1. Polarized America
Chapter 5

2. Figure 5.1
Real Spending on House and Senate Campaigns.
Source:
Note: Adjusted for inflation, spending has nearly tripled in thirty years. The inflation adjustment is to
2012 using the CPI-U series.

4. Figure 5.3
Measures of Inequality in Individual Campaign Contributions
Note: Measures based on the inequality of contributions sizes for all individual contributions over $200.

5. F = Ideological location [-1, +1] of the contributor S = Standard Deviation of the Contributions of the Contributor

6. Mean size of contribution
Table 5.1
Summary Statistics for Political Action Committees, 2012
Elections, House and Senate
Federal Election Commission PAC classification
Number
Mean
number
of contributions
Mean size of contribution F S
Corporate
343 81
3933
0.133
0.379
Labor unions 51
135
4766
-0.358
0.300
Nonconnected PACs 7
106
3626
0.101
0.474
Trade, membership, and professional associations
230 94
3677
0.120
0.381
Cooperatives 16 78
3912
0.007
0.402
Corporations without stock 22 46
2201
0.459
0.251
Unclassified
276 62
3710
0.074
0.327

7. Figure 5.4
PAC Contribution Patterns
Note: Each token in the plot represents a PAC. The letter denotes the PAC type-- Corporate (C), Labor (L), Trade (T), Nonconnected (N), Unaffiliated (U), Cooperative (V), and Corporation without Stock (W). Almost all groups disperse their contributions less than the random giving benchmark of 0.577, shown as a dark black line. The mean S value for the year is shown as a dashed line. The figure includes committees making contributions to thirty or more distinct candidates.

10. Figure 5.10
Large Individual Contributions by Ideology (F) of Contributor.
Note: The large contributors are typically relatively extreme. The figure plots individuals contributing more than $250,000 in the election cycle.