Uncovering Campaign Finance Trends for the Midterm Election
Discover how campaign finance data is shaping the 2018 election landscape with insights on top donors, PAC contributions, and strategic analysis tools for journalists and researchers. Dive into the influence of money in politics and learn how to access and interpret key data effectively.
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Presentation Transcript
WAGGING THE DOG USING CAMPAIGN FINANCE DATA TO COVER THE MIDTERM ELECTION Christopher Schnaars, USA TODAY | cschnaars@usatoday.com | @chrisschnaars
Whats in the Box? How to look up all contributions from a specific donor. How to search for and download a report. What to focus on once you ve got the report. Image: https://www.flickr.com/photos/shmectorcom/
Who Cares? Elections cost billions of dollars. Super PACs can raise unlimited contributions from donors. They have raised $285 million to influence the 2018 election. $1 of every $5 of that money came from just 10 people.
Richard Uihlein Reclusive CEO of Uline. Supports free markets and limited government. Biggest donor (so far) of the 2017-18 election cycle: $20.6 million Heavily invested in Wisconsin, where Uline is based (though he lives north of Chicago).
Donor Serch Type in the donor s name. Click the arrow to the right. Note that you can only search one two-year cycle at a time.
Donor Search Download: https://s3.amazonaws.com/nicar2018/uihlein.xlsx
PAC Search Download: https://s3.amazonaws.com/nicar2018/john_bolton_super_pac.xlsx
What to Look For Look at the big picture: How much did each candidate raise? How does the amount compare with other reports and other candidates? How much cash on hand does the PAC have? How much of the money comes from small donors? For Super PACs, who are the megadonors?
What to Look For Loans Pick up the phone! Expense categories
Gotchas Line Numbers Not all contributions are contributions Refunds Double-counting
Resources: Tipsheet: http://bit.ly/nicar18-wag-dog-tips Slides: http://bit.ly/nicar18-wag-dog-slides
