Tipsheet

Democrats: The Party of the Rich

Prominent Democrats used the 2014 election cycle to attack wealthy donors of Republican causes like the Koch brothers. But a new analysis shows that, in 2014, Democrats are the party that relies more on the rich to fund their electoral pursuits.

As the Associated Press reports:

Among the top 100 individual donors to political groups, more than half gave primarily to Democrats or their allies. Among groups that funneled more than $100,000 to allies, the top of the list tilted overwhelmingly toward Democrats — a group favoring the GOP doesn't appear on the list until No. 14.

The two biggest super PACs of 2014? Senate Majority PAC and House Majority PAC — both backing Democrats.

In all, the top 10 individual donors to outside groups injected almost $128 million into this year's elections. Democratic-leaning groups collected $91 million of it.

Among the 183 groups that wrote checks of $100,000 or more to another group, Democrats had a 3-to-1 cash advantage. The biggest player was the National Education Association, at $22 million. Not a single Republican-leaning group cracked the top 10 list of those transferring money to others.

This is well-known by those who pay close attention to the political process. Liberal billionaire Tom Steyer has been funding his pet causes for a long time now, but it's still the Koch brothers that the media is obsessed with.

Hopefully this will get the media to take notice. But we're not holding our breath here.