10/24/19 Update

This update adds details about independent expenditures made for or against candidates. These funds were not included in the original article because they were not reported by the candidates. Because these groups do not legally coordinate with the campaign, expenditures over $1,000 are reported by the groups and not the candidates themselves. The tool on this site has been updated to show all independent expenditures made for or against candidates. You can test this out by searching for Kim Reynolds or Fred Hubbell on the tools page.

A total of $63,156 was spent against Fred Hubbell by the group Liberties We Prize, LLC. Dan Mika, Molly Duffy, Mitchell Schmidt, B.A. Morelli, and Erin Jordan of The Gazette researched this group, and their article describing this dark money contribution is worth a read. It's hard to know where this money came from or what this group believes in.

A total of $75,548.28 was spent advocating for Fred Hubbell by Working America, AFL-CIO Committee on Political Education Treasury Fund, Iowa Citizens for Community Improvement Action Fund (ICCI), and One Iowa Action. Working America is the political organizing arm of the AFL-CIO, an organization of labor unions. ICCI is a grassroots organization that advocates for clean water, living wages, and other progressive issues. One Iowa Action is an LGBTQ voter education and advocacy group in Iowa.

No money was spent in independent expenditures advocating against Kim Reynolds.

A total of $230,051.93 was spent advocating for her. This money was spent by the groups Americans for Prosperity, American Wind Action, and the Family Leader. Americans for Prosperity is a right-wing political advocacy group founded by Charles and David Koch. They receive a large amount of money from dark money groups, and their SourceWatch page is well worth the read. American Wind Action is a group that does not disclose its contributors and donates almost exclusively to Republicans. Its public pages advocate for the use of wind power. The Family Leader is an organization that advocates for restricting the marriage rights of LGBTQ Iowans, restricting access to safe abortion services, politicizing the judiciary, and ending the separation of church and state in public schools.

No matter your political background, there is reason to be disgusted by the finances behind the 2018 Iowa gubernatorial races. Followthemoney.org shows that in 2014, the Republican and Democratic candidates spent a combined $11.2 million. In 2018, the two candidates spent well more than that...each. Here's a breakdown of who funded the campaign committees for Fred Hubbell and Kim Reynolds:

Fred Hubbell

Fred Hubbell raised $23 million, about a third of that from himself. That's right. Hubbell donated his own campaign $7.1 million dollars. Democrats in Iowa keep saying they've learned their lesson after Bruce Braley lost to Joni Ernst in 2014, in part because of accusations that he was elitist and out of touch. If 2018 is any indication, Democrats still have more to learn. I say this not so much to disparage Fred Hubbell -- the man believed in himself enough to spend $7.1 million trying to buy the governor's office. The problem is, that enthusiasm didn't exist outside his own pocketbook.

Here’s a breakdown of contributions to Hubbell’s campaign committee:

Company/Entity Contributions $3,933,880.01 (17.4%)
State Party Contributions $1,615,079.60 (7.2%)
Contributions from Fred Hubbell $7,137,010.90 (31.60%)
Individual Contributions >$200 $9,284,272.63 (41.10%)
Individual Contributions <$200 $606,101.66 (2.7%)

Company/Entity contributions to Hubbell were comparable to other statewide democrats In that it is mostly contributions from labor unions with $1.3 million also coming from the Democratic Governor's Association Victory Fund, a DC-based SuperPAC. Top individual contributors to Hubbell (besides himself) include Arthur Coppola ($500,000), the former CEO of Macerich Company (They run shopping malls); William Knapp ($300,000), a real estate entrepreneur and local philanthropist (You've probably seen his name around); and Michael Bloomberg ($250,000), a financial services entrepreneur and former mayor of New York City.

So Hubbell's campaign finances are pretty easy to understand. If individual contributions <$200 are an indication, Hubbell lacked the grassroots support and enthusiasm that may have propelled him to victory. Although he had some help from labor unions, the state party, and some rich friends, almost a third of his campaign was self-funded. If Democrats want to start winning, they're going to need to select candidates who can generate some grassroots support.

