Financing

Since the Citizens United case was approved by the Supreme Court in 2011, allowing unrestricted and unreported spending by any group so long as its activities are not coordinated with candidates’ campaigns, there is no way to track how much money is being spent on the 2012 elections. The campaigns themselves are required to file reports on donations with the Federal Election Commission. All the data on this site comes from those reports, the latest of which were on October 17.

So the numbers here are neither complete nor completely up-to-date, since the campaigns continue to receive donations that won’t be reported till after the elections. Nevertheless, they give us a picture of the amounts in play. All of the safe candidates, that is, all the incumbents except for Desjarlais in district 4, receive large amounts, including from out-of-state special interest groups, or PACs, whereas their challengers, excluding Eric Davis in district 4, cannot compete financially.

In addition, several candidates have made sizable loans or contributions to their own campaigns, in particular George Flinn, the Republican challenger in district 9, who has loaned his campaign $1.5 million, although he has only raised a little over $59 thousand in donations. Diane Black, the incumbent in district 6, has donated $1.3 million to her campaign, even though she has raised more than $2 million in donations.