National donors pick winners in state elections
If money is influence, the Republican Governors Association wielded more of it than anyone else last year in state elections nationwide.
Related: Key findings from our 'kingmakers' project
The group, led in 2014 by New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, gave roughly $69 million to candidates, political parties and independent groups — more than double its Democratic counterpart — as it tried to elect Republicans to the top office in as many states as possible. The group gave more than any other donor to state-level elections last year — from races for governor to legislator to supreme court justice.
Related: Who tried to buy the 2014 state elections?
The association applied an effective strategy that’s becoming more common: giving money using multiple paths to circumvent limits on campaign contributions to candidates and parties, a Center for Public Integrity analysis has found.
Related: Methodology
In addition to the money it spent directly on TV ads and other campaign efforts, the group gave about $14 million to candidates including Illinois’ new Republican Gov. Bruce Rauner. It also gave more than $3 million to state parties, including those in Texas and Maine.
Related: Bender on state election kingmakers
The bulk of the checks it wrote, however, totaling about $50 million, went to other political groups that in turn spent the money on state races.
Related: Noble on campaign limits
Its efforts largely paid off. Republicans gained four governorships in 2014 and only lost two, leaving them holding the reins in 31 states.
The group “was designed to supplement what candidates could do on their own in the states,” said Dick Thornburgh, a former Pennsylvania governor who turned the association into a powerhouse in the mid-1980s. “Obviously, it’s grown beyond that.”
Its competitor, the Democratic Governors Association, gave $32 million and ranked second among the sugar daddies of 2014, according to the Center for Public Integrity’s analysis. The group only picked up one new governor’s mansion, with Pennsylvania’s Tom Wolf defeating incumbent Republican Tom Corbett. (Alaska's Republican incumbent was beaten by an independent, Bill Walker.)
There’s more to this story. Click here to read the rest at the Center for Public Integrity.
This story is part of Who’s Calling the Shots in State Politics?. The Center exposes the powerful special interests that drive elections and policy in the states. Click here to read more stories in this blog.
Copyright 2014 The Center for Public Integrity. This story was published by The Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit, nonpartisan investigative news organization in Washington, D.C.
