Senate race ante up to $1 million

Reporter Dan Popkey analyzed FEC data to reveal that Republican Senate candidate Dirk Kempthorne raised twice as much money from PACs as his opponent, contradicting his campaign message against politics as usual, with funding primarily from timber and mining interests versus his opponent's labor and agriculture support.

Reporter Dan Popkey used FEC data to see just how seriously Republican and U.S. Senate hopeful Dirk Kempthorne took his own campaign call to "take our government back from the politics as usual crowd." Popkey's analysis showed Kempthorne raised twice as much money from political action committees as his opponent. Using the same data, Popkey showed Kempthorne's financial support came from timber and mining interests while his opponent's came from labor unions and agriculture interests.

The Statesman also docu- mented how much of each candidate's support came from out-of-state. The reporting took three to five days, Popkey said. The Statesman got the FEC data from the National Library on Money & Politics and used Lotus spreadsheet to sort contributors by address, occupation and name.