This article in the Connecticut Post examines the money being raised in the battle for the House seat in the 4th district.  Incumbent Chris Shays (R) is facing Democratic challenger Jim Himes and both men are taking in huge sums of money from Wall Street heavyweights.  This big money war for a seat in Congress is a sharp contrast to what's going on with races for Connecticut's state legislature this year, where most candidates are participating in the new Clean Elections public financing program.

Much of the four and half million dollars Shays and Himes have combined to raise has come right off the Street:

Himes' single biggest source of contributions came from Goldman Sachs employees and their spouses. He collected at least $114,000 from them and more than $10,000 each from Deutsche Bank AG, JPMorgan Chase & Co., Lehman Brothers, Morgan Stanley and Emdeon Corp., according to the Center for Responsive Politics.


Shays' top contributor - at $20,200 - is New York Life Insurance. He has also collected at least $10,000 from UST Inc., Goldman Sachs, Dawson-Herman Capital Management, Credit Suisse Group, Kamber Management, UBS AG, Pitney Bowes and Purdue Pharma, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.


Shays raised nearly $1.7 million from individual contributors and nearly $700,000 from Political Action Committees. Himes raised just over $1.9 million from individuals, nearly $140,000 from PACs, and contributed $28,288 of his own money, according to FEC filings.

Public Campaign's President and CEO Nick Nyhart is quoted at length in the article on the contrast between the Himes-Shays money match up and the majority of candidates for the Connecticut legislature who have opted out of the big money fight and are running with Clean Elections public funding:

 

"The contrast couldn't be greater," says Nick Nyhart, executive director of Public Campaign Action Fund.


Under Connecticut's relatively new law, candidates for the General Assembly can qualify for public funding after passing a relatively low threshold of contributions from within the district. There is an incentive in seeking even $5 contributions that does not exist on the federal level. And it has shown signs of working, he says.


"At the federal level, the reverse is true," Nyhart says.


Congressional candidates need to raise so much money that they have no choice but to chase larger contributions from the very small pool of individuals willing to give $200 or more to a political campaign, he says.


"You can't be competitive against an incumbent in a swing seat unless you raise lots of money. And you don't do that unless you go after large contributions," Nyhart says.

The article also notes that while Himes has signed the Voters First Pledge (our sister organization, Public Campaign Action Fund is one of the coalition of organizations responsible for the pledge) Shays has not yet.