Gaze Into the Exploding Universe of Dark Money

We've charted the red giants and blue dwarfs spending millions to influence the 2012 election.

—By Dave Gilson and Asawin Suebsaeng

| January/February 2012 Issue

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If Citizens United was the Big Bang of a new era of money in politics, here's the parallel universe it formed: rapidly expanding super-PACs and nebulous 501(c) groups exerting their gravitational pull on federal elections. A group's size in the chart below is based upon all known fundraising or spending since 2010…so keep an eye out for dark matter. Come back for regular updates.

 Source of financial data: Center for Responsive Politics, GuideStar. Data as of November 16, 2011.