 million to Mitt Romney's $834.5 million, an advantage of $163.7 million. But the president may need every last penny. Since Friday, outside groups gave $37.5 million to support Romney. The figure for Obama: $2.9 million.
Continue readingKarl Rove’s super PAC breaks $100 million in spending
American Crossroads, the super PAC run by Karl Rove, has spent more than $100 million.
Continue readingAd Hawk Collects 4,000+ Ads, Tracks Spending
With the end of the 2012 election season, so too comes the conclusion of a seemingly infinite number of campaign... View Article
Continue readingWhat we learned: 10 lessons from the campaign brought to you by Citizens United
For the candidates, it's all over except for the voting, but for those of us who follow money in politics, it will take months to close the books on what will be the most expensive election in history. Meanwhile, here are a few lessons we learned in the brave new world of unlimited political money:
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