Next I turned my gaze toward corporate political spending in Florida. To test the waters, I zeroed in on Mosaic Fertilizer, the phosphate mining company actively destroying sizeable tracts of land near me. I suspected that their greenwashing philanthropy and ads would be hard to trace. Perhaps. But
their direct largesse to candidates and lobbyists could be easily viewed and analyzed. Unfortunately, there were dozens of corporate entities - Mosaic Company, Mosaic Fertilizer, Mosaic Fertilizer LLC, Mosaic Global Sales, Mosaic Global Sales LLC DBA Mosaic Fertilizer LLC, and on and on. I picked Mosaic Fertilizer, which had contributed a whopping $1,242,863. Over the last 14 years, they have donated $1,233,663 to 104 candidates in Florida races. On top of that, over the last 12 years, they have hired 97 different lobbyists. The website, followthemoney.org breaks all this out by industry, by candidate, by ballot measure, by party, by year, and by occupation. One can further delve into relationships, which include employees who have donated, and similar contributors, such as the Florida Phosphate Council Inc. and Saving Floridas Heartland.
Having already let my curiosity suck up half the day, I realized that I needed to keep my search focused. What was to be gleaned concerning campaign contributions in the most recent November 2018 election?There were almost 20 ballot measures on my November ballot, 12 of which were statewide constitutional amendments. Most of them had their downsides, but most of them had passed anyway. How much money had been thrown at these propositions? First off, there were 14 Political Action Committees (PACs), each of which had been created just to advocate for/against one statewide amendment. The award for the best named PAC goes to the Floridians Against Misleading Amendments. Not only did it have a fabulous name, but they opposed Amendment 2 on the grounds that the tax cap amounted to corporate welfare for some of the largest property owners in the state.
Over the last couple of decades, my sense is that ballot measures usually pass, regardless of election spending. The 2018 election was no exception, with all but one passing. But there are other ways to slice and splice the data. One glaring fact is that 9 of the 14 PACS had only a dozen or so direct donations. Drilling down into the data showed that it was primarily a few wealthy donors who took advantage of the ballot initiative process. For example, there were just 3 donors accounting for the $37 million donation to Marsys Law For Florida, in support of Amendment 6.
On the other hand, it was heartening to see that the PAC working in support of Amendment 4, to restore ex-felon voting rights, had 8,768 donations. Although the ACLU was a leading contributor, the vast majority of funding came from a broad coalition of groups and individuals.
We had some major upsets in the Florida primaries this year. The two less-funded gubernatorial candidates won their respective Republican and Democratic races. In the general election, those same candidates, DeSantis and Gillum, both attracted the support of billionaires from outside Florida. George Soros and Tom Steyer donated millions in support of Gillum. Richard Uihlein and Kenneth Griffin donated millions in support of DeSantis. The pundits tell us that the Governor's race was more of a referendum on the President, thus attracting funds from across the nation. It is somewhat ironic that the vast majority of voters were already committed to one of the gubernatorial candidates two months prior to the election. And yet millions of dollars poured into this Florida race, in hopes of swaying the outcome.
Before concluding that money did not have much of an effect on the 2018 election in Florida, I decided to slice and splice with different questions in mind. Did the relative fundraising abilities of the given candidates correlate with the percentage of votes they earned? In the Governor's race, both candidates raised about the same amount ($18 million) and both candidates earned about the same number of votes. In fact, the vote was so close that it triggered a recount. In general, this correlation did not hold true for many of the races further down the ballot.
One final hypothesis I wished to check was whether or not those candidates who spent the most tended to win. I immediately spotted a counter-example. An incumbent, Michael Holderness, ran for Cedar Hammock Fire District Seat 4 in Manatee County, spending a whopping $35,000. He lost to Richard Findlay, who only spent $4,632. This was not a race that I followed, so I cynically suspected that perhaps Holderness had been charged with a crime during the campaign. But, it turns out, the Suncoast Professional Firefighters and Paramedics endorsed Findlay. This certainly demonstrates that there are factors, other than campaign contributions, that can overwhelm the outcome of an election. Over the last few elections, observers might have noticed gerrymandering, spoilers, incumbency, and demographics influencing election results. I would have thought that assaulting a journalist just before an election would extract a mighty toll. But evidently not. Greg Gianforte won his U.S. House seat the day after body-slamming a reporter in 2017. Regardless of the medley of factors, money is a heavyweight when it comes to influencing elections. In Sarasota and Manatee Counties, the up-ballot candidates who spent the most money did in fact win:
| Office | Winner | Spent | Opponent | Spent |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| U.S. Senate FL | Rick Scott | $25,019,244 | Bill Nelson | $20,945,852 |
| U.S. House District 16 | Vern Buchanan | $2,618,334 | David Shapiro | $2,329,539 |
| Florida House #70 (primary) | Wengay Newton | $82,730 | Sheeley/Bell | $48,305/$31,019 |
| Florida House #71 | Will Robinson | $373,447 | Tracy Pratt | $120,407 |
| Florida House #72 | Margaret Good | $408,944 | Ray Pilon | $104,225 |
| Florida House #73 | Tommy Gregory | $242,290 | Liv Coleman | $106,229 |
| Florida House #74 | James Buchanan | $270,240 | Tony Mowry | $131,736 |
| Florida Senate #23 | Joe Gruters | $258,327 | Olivia Babis | $26,518 |
| Manatee County Comm #2 | Reginald Bellamy | $15,852 | Dimitrie Denis | $8,683 |
| Manatee County Comm #4 | Misty Servia | $85,799 | Melton Little | $66,894 |
| Manatee County Comm #6 | Carol Whitmore | $91,985 | Candace Luther | $3,810 |
| Sarasota County Comm #2 | Christian Zielger | $63,243 | Ruta Jouniari | $39,225 |
| Sarasota County Comm #4 | Al Maio | $123,520 | Wesley Beggs | $24,599 |
Sadly, this analysis is incomplete. I only looked into contributions that must be disclosed to the public. Dark Money donations are made out of sight. As Dark Money groups proliferate, they create gaps in our understanding of exactly how each funding dollar is being raised/spent during an election.
Campaign financials came from searching the following websites
- Follow The Money - https://www.followthemoney.org/
- Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections - https://www.sarasotavotes.com/
- Manatee County Supervisor of Elections - https://www.votemanatee.com/
- Florida Department of State, Division of Elections - https://dos.elections.myflorida.com/candidates/
