Big money donors make up most Congressional campaign funding in Conn.

A Public Interest Research Group study released this week says big-money donors make up a significant majority of funding for the most recent Congressional primaries in Connecticut. Seventy-one percent of all donor money in Connecticut came from donors who gave more than a thousand dollars. That ranked Connecticut 16th in the country for its percentage of big donations. (New York came in 5th).

Evan Preston of the Connecticut Public Interest Research Group says he’s concerned about the implications of that.

“The voices of the people that are only small donors are harder and harder to be heard,” Preston said. “Because if you can run your campaign by simply raising the money from that very small group of people that can afford to give that much then you won’t need to or have any reason to reach out to small donors and ordinary Americans that can give the amount that would make them a small donor.”

The study says 106 Connecticut donors gave enough to match all donations in each state of $200 or less.

“If the people that can determine who can run for office are just a small subsection of the population, then that poses a real problem for which issues can be discussed in the campaign,” Preston said.