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Restore our Future spends heavily in states going to the polls soon
By Nancy Watzman Feb 23, 2012 10:34 a.m.The pro-Mitt Romney super PAC, Restore our Future, burned through $4 million in just three days this week on independent expenditures in half a dozen states with upcoming primaries. If it keeps up this rate, the super PAC would spend more than $16 million in the 12 days leading up to Super Tuesday, topping the total it spent in January.
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FEC set to vote on Super PAC fundraising by candidates
By Aaron Bycoffe Jun 29, 2011 10:32 a.m.Two new draft Advisory Opinions from the FEC's legal staff leave open the possibility that the commission will allow candidates and party officers to raise money — possibly without limits — for Super PACs.
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Dems narrow the outside spending margin
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 22, 2010 3:06 p.m.Ten days before the mid-term elections, and left leaning outside groups still lag behind their conservative counterparts, and are being outspent by $43 million. But spending by the two Democratic party committees--the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee--have narrowed the gap, leaving them $23 million behind all Republican spending. Just five days ago, Democrats trailed overall by $37.6 million.
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More cash spent on attack ads than ones supporting candidates
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 15, 2010 3:37 p.m.When all the independent influence is added up, Republicans have a $21 million advantage so far over Democrats, a review of Federal Election Commission data shows.
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Outside spending hits the $200 million mark
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 14, 2010 1:12 p.m.Spending by outside groups trying to influence the mid-term elections increased by a staggering $78 million in the last week, pushing the total spent by non-profits, labor unions and party committees to more than $200 million this cycle. That's an 80 percent increase from 2006, the last mid-term election.
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Contractor Super PAC Alaskans Standing Together backs Murkowski
By Ryan Sibley Oct 13, 2010 1:46 p.m.Alaskans Standing Together, a Super PAC that takes unlimited contributions from any source, raised $805,000 in contributions from nine federal contractors, all of them Alaska Native corporations, and is spending its money—$595,000 so far—to support the state's incumbent Sen. Lisa Murkowski.
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Crossroads connections visualized
By Lindsay Young Oct 6, 2010 12:10 p.m.Crossroads Media has a slew of conservative leaning political organizations as their clients spending millions in the run up to mid-term elections on ad buys. The company has processed more than $10.6 million worth of ad placements this election cycle (not all that money ends up with Crossroads Media--the bulk goes to the television, radio, cable and other outlets that run the advertisements it places).
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Outside groups spend $13 million in the last six days
By Anupama Narayanswamy Oct 4, 2010 3:56 p.m.In the past six days--Wednesday through today--outside groups have spent more than $13 million to influence the mid-term congressional elections, including broadcast ads, robo-calls, get out the vote campaigns and mailings.
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Beyond Super PACs: Political groups up electioneering spending as mid-terms approach
By Anupama Narayanswamy Sep 30, 2010 2:43 p.m.Outside organizations have so far reported spending more than $18 million to run issue ads mentioning candidates within 30 days of primaries and 60 days of the general election--a 31 percent increase over the last mid-term election cycle. Corporate trade associations, labor unions, environmental groups, proponents of traditional values and even a group that opposes big money in politics have run ads in the run up to November 2, reports from the Federal Election Commission show.
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Sunlight tools helps connect the dots between independent expenditures and ads
By Lindsay Young Sep 27, 2010 3:14 p.m.Just over a month away from the midterm elections political ads are mustering strength and each advertisement is only one small piece of a larger network of money, power and influence. The Sunlight Foundation has two new tools to help track this political influence: Follow the Unlimited Money, a user friendly way to track advertising and other kinds of electioneering, and Sunlight Campaign Ad Monitor that tracks the end result of some of the political spending powered by citizens reporting.
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Abortion issues dominate independent expenditures in California Senate race
By Lindsay Young Sep 24, 2010 1 p.m.In the Senate race between Democratic incumbent Barbara Boxer and Carly Fiorina of California, 87 percent of the independent expenditures relates to abortion issues. Among these two candidates, pro-life groups so far have spent $186,000, while pro-choice spending amounts to $41,000, according to a review of our independent expenditures database.
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Citizens United: New York, California and Washington
By Ryan Sibley Jun 29, 2010 1:45 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 states' election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're looking at states that didn't have to change their rules, but have anyway:
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Citizens United: Kentucky's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 23, 2010 9:41 a.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 states' election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend unlimited amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're onto our ninth state, Kentucky:
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Citizens United: Minnesota's response
By Ryan Sibley Jun 10, 2010 3:03 p.m.The Supreme Court’s decision in the Citizens United v. FEC case has rendered 24 state election laws unconstitutional. The 5-4 ruling in favor of Citizens United reversed a provision of the McCain-Feingold act that prohibited any electioneering communication—defined as advertising via broadcast, cable or satellite that is paid for by corporations or labor unions. Many states have acted fast to counter corporations’ ability to spend endless amounts of money to influence elections by passing laws that force disclosure of all independent expenditures in near real time. The Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group has decided to report what each of these states is doing to respond to the highly-contested ruling. Today we're featuring Minnesota, the fourth state in our series:
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