Continuing the Gray Money Chase

Dec 3, 2024

A Look at Top Non-Individual Contributors and Recipients – NJ County PACs and Committees (2019–2023)

Our first article on campaign spending used Berkeley Heights, NJ, as a case study to illustrate the challenges residents across New Jersey face in understanding how campaign contributions influence their local governments.

In our second article, we expanded the focus to a county-by-county analysis of political spending, highlighting the role of non-individual contributors to non-individual entities. This investigation shed light on how these contributions often obscure the flow of funds, making it challenging to trace their origins and final destinations.

This article delves deeper to provide a clearer picture of where the money flowing into county political organizations originates and identifies the main benefactors.

As noted in the previous article, tracking the sources of contributions proved complex due to inconsistent terminology and the fragmented structure of larger organizations. For example, entities like Operating Engineers operate under multiple arms with different identifiers across New Jersey. To address this, we consolidated the data to reflect the connections between contributions and their larger organizational umbrellas.

Contributors

From 2019 to 2023, non-individual contributors accounted for 79% of the funds flowing into county political entities—amounting to over $39 million. The top 25 non-individual contributors (some categorized) alone contributed over $18 million, nearly half of all non-individual contributions during this period.

Recipients

During the same period, 101 non-individual entities received contributions from non-individual contributors. Just 10 recipients accounted for 50% of the total funds distributed.

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