What Type of Companies Own Your State's Politicians?

What kind of companies top the list of political campaign contributions in your state's last election cycle? Mother Jones took the data from Follow The Money, a nonpartisan and nonprofit organization that compiles a database of verifiable campaign finance contributions across the 50 states for the 2012 election, and came up with the map above.

The data is admittedly incomplete: Mother Jones limited their search to the top business in each state and excluded contributions from unions, law firms, nonprofits, and PACs.

It's not surprising that gambling dominated the political contributions in Nevada, but I was surprised to find that it also dominated in Rhode Island. I'm also surprised to find that finance companies dominated the political contributions in only 4 states - why did I think it would've been in more places?

Real Estate companies pay the highest corporate campaign contributions in 14 states, health-related companies in 13, and energy companies in 12. Tech and telecom dominated in 3 whereas manufacturing in only two.

See which type of company dominated your state's politics over at Mother Jones.


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Gambling's domination of Rhode Island does not surprise me at all. Having spent a number of summers working there, you eventually come to realize that just about every business in the state has some kind of mob ties.
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Yeah, Mother Jones excluded them not because their money is kosher, but because it's difficult to classify these entities. That or the liberal Mother Jones is just biased ;)
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