Elections
St. Louis businessman has spent millions on Missouri campaigns
Joe Yerardi, of the Columbia (Mo.) Missourian, found that retired St. Louis businessman Rex Sinquefield has spent millions to bankroll numerous campaigns in Missouri in the past two years. “The donations, which total more than $13.3 million, are the result of Sinquefield’s personal wealth, his ideological passions and Missouri’s lax campaign finance laws, experts and…
Read MoreGovernor’s tech fund has aided campaign donors
An investigation by The Dallas Morning News found that Governor Rick Perry has given more than $16 million from the Texas Emerging Technology Fund to companies with investors or officers who are large campaign donors. The governor has denied any sort of political influence on how the tech funds are awarded.
Read MoreSite tracks candidates statements, claims in race for California governor
California Watch launched Politics Verbatim, a site that “collects and categorizes the promises, proposals, arguments and attacks” made by Democrat Jerry Brown and Republican Meg Whitman in their race for governor of California. The site was launched with 300 documents and 1,000 excerpts that will be added to daily as the race progresses allowing voters…
Read MoreAT&T, Boeing Buck Anti-Incumbent Trend in Giving to Democrats
A computer-assisted analysis by Bloomberg News reporter Jonathan D. Salant of Federal Election Commission data found corporate political action committees siding with vulnerable Democratic incumbents, the candidates that Republicans need to beat if they are to take back control of the House of Representatives this fall.
Read MoreDozens tricked into registering to vote Republican
Brian Joseph of The Orange County Register reports on how petitioners “tricked dozens of young Orange County voters into registering to vote as Republicans.” Written complaints have been filed with state election officials by at least 99 people who have been unwittingly registered to vote Republican. A similar fraud landed eight petitioners in jail in…
Read MorePhones sold by McCain campaign contained confidential information
John McCain’s campaign headquarters sold blackberry phones chock full of internal information, according to a report by Tisha Thompson of Fox 5 (Washington, D.C.). The campaign was trying to sell off old office inventory from its Arlington, Va. campaign offices, with everything from computers to file cabinets offered for bargain basement prices. They also sold…
Read MoreTacoma area voters split their tickets
Ian Demsky of The News Tribune in Tacoma, Wash. found that nearly a third of the voters in Pierce County cast their ballots for Democratic president-elect Barack Obama and Republican gubernatorial candidate Dino Rossi. The article includes maps of the areas that went for Obama and Rossi and the county’s results of both races.
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