Could you please provide me with some data concerning where the money comes
from to pay for U.S. Senatorial races? I've learned that the average
race costs $4.6M (is that for the winner, or an average of both
campaigns?)

But where does the $4.6M come from? Personal funds, union and business
PACs, and Internet fundraising would account for a lot. Is there data
that describes how much comes from expensive fund-raising dinners vs
contributions from individuals (that are limited to $2,000 per
person). How much do working stiffs contribute or is this all
big-money fund-raising now?

I'm mostly interested in averages, but a few representative examples
would be useful as well.

I would also be interested in similar data for the U.S. House of
Representatives as a point of contrast but the Senate is my main interest.

By the way, how are these questions doled out? How can I get Google to
assign someone to this so that I get as thourough an answer as I can afford? I
think the way the system works now is that often free comments are contributed
(which is nice) but then after a few comments the question is only
partly answered--but perhaps answered enough so that no one else takes the
bull by the horn to complete the answer and collect the
reward. 

Maybe this service is best for "brightline" questions and not for
general research issues for which there is no clear answer or stopping
point. For instance, here I just want someone to invest $20 of time
researching  this--if there is no clear answer, so be it. It's worth
$20 to know that. Is there a different service I should use for this
type of more open-ended questions?

Thanks.

Are you familiar with this website? An amazing amount of data related
to the financing of political campaigns is available here:
 
http://www.opensecrets.org/

PinkFreud--
Thanks for that information. That's a pretty amazing site. But you
kind of prove my point, in that it will take me a long time to find my
answer there. (I didn't see any mention of averages anywhere--they
like to give all the specifics.) Going to a site like that is like
doing a Google search and getting 1,000 hits, unsorted by relevancy.

needtoknowit --

I have not found information on the average contributions to House and
Senate political campaigns from individuals and PACs, but here are
links to two pages from the website of the Federal Elections
Commission that breaks such contribution data out for all Senate and
House elections in 2000 on a state-by-state basis:

F.E.C.: 2000 House Campaign Summaries - Candidates Listed by State and District 
http://www.fec.gov/2000/state99.htm

F.E.C.: 2000 Senate Campaigns - Candidates Listed by State 
http://www.fec.gov/2000/state20.htm

This data is not subdivided into types of individual contributions
(e.g., Internet-based), but it does break the data down for each race
into "Individual" and "PAC" contributions.  (The "Non-Party" category
in the Senate data is essentially identical to "PAC" data.)

Based on your question and comment, I doubt whether this level of
generality, and the lack of national averages, meets your needs, but I
hope you find it useful.

markj-ga