Click here for more 2010 midterm election coverage
While others
are wrapping up their coverage of the campaign trail Tuesday evening,
the Sunlight Foundation will be keeping its eye on the money trail, or
what the group calls the "shadow campaign"
behind the election.
From 7 p.m. ET to midnight, the foundation's Web site will chronicle how more than $430 million by outside
groups on congressional elections impacted those races.
According to
the foundation, most of that was spent on attacking candidates, rather
than supporting them. Non-party committees spent about $37 million to
support Republicans, while spending $82 million
to oppose Democrats. Committees of both parties spent almost all their
dough to defeat the opponent, plunking down a total of approximately $5
million combined to support candidates, compared to $175 million to
oppose them.
Sunlight
will combine live streaming video with government data, analysis and
social media coverage to track how groups like The U.S. chamber of
commerce and the American Future Fund are influencing
elections, which it calls a "critical story to tell."
Sunlight is
funded by various organizations, including the foundation of ebay
founder Pierre Omidyar, the Craigslist Charitable Fund, the Knight
Foundation, Google and Adobe.
