Who funds Michigan lawmakers? Most get cash from PACs, not voters they represent

• Outside groups — not constituents — are primary campaign funders for most state lawmakers, according to Bridge Michigan analysis
• Experts say fundraising disparity raises questions about representative democracy, creates “gulf between the constituents and their needs”
• 110 members of the Michigan House received, on average, about 14% of their campaign cash from local constituents

LANSING — Local voters send representatives to the Michigan Capitol, but outside donors are far more likely to send those lawmakers checks. 

A new Bridge Michigan analysis of campaign finance disclosures shows most lawmakers elected to the state House last year received only a small fraction of their political contributions from their constituents. 

Instead, most of their donations came from political action committees that typically represent industries and other special interests, including labor unions and business groups. 

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All told, the 110 lawmakers now serving in the State House received on average less than 14% of their campaign contributions from their constituents, while more than 60% came from PACs, according to state records. 

Experts who track money in politics say the flood of outside funding raises questions about representative democracy and whose interests lawmakers will prioritize in Lansing. 

Not going into local communities to fundraise “creates this gulf between the constituents and their needs, versus being more in tune with the needs of people in the state Capitol who are trying to influence them,” Brendan Glavin, research director at the national transparency nonprofit OpenSecrets, told Bridge.

“If you're engaging with your constituents to raise money, then you're going to have to communicate with them and talk about what your plans are, what you believe in, what you want to do,” Glavin added.

Lawmakers from both major parties relied heavily on PAC contributions, including Republicans who wrested control of the Michigan House in the November election by flipping four seats in swing districts to end Democrats’ first trifecta control of state government in decades. 

Bridge used US Census Bureau data to geocode donor addresses to determine whether they fell within a legislator’s district. 

The analysis includes every campaign contribution made to House candidates in the general election — more than 112,000 contributions totaling $15.2 million, a fraction of the record-setting $67 million the House election cost in total.

There is nuance in the results — Legislators do not all represent wealthy districts, leaving some with smaller pools of willing donors than others.

Dark money spending and outside groups easily eclipsed candidates’ own fundraising and spending in competitive races, but the analysis sheds light on where legislative candidates are turning for support. 

‘Lansing money’

PACs have long been a dominant force in campaign fundraising, but their influence continues to grow. 

Michigan allows PACs to donate 10 times as much money as individuals — $12,250 compared to $1,225 in the 2024 elections — and many incumbent legislators create their own PACs to wield influence with their colleagues.

Of the 110 members elected this past November, 81 got at least half of all their campaign donations from PACs — an increase from 66 in the previous election cycle. PACs representing labor unions, beer and wine wholesales and Blue Cross Blue Shield all donated to dozens of candidates, sometimes repeatedly.

For at least 36 members, PAC donations represented more than three-fourths of their total campaign fundraising, and nearly half of all legislators won election with fewer than 50 donations from individuals or groups in their districts.

State Rep. Sarah Lightner, a Springport Republican who coasted to reelection last year, raised 94% of her campaign funds from PACs, including the Michigan Infrastructure & Transportation Association, which advocates for road funding, and committees associated with businesses like Comcast and DOW Inc.

But Lightner, whose district includes the city of Marshall but is largely rural, said she didn’t just fundraise for herself. Instead, she gave a significant chunk of her money to the House Republican Campaign Committee, which in turn supported other GOP candidates in more competitive districts.

“In my particular case, I'm in a district that's very conservative, so I raise Lansing money so I can give back to (the caucus PAC),” Lightner said, 

Fundraising was very different in Lightner’s first run for office in 2018, when she had to loan her campaign personal funds to get through a contested GOP primary.

“I literally sent a letter to my friends, family, whoever — anyone that'd be willing to give me something,” she said

Now in her fourth term, Lightner, like many legislators, is able to fund her reelection campaigns and give the excess to other candidates through lobbyist-attended fundraisers in Lansing.

“The good advice that I got from lobbyists in Lansing … is they're not paying for your vote, they're paying for your time,” she said, adding she’s developed good relationships at the events.

Still, Lightner said she’s spent her tenure in the House prioritizing constituent outreach and spending time in her district building relationships, particularly in the agricultural community. Campaign finance is “inside baseball,”  she told Bridge, and largely ignored by her constituents.

