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Former eBay chief Meg Whitman has said she is willing to spend $150m on her campaign
Former eBay chief Meg Whitman has said she is willing to spend $150m on her campaign. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters
Former eBay chief Meg Whitman has said she is willing to spend $150m on her campaign. Photograph: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

US midterm elections spending raises questions over special interests

This article is more than 13 years old
Spending could top $37bn for Congressional vote
Multimillionaires go head to head in California

Billions of dollars are being poured into hotly contested midterm elections across the US, putting them on course to become the most expensive in American history and raising questions about the link between politics and special interests seeking influence.

Records are being broken in California where two multimillionaires have spent between them $100m (£69m) in a battle for the Republican nomination for the governorship, to replace Arnold Schwarzenegger.

Voters went to the polls today in a series of primaries in California and elsewhere round the country. The full elections will be on 2 November.

David Levinthal of the Centre of Responsive Politics, a Washington thinktank which tracks election spending, estimates that spending in the Congressional elections will exceed $3.7bn.

"This goes well beyond inflation," he said. "We think the 2010 election will be the most expensive in US history."

Much of the spending is on seemingly endless television ad runs, and it is being driven not only by the unusually competitive contests but also by an anti-incumbency mood in the US.

It also reflects the close links between politics and big corporations, trade unions and wealthy individuals.

"It is legalised corruption," according to Bill Buzenberg, executive director of the Centre for Public Integrity in Washington, which tracks campaign contributions.

He said that, although members of Congress insist they vote independently, it was a matter of debate how much they are influenced by big campaign contributions.

Such contributions can be decisive. "Every election cycle has been much larger than the last one, and those spending the money tend to win.

"There are a lot of examples of someone rich who does not win, but, generally, those who raise the most money tend to be the winners," Buzenberg said.

"That is an indictment of democracy."

All 435 seats in the House of Representatives are up for election, as will be 36 of the 100 Senate seats.

Barack Obama's ability to get through legislation depends on the outcome. In addition, there are 39 governors' races on 2 November.

The battle to get the Republican nomination for the Californian governorship is the one that has attracted media attention in the US, partly because of the eye-popping amounts spent so far.

Voters went to the polls today to choose between Meg Whitman, the former eBay chief executive, and Steve Poizner, also a former Silicon Valley executive. She has so far spent $81m, of which $71m is from her personal fortune, to Poizner's $20m, and that is before the election proper, against the Democratic nominee, Jerry Brown.

Whitman has said she is prepared to spend $150m in total to secure the governorship. Most of it has gone on television advertising, with Californian newspapers reporting that viewers are already fed up with the seemingly saturation coverage. And there are the chartered jets, hotels and political consultants, one of whom, Mike Murphy, charges $90,000 a month.

While California stands out as the highest-spending state, millions are being spent on almost every other race too.

Levinthal said the five highest-spending Senate races were: Connecticut, $20.4m so far: California $18m; Nevada, where the Democratic leader Harry Reid is up for re-election, $17m; Arizona, where the Republican is the past presidential candidate John McCain also up for re-election, $16.8m; and Arkansas, $11.8m.

The spending could also be increased as a result of a supreme court ruling earlier this year that allows corporations, unions and others to spend unlimited amounts on campaign advertising. Congress is considering a bill to reverse the ruling, but may not get it passed by November.

Levinthal said that his thinktank aimed to be non-partisan and non-judgmental, but he believed that it was important voters were made aware of the money from big corporations and special interest groups, and that "these do not always have the interest of the public in mind".

The figures involved dwarf the estimated $1bn cost of the 2008 presidential election, and makes the British general election look extremely modest; the UK ministry of justice estimates its cost at £82.1m.

Tom Mann, a Brookings Institution specialist on politics, said that one difference between the US and the UK, apart from size of population and geography, was that political advertising in Britain was free.

US history is full stories of the insidious links between politics and money, with presidents doing favours worth millions for companies which backed them.

Mann said that these days such linkage was harder, with a greater degree of transparency and restrictions in place.

In a report this week, the Centre for Public Integrity found that the Republican leader in the Senate, Mitch McConnell, had spent $47m over the past 26 years on campaigning; the Democratic leader in the Senate, Harry Reid, $42m; the Democratic leader in the House, Nancy Pelosi, $20m; and the Republican leader in the House, John Boehner, $30m.

The centre lists the politicians' backers: telecoms companies, lawyers, unions, tobacco companies and others.

Buzenberg said that such politicians tended to vote the way that suited their backers' interests, though this was not always the case.

McConnell got money from the tobacco companies and tended to vote their line, but Reid, who also got money from the firms, was staunchly anti-smoking and generally did not.

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