As Rep. Tammy Baldwin and former Gov. Tommy Thompson prepare for the first of three debates tonight in a race that will help determine control of the Senate, their campaigns and outside groups are bombarding Wisconsin with advertising to sway the hearts and minds of undecided voters.
An analysis of expenditures and political ad buys shows an increase in expenditures by campaigns and outside groups heading into the last month of the long, politically charged year. Since April, Wisconsin has garnered national attention from its Republican presidential primary, another primary to determine who would run against Gov. Scott Walker in ...
A half-billion in outside influence: What else could the money buy?
A little less than six weeks shy of Election Day, we've crossed another campaign spending Rubicon: Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money tracker has now recorded more than $500 million in a spending on the 2012 campaign by outside interest groups.
For those of you who have a hard time wrapping your heads around all those zeros, Sunlight's Jake Harper has calculated that it's enough to cover 155 football fields with $100 bills.
An indicator of just how rapidly folks who can write big checks are doing so: Our tracker showed a $28 million jump in 48 ...
Continue readingDo business groups’ pre-election forecasts follow their campaign money?
Housing prices and consumer confidence are up but several business groups that have been in town this week have been delivering a distinctly gloomy view of the economy. While the groups have blue-chip reputations in the business world, what's less apparent is their track record of political giving -- one that raises some questions about the forecasts they are presenting six weeks before Election Day.
First out of the blocks: the National Association of Manufacturers and the National Federation of Independent Business. The two groups teamed up at a Tuesday press conference to release a survey conducted by Public Opinion ...
Buzzfeed’s five surprising charts show impact of Citizens United
Buzzfeed offers five surprising charts about political money in the 2012 election cycle, feeding off of this recent release from the Federal Election Commission tallying up contributions and spending through June 2012. What they show--by omission--is how much Citizens United and subsequent court decisions and FEC rulings have changed the way campaigns raise and spend money. A few examples:
The first chart shows fundraising by presidential candidates in the first 18 months of each election cycle going back to 2000. Buzzfeed notes, "...presidential candidates spent more money through the second quarter in 2008 and 2004 — also an election with a ...
Continue readingNo close call here: NFL’s political donations tilt Republican
The NFL bigwigs who early this morning conceded defeat in an ongoing labor dispute like to play politics themselves, and tend to favor the party with the most adversarial relationship with unions.
Continue readingIn Ohio ad wars, the Democrats are on top
In Ohio, which is playing host to both presidential campaigns today, Democrats appear to be pulling ahead in the money race -- and in the polls -- an analysis by the Sunlight Foundation has found.
With President Obama and his Republican rival, Mitt Romney, barnstorming the state Wednesday, Sunlight decided to take a look at how their campaigns, and other candidates in the critical swing state, are faring. It looks like the Democrats have the advantage so far, when ad spending by outside groups and the candidates’ campaigns are weighed together. Because the Federal Election Commission does not require groups or campaigns ...
Todd Akin on the November ballot: Will he have any serious money?
This post has been updated.
Todd Akin is resolute about staying in his race for Missouri's Senate seat, but the question is how much money he'll have for the contest.
Ignoring calls from leaders of his own party to abandon the contest -- one the GOP had been counting on winning in its quest to take over the Senate -- after airing his controversial theories about "legitimate rape" and female biology in an interview last month, the Republican congressman on Tuesday evening let the last deadline pass for getting off the ballot.
Even though the GOP establishment is shunning their ...
Continue readingOutside groups spending millions on state level elections, ballot initiatives
A six year battle between the state of Michigan and a local billionaire will come to a head this November, when voters decide whether to build the first public bridge between Detroit and Windsor, Canada. The ballot initiative will be voted on despite an agreement Michigan Gov. Richard Snyder, a Republican, reached with the Canadian government earlier this year which, Snyder says, can't be overturned by the referendum.
The billionaire, Manuel Maroun, has spent at least $2.19 million bankrolling a nonprofit organization, The People Should Decide, via his company DIBC Holdings. Over the past two years, the ...
Gross Political Product: Outside campaign spending tops 2010 total
In a campaign that's supposed to be about an ailing economy, there's just one financial indicator that remains consistently robust: Call it the Gross Political Product.
The latest signal of just how profitable a business politics remains is available on Sunlight's Follow the Unlimited Money, which shows outside spending at nearly $465 million as of Sunday evening. That's more than the total for the entire 2010 campaign, the first that took place following the Supreme Court's landmark Citizens United decision, which allowed corporations and unions to give in unlimited amounts.
This cycle's outside spending ...
Continue readingKing of fundraising: Obama leads Romney by $242 million
While the most recent Gallup poll shows registered voters equally split, at 47 percent a piece, in the money race President Barack Obama has an unassailable lead.
In the 2012 campaign cycle, Obama's campaign, the Democratic National Committee and two joint fundraising committees supporting them have collectively raised $743.5 million. The campaign of former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, his joint fundraising committee and the Republican National Committee have raised $500.6 million. Because the joint fundraising committee, Romney Victory Inc., files quarterly, its total had to be estimated from media accounts of the campaign's August fundraising totals ...
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