It’s a bipartisan approach. 

Rep. Tullio Liberati, an Allen Park Democrat, raised 97% of his campaign funds from PACs, the highest share of any House candidate in the 2024 campaign cycle. 

Liberati received only four donations from individuals, just one of whom lived in his district: David Babbage, a fellow politician he had previously worked with as a campaign volunteer, gave him $1,000. Three people outside Liberati’s district gave him a total of $350. 

Liberati instead fueled his campaign with 103 PAC donations totalling about $66,000 from groups representing beer and wine wholesalers, road builders and realtors. He won reelection by nearly 10 percentage points, a 4,000-vote margin.

Liberati declined to be interviewed by Bridge Michigan about his campaign fundraising.

‘Disproportionate influence’

Research into similar donation trends at the congressional level suggests candidates that rely on outside money tend to be less responsive to voters and more extreme in their political views. 

"The more money a House member gets from people outside the district, the less reflective the member’s ideology is of his or her constituents’ ideology," Anne Baker, a Santa Clara University professor, wrote in The Washington Post. "House members are following the money, not their voters."

Baker, though, cautioned against generalizing between state House and congressional candidates, telling Bridget that “each level of politics is quite different” and comparisons are often fraught.

Still, compared to Michigan state House candidates, congressional candidates tend to be less reliant on PACs, which on average account for about 40% of campaign contributions. 

That may be in part due to differences in campaign finance law. At the federal level, PACs can give US House candidates up to $5,000 per election, while the $3,300 individual contribution limit is indexed to inflation and continues to grow.

In Michigan, the PAC contribution limits are fixed at ten times more than what individuals can give, making them more potent.

Additional research out of Massachusetts showed out-of-district political donors in that state tended to be wealthier than local voters. 

Those contributions gave "disproportionate influence to a socioeconomically privileged subset of citizens, undermining our representative democracy," authors concluded. 

Exceptions to the rule

Not all Michigan House members had to look outside their district for funding.

State Rep. Nancy Jenkins-Arno, R-Clayton, bucked the trend by getting 56% of her campaign donations from people within her southeast Michigan district, which borders Ohio. She was the only member of the House who raised a majority of her campaign funds locally.

Jenkins-Arno won election with 64% of the vote in a safe Republican district and fundraised less than that $31,000, with less than 120 contributions from prospective constituents. She did not respond to a Bridge interview request.

Rep. Betsy Coffia, D-Traverse City, raised far and away the most money from her constituents, pulling in about $192,000 from residents in her northern Michigan district.

“I've never done a Lansing fundraiser. No intention of doing so. My community really likes that about me,” Coffia said in an interview. 

“They know that my loyalty is entirely really focused on my district. A lot of the problems with what happened this (past) session in politics in general stem directly from an over reliance on corporate contributions.”

In 2022, when Coffia unseated a Republican incumbent, close to half of her campaign donations came from in-district donors, but that number shrunk to a little more than a quarter as she sought reelection in 2024.

Coffia has sworn off donations from PACs representing the private sector, but still about 43% of the more than $730,000 she raised came from PACs representing unions and liberal activist organizations, including the Regional Council of Carpenters and the Service Employees International Union.

A partisan gulf on small donors

For nearly a decade, there has been a sharp contrast between fundraising approaches among the major political parties in Michigan. Democrats have benefitted from ballooning digital grassroots fundraising to bring donations from outside Michigan, something legislative Republicans have not pursued. 

Democratic candidates combined to receive more than 56,000 individual contributions from outside Michigan, more than three-fourths of which were less than $20.

“Some big national groups took an interest in Michigan and set up fundraising streams,” said Coffia, who received about 4,500 donations of $20 or less. “We didn't go ask them to do it. They just really wanted to help Michigan hold the majority.”

Republicans, by contrast, received 459 small-dollar contributions from in and outside Michigan.

Donations of $20 or less only netted Democrats about $385,000 of the more than $15.7 raised by general election candidates this cycle. A majority of the grassroots contributions went to Democrats who ultimately lost their races: Incumbent Reps. Jim Haadsma, Jenn Hill, Jaime Churches and Nate Shannon each received at least 3,000 small-dollar donations before being unseated by Republicans.