Who's who among Virginia political donors

Virginia is a bit of an exhibitionist. We keep an election calendar that’s opposite to every other state but New Jersey. Habits we’ve held forever–like always electing a Democratic majority to our legislature and always voting for the Republican presidential candidate–we’ve overturned in the last decade.

Pundits like to say Virginia is a bellwether state. If we are indeed the country’s thermometer, it’s especially interesting to look at who’s investing in races here. The top 10 donors to the 2009 Virginia races were:

1. AFSCME: $2,420,136

2. U.S. Chamber of Commerce: $972,877

3. Dominion Resources: $739,886

4. Edward Hart Rice: $694,350

5. Virginia Association of Realtors: $674,820

6. Communication Workers of America: $537,007

7. Service Employees International Union: $508,871

8. Altria: $429,520

9. Consumer Litigation Associates: $423,143

10. Virginia AFL-CIO: $411,475

Certainly there’s a lot of fodder here for talking heads.

[Continue reading Paige Winfield Cunningham's post here at Old Dominion Watchdog.]

Paige Winfield Cunningham is an investigative reporter and managing editor at Old Dominion Watchdog. The Local Blog Network is a group of bloggers from around the D.C. region who have agreed to make regular contributions to All Opinions Are Local.