Portside

[This report is a joint project of the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation.]

In the 2014 elections, 31,976 donors — equal to roughly one percent of one percent of the total population of the United States — accounted for an astounding $1.18 billion in disclosed political contributions at the federal level. Those big givers — what we have termed the Political One Percent of the One Percent — have a massively outsized impact on federal campaigns.

They’re mostly male, tend to be city-dwellers and often work in finance. Slightly more of them skew Republican than Democratic. A small subset — barely five dozen — earned the (even more) rarefied distinction of giving more than $1 million each. And a minute cluster of three individuals contributed more than $10 million apiece.

The last election cycle set records as the most expensive midterms in U.S. history, and the country’s most prolific donors accounted for a larger portion of the total amount raised than in either of the past two elections.

The $1.18 billion they contributed represents 29 percent of all fundraising that political committees disclosed to the Federal Election Commission in 2014. That’s a greater share of the total than in 2012 (25 percent) or in 2010 (21 percent).

That’s one of the main takeaways of the latest edition of the Political One Percent of the One Percent, a joint analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics and the Sunlight Foundation of elite donors in America.

When former Sunlight Fellow Lee Drutman first reported on the One Percent of the One Percent, he noted that these deep pocketed donors were increasingly playing the role of “political gatekeepers.” Candidates needed their backing — and cash — as did the parties and super PACs that depended on the support of the politically active elite.

Now, in the first full midterm since the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, our joint analysis finds that the influence of the One Percent of the One Percent has only continued to grow.

Thanks to research and analysis by the Center for Responsive Politics, we know that those 31,976 top donors combined accounted for more than one out of every four dollars raised by PACs, super PACs, parties and candidates. Members of the group contributed at least $8,800, a bit less than in prior cycles. The median contribution was $14,750, while the biggest donor gave more than $73 million (for more on how we arrived at those figures, see our methodology section).

Wall Street maintained its perch as the most influential sector among the One Percent of the One Percent, both in the number of donors that made the list and the money given. Individuals that listed a job in securities spent about $175 million in 2014, of which $107.5 million went to committees supporting Republicans.

Though both parties depend on these donors, the GOP received more from them than Democrats, based on the contributions we could conclusively attribute to helping one party or the other. Mirroring the overall trend of the election, in which conservatives edged their liberal opponents in fundraising, Republican committees and conservative groups that support them pulled in about $553 million from the donors on our list, more than the $505 million that Democratic and liberal political groups received. The donors themselves, however, aren’t interested in hedging their bets — most of the contributors’ giving patterns heavily favored one party.

A few donors have percentages lower than 50 percent due to giving to third party or independent committees. 

Donors for whom no contributions could be party coded are not included in this graphic.

The most jarring difference between the One Percent of the One Percent in 2014 and 2010, the last midterm cycle, is how “top heavy” the donor list has become. A small subgroup of these elite donors is the driving force behind its growing share of political money.

In 2010 only 17 individuals contributed a total of $500,000 or more, while members of the $1 million-plus club numbered only nine. In 2014, the number of $500,000 and up donors ballooned to a whopping 135, and 63 people gave more than $1 million.

Each of the top three financial benefactors in 2014 contributed more than $10 million. Topping the list is Tom Steyer, the liberal-leaning San Francisco hedge fund manager and environmentalist who accounted for $73 million alone—the vast majority of which went to super PACs targeting GOP candidates.

The rising numbers of donors who gave at least $500,000 reflects, in part, the sharp uptick in liberal giving to outside spending groups, which can take money in unlimited amounts. In a change from both 2012 and 2010, more than half of the One Percenters’ contributions to outside groups went to those that supported Democrats and attacked Republicans. Liberals have learned to love the super PAC.

The donors at the very top of the money pyramid provided the financial fuel for many of the attack ads and other messages from independent organizations that filled the airwaves last year. A previous analysis by CRP found that the country’s top 100 individual donors accounted for 39 percent of the $696,011,919 raised by super PACs in the 2014 elections.

(See our methodology section below for important notes on data and the tables included in this piece.)

Read on for more about the top political financiers who are increasingly steering U.S. elections. You can download the raw data on the One Percent of the One Percent’s contributions in 2014 here.

[Continue reading this report here. -- moderator]