I recently looked into the campaign contributions to a few senators as part of a short paper I was writing critiquing the assertion of Robert Dahl, and others, that rural senators consistently overrepresent rural interests. Obviously a few graphs like those below don’t constitute an empirical refutation of such a claim (and indeed I believe there is no single answer to this–some interests may be overrepresented and others may be underrepresented) but they do cast some doubt on the idea that senators always look to the best interest of their states.
Being from Montana and hearing from relatives anecdotal stories about the outrage over his health care bill back home, I couldn’t resist looking at Max’s record. I present the graphs below without editorial comment, because I believe they speak for themselves. All data was found quickly and easily thanks to OpenSecrets.org .
Update: Here is a post by Nate Silver over at 538 talking about a similar analysis of the sources of campaign contribution for small state senators.
