If you’re seeking reassurance on the Ebola threat, don’t look at the latest lobbying filings. In the third quarter spanning July through September, 17 organizations specifically referred to the hemorrhagic fever — which has already caused more than 4,500 deaths in West Africa and one in the United States — in their lobbying filings. This… Continue Reading
Almost $4 billion will be spent for this year’s midterm election, the Center for Responsive Politics is projecting. That figure makes this year’s election by far the most expensive midterm ever. The candidates and parties alone will combine to spend about $2.7 billion, while outside groups will likely spend close to $900 million on their own — a figure…
Continue ReadingAnti-abortion super PAC Women Speak Out is making its voice heard in several tight Senate races this cycle. But given its most recent donors, that voice might be a few octaves lower than you might expect. Women Speak Out was founded as an offshoot of the Susan B. Anthony List in 2012, joining the election season fray with an ad narrated by…
Continue ReadingBig-dollar donations to outside spending groups in the third quarter appeared to be falling like manna from heaven. Take, for instance, the largess of Bob McNair, owner of the Houston Texans. He doled out at least $3.5 million to seven different super PACs in the three-month period ending Sept. 30, pumping up their reserves weeks…
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Thursday evening, the Koch-affiliated Freedom Partners Action Fund reported making a seven-figure ad buy attacking Sen. Kay Hagan (D-N.C.). With that buy, the North Carolina race passed 2012′s Virginia Senate election to claim the dubious honor of attracting the most-ever outside spending. The $55.7 million spent on the showdown between Hagan and Republican Thom Tillis…
It appears Dave Brat has given up running on a shoestring for a new pair of Air Jordans. The Republican nominee for Virginia’s 7th District congressional seat became a political celebrity overnight by defeating House Majority Leader Eric Cantor in a June 10th primary — despite a multimillion dollar fundraising disadvantage. The tea party-supported Brat…
Correction: The original version of this story incorrectly stated that Chevron Corp. made a $2 million donation to CLF. It has been corrected to reflect the actual amount of the donation, $1 million. Chevron Corp. donated $1 million to a conservative super PAC with ties to Karl Rove’s dark money network in early July, a rare instance of…
The involvement of immediate family members in a drunken brawl does little to boost one’s political prospects. On a different level, the same might be said of a stingy leadership PAC. Former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin’s SarahPAC continued to perform underwhelmingly as a source of funds for other candidates in 2014′s third quarter, a…
A handful of individuals in 2014′s third quarter swept away any doubt that mega-donors writing massive checks would emerge following the Supreme Court’s decision to jettison overall contribution limits this spring. This morning, joint fundraising committees composed of dozens of campaign committees and party organizations filed their first disclosure reports revealing that each had received numerous six-figure…
Count Lorillard executives among those who want to see Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) prevail in his midterm race. In August and September, Lorillard — through its PAC and top executives — made more than $45,000 in donations to McConnell’s joint fundraising committee, McConnell Victory Kentucky. That was just after Lorillard announced it would…
If Jeb Bush does decide to run for the GOP nomination in 2016, he may have five good friends in the Senate to rely on for support. Last month, Bush hosted a fundraising event in Tampa for the benefit of five GOP Senate challengers hoping to unseat Democrats in some of the most closely contested…
Different factions of the Republican Party are uniting in Kansas against a common enemy: the independent who is threatening Sen. Pat Roberts‘s re-election bid. The GOP has swooped in to support the three-term Republican incumbent against self-proclaimed centrist Greg Orman. National party operatives like Chris LaCivita have taken the reigns of Roberts’s campaign, according to Bloomberg.…
NEA Advocacy Fund, the super PAC affiliated with the country’s largest union, is showing its spending clout in the North Carolina Senate race with less than a month to go before the midterm elections. The National Education Association boasts three million members working in education from the preschool to the postgraduate level. Its super PAC…
This piece is a collaboration between OpenSecrets.org and the Sunlight Foundation Graphic: Amy Cesal/Sunlight Foundation The Federal Election Commission has recently enlisted the help of an outside agency, the General Services Administration, and its elite squad of civic techies called 18F to overhaul its website and push the boundaries of open disclosure to new heights. And…
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