During West Virginia‘s 2008 election cycle, the union and lawyer/lobbyist industries flexed their money muscles, pumping a combined $1,321,672 into state-level campaigns.

This data comes from a combined project of the National Institute on Money in State Politics and the Center for Responsive Politics.

“A groundbreaking collaboration…created this unique view of the top 10,000 political donors to campaigns at both the state and national level. Top donors consist of companies, labor organizations, and special interest groups. Totals include money given by employees, subsidiaries, and/or locals affiliated with the donor.”

Approximately $13 million poured into West Virginia’s elections. 19.5 percent of that total came from 150 of the top 10,000 national contributors, totaling $2,509,056. West Virginia Watchdog compiled the full list of contributors to Mountain State elections, which is displayed at the end of this post. The report below ranks contributor by which gave the most to West Virginia and lists the donors by their national ranking, name and industry, West Virginia total, total state-level giving, federal total, and combined total.

We compiled some of the highlights from this report into two hand graphs. In the first graph shows we took the top 20 donors, broke them down into their respective industries, and show which industries gave the most to West Virginia politicians. The lawyer/lobbyist industry won hands down, donating $859,069. Unions gave half of that, donating $462,603. The business association industry, however, only coughed up $45,350.

Out of the top five West Virginia donors, the top four spots when to unions. The West Virginia Building and Construction Trades Council paid out $153,500 in campaign donations, the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners gave $137,400, the Laborers International Union of North America gave $136,350, and the American Federation of Teachers spent $136,350.

Below is the report, showing 150 of the top 10,000 national contributors and their donations to West Virginia campaigns during the 2008 election cycle.

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