Sunday, September 28, 2014

McConnell relies more on PACs, other big contributors; Grimes gets more from small givers

About 85 percent of the $37 million in identified contributions for the Senate race has come from outside Kentucky, Tom Loftus reports for The Courier-Journal after an exhaustive analysis of their finance reports.

Sen. Mitch McConnell gets much more from political action committees of Washington lobbying interests, and much less from Kentuckians small contributors whose names don't have to be disclosed because that had given less than $200 before June 30, the end of the last finance reporting period. Another period ends Tuesday, with a report due Oct. 15. However, because senators have resisted making their Federal Election Commission reports electronic, data from the last reporting period won't be available until several days after that deadline.

The totals reported by Loftus include money given to two independent PACs, one supporting McConnell and a smaller one supporting Grimes, and McConnell's personal PAC. They did not include the Senate Majority PAC, which the Center for Responsive Politics says has spent $4.3 million attacking McConnell.

"McConnell, who started raising money shortly after his last re-election six years ago, is getting big money from the Washington network of PACs and lobbyists, Texas and New York," Loftus reports. "Grimes, who entered the campaign in July of last year, gets support from the California film industry, but also New York and Washington." However, McConnell raised more from California, $1.7 million, than Grimes.

The Courier-Journal's package includes an interactive table to look up contributors and their contributions.

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