Monday, November 5, 2012

Campaign "Dark Money" has Exceeded $213 Million (81% to Republicans)

I cannot comment here on the correctness of the Supreme Court's decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Comm'n, 558 U.S. 310 (2009), yet the correctness of that decision is a question that turns on the legal principles involved not on the effect, good or bad, or "dark money" on elections.

The Sunlight Foundation -- a "nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that uses the power of the Internet to catalyze greater government openness and transparency ..." -- reports:
Through Nov.1, at least $213.0 million has been spent in the general election by “dark money” groups to influence the 2012 elections. Of that, $172.4 million (81%) has been spent to help Republican candidates, as compared to $35.7 million (19%) to help Democrats. (By “dark money” we mean groups that do not disclose their donors and only are required to disclose their congressional race spending within 60 days of House and Senate elections and their presidential race spending following the national party conventions).
The Foundation's report breaks down the pending by not only the presidential election but the key senate and house races seeing the greatest spending. It also breaks down the key dark money" spenders (though, of course, the donors to those organizations are unknown, which is why it's "dark money").

As to the key congressional races involved, in the top four Senate races (by spending) more "dark money" has gone to support the Republican candidate in just Wisconsin (the least of the four) than to Democratic candidates in all four races combined. Nonetheless, at the time of this post in three of those four races the Democratic candidate has a slight lead over the Republican (they are, in Virginia, Kaine (D) v. Allen (R); in Ohio, Brown (D) v. Mandel (R); in Nevada, Berkley (D) v. Heller (R); and in Wisconsin, Baldwin (D) v. Thompson (R)).

As to the House races, the Republican dark money far exceeds the Democratic dark money, though, of the many races, there are at least three where the Democratic dark money exceeds the Republican.

Sunlight's report also charts the largest dark money spenders. As to that, see my prior post, moments ago. Here's Sunlight's chart as of November 5, 2012, from its report:

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