Campaigns

For our campaign finance homework, I looked up Senator Maria Cantwell. For her 2004 campaign, Cantwell had raised $1,794,461. Cantwell had self-financed 61.7% of the total amount. That is approximately $10,331,911. Over ten million dollars from her own pocket! The next greatest contribution was from individual contributions. This made up 32.3% of the total, rounding up to $5,406,386. The remaining contributions were from PAC and from the category, "Other." I was surprised to learn that several of the top contributors were Microsoft Corp., Boeing, Dreamworks SKG, Puget Sound Energy, and the MoneyTree. Even the University of Washington had donated $13,600! Wow, that's great.

Under the "Political Parties" category, the Republicans raised $889,752,453, and the Democrats raised $816,976,491 during the 2004 elections. The top five States for Republican contributions were: 1) California 2) Texas 3) Florida 4) New York 5) Michigan. The top five States for Democratic Party contributions were: 1) California 2) New York 3) Massachusetts 4) Florida 5) Texas. The highest industry contributions for the Republican party came from the Retired. The top five contributors were: Goldman Sachs, Hastert for Congress Cmte, Friends of Roy Blunt, Lewis for Congress Cmte, and the Federated Investors Inc. The highest industry contributions for the Democratic party came from Lawyers/Law Firms. The top five contributors were: John Kerry for President, Friends of Schumer, Goldman Sachs, Friends for Harry Reid, and Time Warner. The University of California came in sixth.

This was the first time that I had ever looked into this kind of information. I was very interested in learning about how much money goes into campaigns, and where the money is coming from. I was very surprised to find out that Senators or other members of congress spend so much money out of their own