Politics

What you can do with TransparencyData.com Part II: Crist v. Rubio Edition

By Paul Blumenthal

In the run-up to the 2010 midterm elections there is no race drawing more attention than the Republican primary between Florida Gov. Charlie Crist and former Florida Speaker of the House Marco Rubio. Crist and Rubio are locked in an ideological battle for the soul of the Republican Party. Crist representing the moderate wing and Rubio riding the wave of conversative energy powered by the Tea Parties. This split hasn’t stopped either one from raising a lot of money from varying sources. What may be interesting is what interests powered their rise in the Sunshine State and which individuals are currently contributing to both of them. Thanks to TransparencyData.com, we can rapidly determine this.

TransparencyData.com allows rapid searches and download of campaign finance data from both the federal and state levels over the past 20 years. Both Rubio and Crist have a wealth of state-level campaign finance data to examine. Rubio served in the Florida House of Representatives from 2000-2008 and Crist served as Florida’s Attorney General from 2003-2007 and has occupied the office of governor since 2007.

You can quickly download Rubio’s contributions at both the federal and state levels here. Crist’s–of which there are a lot more than Rubio–are available to download here. I should note that the most recent campaign hauls by both candidates are not currently available. Take a look at these and do what you will. I’m sure that there is a ton of information to be collected and let me know what’s interesting, especially the state-level data.

I pulled together all of the donors that have contributed to both the Crist and Rubio Senate campaigns. You can see them in the table below:

Full post as published by Sunlight Foundation on April 09, 2010 (boomark / email).