American Crossroads: Putting Non-Party Money in Perspective
The 2010 midterm elections will be remembered for spawning a new breed of political animal -- the "super PAC," officially known as "independent expenditure-only committees," which are legally allowed to raise unlimited amounts of money from individuals, corporations and unions to expressly advocate for or against federal candidates.
These groups helped propel numerous candidates to success on Election Night, and conservative super PACs helped Republicans nearly gain control of the U.S. Senate, research by the Center for Responsive Politics shows.
And one super PAC stood tall above all others.
American Crossroads -- the conservative outfit associated with GOP operatives Karl Rove, Ed Gillespie, Carl Forti and Stephen Law, and fueled by corporations and billionaires -- accounted for one-third of all spending by super PACs this election, the Center's research indicates. And American Crossroads itself nearly spent as much as all liberal-aligned super PACs combined.
The Campaign Finance Institute puts outside money in perspective:The Campaign Finance Institute today released its first post-election tables on money in the 2010 House and Senate elections. Independent expenditures and electioneering communications by non-party groups grew to $280 million through Election Day, an increase of 130% from 2008. Independent spending by the national political parties fell 20% to $182 million.
Party and non-party spending to help competitive Democrats and Republicans was about equal across the parties. As a result, neither set of expenditures could be said to have tipped the electoral balance.
This is a change from 2008, when Democrats showed a substantial advantage in party spending. Democratic party committees still had an advantage over Republican party committees in 2010, but a narrower one than in 2008. The change stemmed from a decline among the Democratic committees. This cannot be attributed to the growth of pro-Republican non-party spending. (Table 1 shows party and non-party spending over time; table 2 shows the non-party organizations spending the most money in 2010).
Of course, 2010 was a national “wave” election. In other circumstances, such as may prevail in 2012, the importance of non-party money could change.
