This info is from the New York Times’s article here. I just played with it in excel.
Have you ever wondered where all the money comes from in the US election? Well, here’s seven of the top raising candidates and how much of their super pac money is coming from donations greater than one million dollars.
Note: Bernie Sanders has raised $15.2 million but none of it is through a super pac so he’s not included.
Note 2: Chris Christie, John Kasich, and Scot Walker haven’t disclosed enough information to determine (technically legal).
Note 3: Trump seems to be running on his own money, either that or it’s like the previous note and he just hasn’t disclosed enough yet.
And here they are:
Ted Cruz: $36 million – A whopping 95% coming from just a few big spenders. I’m not going to say that he’s bought and paid for but that’s a lot of money from very few people.
Jeb Bush: $24 million – Not too bad since he raised $103 million through his super pac. Of course most of that money comes in at the magical $100,000 amount through corporations that appear to have been started in the last three years. So that’s not at all suspicious.
Marco Rubio: $12.5 million – 77% is a lot, and here I thought he would be the best republican candidate. Why do you have to take advantage of a broken electoral funding system like everyone else?
Rick Perry: $10 million – Once we’re under the 10 million mark I start feeling better, but considering he only raised $15 million total and the $10 million is 78% of his super pac money…
Hillary Clinton: $8 million – That’s a fair chunk of change, and just over 50% of her super pac money, though it pales in comparison to the total take when it suddenly drops to only 11% of her total.
Mike Huckabee: $3 million – You weren’t even going to make my list until I saw that that $3 million was a whopping 83% of your super pac, and 46% of your total.
Rand Paul: $2 million – The last of those with over 30% of their super pac money coming from the big donators he comes in at 31% of his super pac money and barely a drop in the bucket of his $14 million total.
So there you have it the big spender list. I’m positive that none of their sponsors are expecting anything more than a handshake if they win. Especially those who’s entire campaigns were essentially funded by “whales”:
- Ted Cruz: 68% of his campaign
- Rick Perry: 67% of his campaign
- Mike Huckabee: 46% of his campaign
- Marco Rubio: 30% of his campaign
And honorable mention goes to:
- Jeb Bush at a modest 21% of his campaign
I’m starting to think there might be a problem here. Perhaps Plato has a few things to say about a political system which gives extra power to those with the most wealth.
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