The Latest Tools for Covering Campaign Finance
Insights and Tips for Digging into Money and Politics.
The cost of elections has skyrocketed. Whatever the role of money in politics, there’s no question there is far more of it. According to the Center for Responsive Politics, whose opensecrets.org website is a go-to source for reporters, more than $14 billion was spent on the 2020 elections – about double the 2016 total. A little more than half of that was for congressional campaigns, the remainder for presidential. Also notable in recent years is the power of small donations. So far in 2021, Sen. Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, has the biggest haul in the Senate, with the remainder of the top 10 divided among Republicans and Democrats. In the House, Reps. Marjorie Taylor Greene (R-Ga.) and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-N.Y.) are No. 1 and No. 2 in small-dollar fundraising.
Speakers: Sheila Krumholz, Executive Director, Center for Responsive Politics
Pete Quist, Research Director, National Institute on Money in Politics
National Press Foundation website: https://nationalpress.org/
NPF resources on politics: https://nationalpress.org/topics/politics/
by National Press Foundation
linux foundation