Kim Reynolds

If you are Republican, you’ve probably read along gleefully up until here, but Kim Reynolds hardly ran a grassroots-powered campaign. What Kim Reynolds lacked in contributions from herself, she made up for in over $9 million in contributions from companies and other entities (54.8% of her total funds raised). This includes $6.2 million dollars from the Republican Governors’ Association (RGA) Right Direction PAC, a DC-based SuperPAC; $240,000 from Great America Committee PAC, a PAC created with unusual timing and in an unprecedented manner by Vice President Mike Pence; and $17,000 from GOPAC, an Arlington, VA hybrid PAC/SuperPAC formerly chaired by Newt Gingrich.

Here’s a breakdown of contributions to Reynold’s campaign committee:

Company/Entity Contributions $9,003,073.23 (54.8%)
State Party Contributions $38,472 (0.2%)
Individual Contributions >$200 $6,889,637.47 (42%)
Individual Contributions <$200 $486,890.19 (3%)

After lambasting Fred Hubbell and the Democrats for failing to generate grassroots support, I would be remised not to point out that Kim Reynolds actually raised less money in contributions <$200 than Hubbell did. Neither candidate ran a grassroots campaign, and so the matchup was really a battle between companies and large individual donors on the right and Fred Hubbell's money and other large individual donors on the left. Because company PACs make up such a large share of Reynolds's contributions, it's important to know just what company PACs made those contributions. Here's a list:

Iowa Health PAC $61,000
Iowa Farm Bureau Federation PAC $52,000
Heartland Regional PAC $50,000
Associate General Contractors of Iowa PAC $50,000
Bankers Unite in Legislative Decisions (BUILD) PAC $50,000
Doll Family PAC ($38,000)
Hy-Vee, Inc. Employees’ PAC $37,000
Credit Union PAC $36,000
Iowa Industry PAC $31,000
Associate Builders and Contractors of Iowa PAC $31,000
Deere and Company PAC $26,000
Energy Transfer Employee Management Company PAC $23,000
Principal Life Insurance Company PAC (PRINPAC) $23,000
Master Builders of Iowa PAC $23,000
WellMark, Inc. PAC (WellPAC) $22,000
Iowa Realtors PAC $22,000
IICPAC (Iowa Association of Independent Colleges and Universities) $15,000
IFCPAC (Iowa Firearms Coalition) $15,000
Iowa Committee of Automotive Retailers (ICAR) $15,000
Archer Daniels Midland Company - ADM PAC $14,000
Iowa Friends of Rural Electrification-IAEC PAC $13,000
Citizens for Preservation of Racing $13,000
ITC Holdings Corp PAC $12,000
Community Bankers of Iowa Political Action Committee $12,000
Bayer Corporation Crop Science Employees Citizenship Fund (B $11,000
Casey’s PAC $10,000
Iowans for Tax Relief PAC (formerly Taxpayers United) $10,000
Pfizer PAC $10,000
PACEG Committee (Political Action Comm. for Effect. Govt) $10,000
Absolute Energy PAC $10,000
Enterprise Holdings, Inc. Political Action Committee $10,000
The Commonwealth PAC-Iowa $10,000

In future posts, I plan to look into the companies and entities that contributed to Governor Reynolds, as well as the Republican and Democratic parties. One by one, I want to explore who these entities are, what bills their lobbyists support or oppose, the candidates they contribute to, and where their money comes from.

Cover image attribution

This image was modified by me. The money clipart is public domain. Other original sources were as follows:

"File:Fred Hubbell (cropped).jpg"by PatbackT is licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0

"Kim Reynolds"by Gage Skidmore is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

"Terrace Hill"by J. Stephen Conn is licensed under CC BY-NC 2.0