Individual campaign contributions this year are concentrated mostly among just a handful of rich donors, according to the latest campaign finance data.
With the first quarter just ended, the 100 biggest individual donors to the upcoming House and Senate elections have contributed a combined $154 million, according to a tally of campaign finance records by the Center for Responsive Politics. Of that amount, roughly half came from just the top 12 donors on the list.
Overall, about two-thirds of all individual political campaign contributions have come from one-quarter of 1 percent of American voters.
About 30 percent of that money went directly to candidates running for office. The rest, so-called soft contributions, went to groups that spent indirectly on behalf of individual candidates, the CRP data show.
The top 100 donors tilt toward Republican and conservative candidates, according to the CRP. So far, about $83 million has been spent on right-leaning candidates, compared with $65 million for Democrats and liberals.