Guess who’s getting the big-money donations in the Maine U.S. Senate race?

Just in time for July 4th, Tom Ferguson, Paul Jorgensen, Matthias Lalisse, and Jie Chen share the above graph and write: What can one Senate race reveal about the hidden machinery of American politics? In Maine, donor patterns expose how campaign finance can shape party competition, political narratives, and the choices voters are asked to make long before ballots are counted. . . . Platner is strongly supported by Senator Bernie Sanders and other progressives, while many establishment Democrats dislike him. Major media keep printing articles questioning his character. By contrast, Collins’ somewhat contradictory legislative history attracts less coverage. . . . Our tabulations of the race show that Collins is much closer to a typical Republican pattern (or, to be fair, those of the Old Guard Democratic leaders [Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer, along with Paul Ryan and Mitch McConnell]) in a key respect: the size profile of her donors. . . . The Republican Senator from Maine is hugely…