0.5% of Americans given $200 or more in campaign contributions, accounting for 66% of all campaign funding, but that's nothing: only 0.0001% give $10,000 or more, and their donations are 38% of all the money sloshing around in US electoral campaign coffers.
That means a mere 37,000 people account for more than a third of US campaign finance, out of a population of 325,700,00 people.
But even these 37,000 are small fry compared to the 2,210 people who account for 25% of all campaign spending: $1.1 billion in total.
And of course, that's just the money we know about. Thanks to Citizens United, which allowed for unlimited, anonymous campaign spending, there's billions more spent by "dark money groups" whose funders are a secret.
Donors are older, whiter and wealthier than America as a whole. They hail disproportionately from certain places: So far this year, more money has come from the District of Columbia than from 28 states put together. And certain industries – finance, real estate, law, health care, oil and gas – are particularly big givers.
Campaign Spending Isn’t The Problem – Where The Money Comes From Is [Richard Briffault/IB Times]
(via Naked Capitalism)
