Tag Archives: campaign finance

Welcome to my nightmare: Unraveling the mess of donors to Maine’s referendum campaigns

It was a waking nightmare Halloween weekend. At the grisly hour of midnight Friday, ballot question groups and others filed terrifyingly dark election finance reports. I KNOW.  The reports really were dark — as dark as they’d ever been. Nonprofit “dark money” groups who are not required to disclose their donors continued to give most of the cash coming into the registered campaigns. And […]

Maine marijuana and tax campaigns load up on cash

The campaigns to legalize marijuana and fund education spending with a new tax on the state’s highest earners came close to doubling their already substantial campaign coffers in September. Campaign disclosures filed Wednesday night show that groups supporting both ballot questions in September raised about 40 percent of what they’d raised prior to that month, both from two large donors. […]

Where Maine ballot question campaigns are getting their money

This year’s ballot questions in Maine are a primary attraction for political fundraising, with high-stakes fights on five different policy questions, including marijuana legalization and expanded background checks on gun sales. On Wednesday, groups spending to support or oppose those questions filed detailed financial disclosures through September, revealing where they got their money, though much of it remains hard […]

See where Maine donors gave the most to Trump, Clinton

With only six weeks left before voters hit the polls and pick the next president, patterns in campaign donations are making clearer the landscape of big support on each side of the aisle from Maine donors. What’s clear from overall donations is that most itemized donations to the presidential race went to Democrats. (Campaigns are required to list names and ZIP codes […]