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Election 2012: top seven super PACs

Decoder profiles the seven top super PACs, the organizations that have spent the most trying to influence the elections – and still have the most money in the bank.

4. Winning our Future

Efrem Lukatsky/AP
Former Republican presidential candidate Newt Gingrich speaks during the Yalta Annual Meeting in Yalta, Ukraine, Sept. 14. Winning our Future, the pro-Gingrich Super PAC spent more than $17 million on his campaign, and still has a reserve of about $6 million.

Winning our Future was funded mainly by casino billionaire Sheldon Adelson and his immediate family, who donated a combined $18 million to back former House Speaker Newt Gingrich's presidential run. The super PAC, launched on Dec. 13, 2011, spent nearly $13 million for Mr. Gingrich and $4 million against Romney, and still has close to $7 million in reserve.

Winning our Future focused its advertising on the primary states where Mr. Gingrich was thought to be competitive: Kansas, Oklahoma, Iowa, Illinois, Ohio, Tennessee, North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, and Florida. They spent $2.5 million on TV ad spots, 56 percent of which were negative ads.

The super PAC is best know for financing the 27-minute film, "King of Bain: When Mitt Romney came to town," which attacked Romney as a corporate raider who destroyed businesses during his years at Bain Capital. The ad is credited with propelling Gingrich's surprise win in the South Carolina primary.

Sourcing this Report:

Several sources were used to compile this report. 

The figures for total expenditures, total money raised, and totals spent in support or opposition of specific candidates were taken from Open Secrets. Open Secrets is a nonprofit, nonpartisan organization that tracks money in US politics and its effect on elections and public policy. The website, which was launched in 1996, is project of The Center for Responsive Politics, which was founded in 1983 by US Sens. Frank Church (D-Idaho) and Hugh Scott (R-Pa.), in order to track money in politics, public policy, and elections. 

All figures were taken from the 2012 election cycle, and were based on data released by the FEC, and last updated Oct. 4. For Open Secrets' full report on spending by all 900 super PACs click here.

Advertising figures and specific markets targeted were taken from the Washington Post's Mad Money feature, which tracks the cumulative and weekly spending on television advertising by candidate and by the groups supporting them. The Post also calculated the percentage of ads that have been negative vs. positive. Their data was last updated Oct. 3.

The Center for Public Integrity, and the New York Times were used for background research on top donors and organizers of each super PAC. 

Other sites used include the official webpages for each super PAC, the Sunlight Foundation Reporting Group, NBC News, as well as some local news sources like the Dallas Morning News and the Denver Post.

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Mark Sappenfield
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