CNN 2010-11-01

All right, forget Fridays. That was awesome 1! Thank you guys so much for submitting that! We've got 10 minutes of commercial-free headlines before we hit the yellow brick road, so let's go ahead and get rolling!

Four days! That's all the time that midterm candidates have left to convince Americans to vote for them. Win or lose in next Tuesday's midterm elections, running for office comes at a price. You've got to produce TV ads, you've got to make signs, pay a staff. All of that adds up. Dana Bash takes us out on the campaign trail to look at the money trail and see how much is being spent and where it's all coming from.

Sure, there's a lot of money flowing in this year's election. But exactly how much being spent is mind blowing: $4 billion dollars. To put $4 billion in context, that's enough to send about 80,000 students to Princeton for a year. It could buy every person in America three Big Macs with fries at McDonald's. Four billion is far more than the $2.85 billion spent in the last midterm election in 2006, and dwarfs 2 the $1.61 billion spent little more than a decade ago in 1998. OpenSecrets.org compiled the figures in a new report.

The stakes are so high this cycle that it's not surprising that there's an intensity 3 to this cycle that was perhaps reduced or missing in the last cycles.

Though much of the four billion is spent by candidates themselves, an eyepopping amount is coming from outside candidates' campaigns; political parties and independent groups. $430 million dollars in overall outside spending. Only $31 million was spent in 2002, less than a decade ago.

And despite Democrats 4' complaints about being outspent, when it comes to political parties, Democrats are winning. All told, the Democratic Party has raised $782 million dollars. A lot more than the Republican Party, at $515 million. But GOP outside groups, with ads like this, are making up for that gap and then some. Although Democratic groups are catching 5 up, they're being outspent by GOP counterparts 2-1.

Another fascinating 2010 trend: key industries moving campaign cash from Democrats to Republicans. Take the health care sector 6. When the president took office, two thirds of its dollars were going to Democrats. Since health care passed, the industry is giving 60% to Republicans. The same goes for money from Wall Street and the energy sector. Just last year, both gave mostly to Democrats. Now, 67% of Wall Street money goes to Republicans. The energy sector: 74% to Republicans.

I think they've got their finger in the air. I think they're looking at the changing poll numbers and seeing that the Republicans have a clear shot at taking the majority, particularly in the House.