The National Institute on Money in State Politics is the only nonpartisan, nonprofit organization revealing the influence of campaign money on state-level elections and public policy in all 50 states. Our comprehensive and verifiable campaign-finance database and relevant issue analysis are available for free through our Web site FollowTheMoney.org. We encourage transparency and promote independent investigation of state-level campaign contributions by journalists, academic researchers, public-interest groups, government agencies, policymakers, students and the public at large.

Taking a look at the Michigan Elections from 2008, obtained from FollowTheMoney.Org we can see that the total dollars contributed to candidates: $22,582,236 based on 98% of reports for candidates that were collected. (FollowTheMoney.Org; February 11, 2010)

The above report demonstrates the actual contributor, total amount donated to various candidates, percentage of the total amount donated and the sector they are associated with. The below report demonstrates the top 20 industries and their total amounts of campaign money that was shifted towards candidates.

A significant amount of data is collected on a state to state basis with automated ways to reorganize the data to connect individuals, candidates, and organizations to issues and campaign financing related matters through the tools made available by The National Institute on Money In State Politics. I certainly thank them for making it freely available and hope that others find it useful as well.