Obama and Priorities USA fundraising paths often cross.
Although super PACs are not allowed to coordinate with candidates when it comes to campaign spending, the Federal Election Commission has determined that it's permissible for candidates to raise money for the super PACs supporting them.
With that in mind, Sunlight analyzed President Obama's campaign fundraisers and cross-referenced them with the locations of donors to the Priorities USA Action super PAC, which supports Obama.
We drew on data from our Follow the Unlimited Money tracker as well as Political Party Time, our database of political fundraisers. We also got an ...
Continue readingGingrich super PAC backers pulled the plug before he did?
The latest news reports say that Newt Gingrich plans to drop his roller coaster of a presidential bid next week but Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker suggests that the former House speaker's biggest money backers may already have pulled the plug.
Winning Our Future, the pro-Gingrich group that has been almost entirely funded by the family of gambling mogul Sheldon Adelson, made it's last independent expenditure almost a month ago in the Wisconsin primary, the tracker shows. That means the committee didn't play in Delaware, the state where Gingrich vowed to make his last stand ...
Continue readingPennsylvania Rep. Tim Holden is a magnet for outside spending
Tuesday's battle for the Democratic nomination in Pennsylvania's newly-redrawn 17th Congressional District has emerged as the biggest money magnet so far for outside groups spending on House primaries, data compiled by the Sunlight Foundation's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker shows.
Outside groups have spent more than $572,000 in the semi-rural central Pennsylvania district, most of it to defeat Rep. Tim Holden. The only other House races that have drawn more outside spending so far have been special elections in which Democrats and Republicans were competing.
By contrast, the Pennsylvania race is a Democrat-on-Democrat affair: Holden, a ...
Continue readingSuper PACs first quarter haul: More than $100 million in political contributions
Super PACs raised more in the first three months of 2012 than they did in all of 2011, and after just two years of existence have emerged as a financial force that rivals the political parties and candidates' campaign committees.
An unusual conjunction of Federal Election Committee filing deadlines -- reports from campaign committees that file quarterly were due at midnight Sunday while those that file monthly were due Friday -- has given us the first comprehensive look at the impact of super PACs in the first presidential campaign year where they've been a factor.
An analysis of data gathered by ...
Continue readingTea Party standout joins leadership of disruptive super PAC
Tea Party activist Mark Meckler has joined the leadership of the Campaign for Primary Accountability (CPA), a disruptive super PAC aimed at ousting long-term incumbents from Congress. He has become part of a four-person, conservative leadership team of a group that says its aims are nonpartisan.
Meckler officially joined the $2.5 million super PAC, one of the outside groups spending the most in congressional primaries, as a senior advisor earlier this week but said he has been friends with its founders for quite some time and got to know them through the Tea Party movement. He resigned from the ...
Continue readingWho funded pro-Romney ad in South Carolina? We may never know
The ever-hard to track Citizens for a Working America, last seen in Iowa making a big Christmas Eve ad buy on behalf of GOP presidential candidate Mitt Romney, has resurfaced in a new-old incarnation.
Confused? So were we, when we last wrote about this shadowy organization. No wonder.
Turns out that the name Citizens for a Working America is shared by two linked but distinct entities:
- Citizens for a Working America PAC, a super PAC that first surfaced in 2010 when it helped defeat veteran Democratic Rep. John Spratt, a South Carolina Democrat who chaired the House Budget Committee, and ...
The X-factors? Lesser-known super PACs could have big impact in fall congressional races
While the super PACs supporting presidential candidates have been in the spotlight in the early months of the campaign season, a number of lesser-known -- but potentially as influential -- super PACs are emerging. Filings that came in over the weekend at the Federal Election Commission featured a number of heretofore unsung super PACs, many formed for the purpose of influencing a specific House or Senate election.
Though they are smaller than their presidential counterparts, some of the groups benefit fromt he same big-name donors. While some super PACs are new, others appear to be gearing up for an encore after playing ...
Continue readingStealthy Wealthy: Did Katzenberg’s support for Obama fast-track movie deal with China?
It's not every businessman who has the vice president of China personally sign off on his latest venture, but then Jeffrey Katzenberg, the CEO of Dreamworks Animation and a prolific Democratic donor, isn't every businessman.
The Hollywood titan is also a prolific Democratic donor, who has introduced President Barack Obama at fundraisers in tony locations, bundled at least $500,000 for Obama's 2008 campaign and promised to bundle as much in 2012, and, after contributing $30,8000--the maximum he's allowed to give--to the Obama Victory Fund, he wrote a $2 million check to the super PAC ...
Continue readingPACking a Wallop
When a Leadership PAC and a Super PAC join forces, the influx of cash can help swing an election, concentrating... View Article
Continue readingBiggest loser in Pennsylvania primary isn’t Santorum
That sniffling sound you hear is not Rick Santorum's supporters bemoaning his decision Tuesday to pull the plug on his presidential campaign but the managers of the Keystone State's television stations counting the ad dollars they have lost. There are 46 of them, according to the Community Media Database created and maintained by Rob McCausland.
So far this year, the race for the Republican presidential nomination has brought a bonanza of ad dollars to broadcasters in states that have played host to early contests, the more so because of the rise of super PACs, political action committees that ...
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