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Your Call

Midterm spending expected to reach record-breaking $5.2 billion

Photo by Cindy Shebley

  On this edition of Your Call, we’ll discuss election spending in the 2018 midterms. This November’s election will be the costliest midterm ever, with the total amount of money raised expected to reach $5.2 billion.

Hundreds of millions of dollars are flooding into campaigns for the House of Representatives. Senate races have also attracted a flood of cash totaling about a half billion dollars, and 40 percent of that is going to just 10 races. Who is funding the most expensive campaigns, and how could that influence the outcomes? What is the status of efforts to take money out of politics?

Guests:

Sheila Krumholz, executive director of the Center for Responsive Politics

Paul Blumenthal, reporter at HuffPost and former senior writer for The Sunlight Foundation

Web Resources:

Open Secrets News: Cruz, O’Rourke break spending record

HuffPost: 2018 Midterm Spending Setting A Record Thanks To Small Donors, Women And Billionaires

Atlanta Journal-Constitution: Kemp, Abrams raise $22 million in three months in governor’s race

McClatchy: National megadonors, with eyes on 2020, flood Florida governor’s race with cash

 

Rose Aguilar has been the host of Your Call since 2006. She became a regular media roundtable guest in 2001. In 2019, the San Francisco Press Club named Your Call the best public affairs program. In 2017, The Nation named it the most valuable local radio show.