Tag: Campaign Spending

W.Va. Campaign Finances Open To The Public

With many candidates for 2024 state offices announcing early, campaign finances are beginning to flow.

With many candidates for 2024 state offices announcing early, campaign finances are beginning to flow. 

This is what is known as the pre-candidate stage in the election cycle. To legally begin financing a campaign, candidates have to file with the Secretary of State’s (SOS) office. As a pre-candidate, one is not bound to run for office. On the SOS website, under elections, there’s a campaign finance reporting system tab. 

Once filed for pre-candidacy, candidates must deliver detailed quarterly finance reports to the SOS. Missy Kinder, campaign finance specialist, said on the reporting system website the public can see how much money candidates have received from a person or group – and how much the candidate has spent.

Missy Kinder, campaign finance specialist in the Secretary of State’s office.

“You can sort through the data by the race they’re entering, by office, by their political affiliation, there’s just several different ways that you can find the information that you’re looking for,” Kinder said.

Kinder said the website details money from fundraising events, campaign loans and just who is contributing to campaigns.

“If you’re looking to see if a certain individual has given to candidates, you can even break it down that far,” she said. “If they have contributed any expenditures that a particular candidate has made, you can search through that. There’s also a data download portion of our website that you can go to and that will show any transactions that have occurred in a regular calendar year.”

Relating to transparency in the election cycle, Kinder said it’s important to show that campaign contributions are coming from reliable sources legally allowed to give. 

“Corporations cannot give,” she said. “If that corporation would have a separate segregated PAC, a political action committee, that political action committee can give. It all comes from West Virginia State Code.” 

Kinder said the public can call or email the Secretary of State’s office if they have any issues with navigating the campaign finance reporting system site.

Candidates can officially file for state office from January 8 – 27 of 2024.   

Ad It Up: Outside Groups Funding Many Campaign Ads

If it seems like your TV time has been carpet-bombed with campaign advertising, some data indicate you might well be right.

Parts of the Ohio Valley region stand out in analyses of campaign spending on high volume TV spots.

West Virginia: 58,000 Ads on State Races Alone

For all of the attention on the presidential race, it’s the state-level races generating a lot of the the spending in West Virginia.

“There’s been a ton of ads in West Virginia,” said data reporter Ben Wieder at the Center for Public Integrity, a nonprofit journalism outlet.

Click here to view the interactive graphic >>

 

The Center analyzed TV ads in state-level races as tracked by media monitoring firm Kantar Media/CMAG and found that West Virginians have seen more than 58,000 ads this election cycle just on state-level races, and about $13 million was spent on those ads.

“We broke it down by spending per eligible voter, and it’s about $9.50 per voter,” Wieder said.

Competitive races for governor, attorney general, and state supreme court produced most of the ads. The attorney general race has driven much of the ad spending, about $6.5 million, with outside groups supplying about half of that.

The biggest spending outside group borrows the state’s motto for its name, the Mountaineers Are Always Free PAC, but that is just the local name for a national group, the Republican Attorneys General Association.

Wieder said this reflects a national trend of more outside money pouring into state races. “National interests of both parties think they have a shot so they are spending like crazy to swing the state in their direction,” he said.

Ohio: The $80M Senate Race

The nonprofit, nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics shows the Ohio race for the U.S. Senate is the fourth most expensive Senate race in the country. The candidates, incumbent Republican Rob Portman and former Democratic governor Ted Strickland have spent nearly $31 million combined.

But that’s not even half the total spending there. With the partisan control of the Senate potentially at stake, outside groups are pouring money into competitive races. Advertising Age reported in September that ad spending in Senate races was greater than spending in the presidential race (although that has now likely changed). In Ohio that’s meant that another $51 million was spent on the Portman/Strickland race by outside groups.

By comparison Kentucky’s Senate race, between Republican incumbent Rand Paul and Democratic Lexington Mayor Jim Gray, seems like a bargain, with just about $17 million spent by both candidates and outside groups.

The Winners And Losers

The Center for Responsive Politics data show that the majority of outside spending in most of the Congressional campaigns is spent to attack a candidate rather than support one. For example, in the Ohio race for the U.S.Senate some $43 million of the money spent by outside groups went to negative ads and outreach.

But whether the ads are positive or negative, it’s all a plus for the TV stations who run them.

“Oh, it’s a good time to own a television station,” Wieder said.

Candidates do pledge to help the economy, right?

 

Exit mobile version