GOP-leaning SuperPACs received a poor return on investment this year. (Photo from 401K 2012)
By Ashley Lopez
Florida Center for Investigative Reporting
Outside spending groups such as super PACs spent millions on this most recent general election, particularly in swing states like Florida. But the Sunlight Foundation found that many of the groups assisting Republican candidates received abysmal returns on investment.
Groups like American Crossroads, for example, did terribly — particularly so in Florida.
Crossroads, the well-funded Super PAC created by Karl Rove, paid for an onslaught of TV ads aimed at ousting President Obama and Sen. Bill Nelson.
Yet both candidates were re-elected.
According to the Sunlight Foundation, only 1.29 percent of the $103 million Crossroads spent in the general election ended “in the desired result” for Rove’s super PAC.
Crossroads was, by far, one of the best-funded super PACs in the country. However, it fell spectacularly short in getting results.
According to Sunlight:
Turns out some of the smart money wasn’t so smart after all when it came to making political bets. This year, the pro-business GOP Crossroads fundraising combine and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce weren’t as good at picking winners as the labor movement, which appears to be one of the surprise winners of Election Day.
In comparison, the Service Employees International Union spent $14.6 million from one super PAC in campaigns arounds the country and saw a 73.99 percent win rate of campaigns supported. Another SEIU super PAC did even better, seeing wins in 84.65 percent of the campaigns it spent a total of $15.2 million supporting.
Other GOP-leaning groups had a meager batting average. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce had 6.9 percent win rate of campaigns supported.