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Michigan US House races break fundraising records

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Steve Carmody
/
Michigan Radio

We’re three weeks out from Election Day, and Michigan’s U.S. House races have already broken state records.

The Michigan Campaign Finance Network, a watchdog group, released a new analysis of fundraising and spending disclosures.

Craig Mauger is with the network. He says one race in particular stands out.

“The 8th Congressional District race is going to be the most expensive U.S. House race that Michigan has ever seen,” he said. “That’s the race between Elissa Slotkin and Mike Bishop, and we can already say that because it’s already attracted about $16 million.”

The candidates for the U.S. House have, so far, raised more in total than the candidates for any other two-year cycle – by millions of dollars.

“We haven’t seen this amount of money being raised by candidates for Congress and we haven’t seen some of these races be as expensive as some of them are,” Mauger said.

Mauger said groups that are not a part of the campaign - especially Super PACs and nonprofits - are contributing a lot of the money. He said at the end of the day, about half of the money will come from campaigns and half will come from outside spenders trying to influence election results.

Before becoming the newest Capitol reporter for the Michigan Public Radio Network, Cheyna Roth was an attorney. She spent her days fighting it out in court as an assistant prosecuting attorney for Ionia County. Eventually, Cheyna took her investigative and interview skills and moved on to journalism. She got her masters at Michigan State University and was a documentary filmmaker, podcaster, and freelance writer before finding her home with NPR. Very soon after joining MPRN, Cheyna started covering the 2016 presidential election, chasing after Donald Trump, Hillary Clinton, and all their surrogates as they duked it out for Michigan. Cheyna also focuses on the Legislature and criminal justice issues for MPRN. Cheyna is obsessively curious, a passionate storyteller, and an occasional backpacker. Follow her on Twitter at @Cheyna_R