Michigan Senate 2026: Rogers vs. El-Sayed money by industry

8. Methodology

What this page measures

Two kinds of money, kept apart: (1) contributions from PACs and other political committees directly to the Rogers and El-Sayed campaigns, cycle to date; (2) the receipt lines of the super PACs that have made independent expenditures in this race since primary day, which are national lists covering every race those committees are active in. Spending comes from the race page's independent-expenditure ledger. Receipts and spending are never summed. Only section 2 connects donor lists to Michigan spending, by proportion, and it is labeled an estimate throughout.

Taxonomy

Classification rules (from the classification file, verbatim)

1. PAC type comes from the FEC Form 1 first (organization type, designation, connected organization, leadership sponsor); research fills gaps and is cited.
2. corporate_pac = company-connected PAC (company, mutual, cooperative or professional firm, or firm-run PAC). business_interest_pac = corporate_pac plus trade, professional, business-membership and industry-run PACs.
3. Industry uses a two-level sector/industry scheme modeled on OpenSecrets; assignments are ours. Conglomerates are coded by dominant business or as diversified holding companies.
4. Individuals: industry follows the reported employer when it is an operating business; otherwise (status, self-employed, government post, family office, unidentified entity, or plainly not the source of the gift) the documented source of wealth is used and stated in industry_basis and documented_affiliation. The two single-issue rules below take precedence.
5. Single-issue committees: every contribution to a committee run by a single-issue group, or whose stated purpose is one issue, is coded to that issue whatever the donor's business, with the label "Verified: single-issue committee"; the donor's business stays in industry_per_filing and documented_affiliation. Of the seven super PACs here, only United Democracy Project (AIPAC's super PAC) qualifies (see single_issue_review).
6. Single-issue donors: an individual whose political giving is documented, in the donor's own public statements or in reporting by at least two independent news organizations, as driven mainly by one issue in the Ideological/Single-Issue sector is coded to that issue for every gift, with the sources linked and the business kept in documented_affiliation. Religion, ethnicity, national origin, charitable giving and memberships are never evidence on their own, and a broad ideology is not one issue. Checked for every individual who gave $500,000 or more to the Rogers-side committees other than UDP and every individual who gave $100,000 or more to the El-Sayed-side committees; only Miriam Adelson met it (see single_issue_review).
7. receipt_nature separates contributions from interest income, refunds, a tax refund, liquidation proceeds, a contribution refunded to its donor and line 12 transfers; industry totals should count contributions only.
8. Every line carries one confidence label, defined in confidence_label_definitions. "Medium" and "Researched, not identified" lines are deliberate and are not upgraded without new evidence; lines coded under the single-issue committee rule carry that rule's label instead, and their notes keep any doubt about who the donor is.
9. Money is classified at its immediate source; 501(c)(4) and committee transfers are not traced to their own donors. Super PAC donor lists are national, not Michigan-specific.
10. Donor flags, shown beside the industry and never added to any total: a line is flagged "Pro-Israel donor" or "Pro-Palestine donor" when the donor is itself an advocacy group coded to that issue, when the gift went to a committee coded to that issue (every UDP gift), when FEC records show the donor also gave to or through one of the committees listed for that issue in donor_flags.networks (matched by surname, first name and ZIP code, with a labeled same-state fallback), or when donor_flags.researched lists a sourced record. A flag describes the donor's record, not the purpose of each dollar. Religion, ethnicity, national origin, charity and business ties never count.

Single-issue review

From the classification file's single-issue review. Single-issue committee rule, each super PAC in this race:

• United Democracy Project (UDP): yes (Pro-Israel). AIPAC's super PAC; it backs candidates who support the U.S.-Israel relationship (FactCheck.org, Aug. 2026). Source: factcheck.org.
• Senate Leadership Fund (SLF PAC): no. Super PAC aligned with the Senate Republican leadership; it backs Republican Senate candidates.
• Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action): no. Super PAC of Americans for Prosperity, a multi-issue conservative network.
• Great Lakes Conservatives Fund (GLCF, Inc.): no. Super PAC backing Rogers (Michigan Advance, Aug. 2025). Source: michiganadvance.com.
• WinSenate: no. Democratic Senate super PAC; all of its listed funding is transfers from Senate Majority PAC.
• Defend The Vote: no. Backs Democratic candidates it calls "pro-democracy champions" (The Hill); a broad partisan cause, not one issue. Source: yahoo.com.
• Fighting for Michigan PAC: no. Super PAC backing El-Sayed, with several progressive groups involved (Axios, June 2026). Source: axios.com.

Single-issue donor rule, met:

• Miriam Adelson: met (Pro-Israel). Trump credited her and her late husband with shaping his decisions on Jerusalem, the embassy move and the Golan Heights (Reuters, Oct. 2025); she suggested she might want Trump to push for annexation of the West Bank (the Forward, May 2024, citing New York magazine); a pro-Israel mega-donor (Al Jazeera, Oct. 2025); the driver of the couple's political giving, including the push to move the embassy (Times of Israel, 2019, citing the Guardian). Sources: gvwire.com, forward.com, aljazeera.com, timesofisrael.com.

Single-issue donor rule, not met (examples):

• Paul Singer: not met. Several documented causes rather than one: same-sex marriage (including the American Unity super PAC and fund he launched), groups pushing a hawkish Iran policy, and a seat on the Republican Jewish Coalition board. His gift to UDP is coded Pro-Israel by the committee rule. Sources: ballotpedia.org, thenation.com.
• Marc Rowan: not met. Most of his political money has gone to Republican groups and candidates. His gift to UDP is coded Pro-Israel by the committee rule. Sources: thedp.com, theintercept.com.
• Timothy Dunn: not met. Described as a major financier of far-right political causes in Texas and beyond; a broad ideology is not one issue. Source: michiganadvance.com.

Every individual who gave $500,000 or more in total to the Rogers-side committees other than UDP (42 donors) and every individual who gave $100,000 or more in total to the El-Sayed-side committees (9 donors; none gave $500,000). Gifts to UDP are covered by the committee rule.

Checked (51): Miriam Adelson, Stephen A. Schwarzman, Paul Singer, Elon Musk, Kenneth C. Griffin, Jim C. Walton, S. Robson (Rob) Walton, Stephen A. Wynn, Timothy M Dunn, J. Christopher Reyes, M. Jude Reyes, Craig Duchossois, Ronald Cameron, Marc Rowan, Anthony Ressler, K. Rupert Murdoch, Wayne L. Laufer, Roger Penske, Ethelyn L. Haworth, Kenneth G. Langone, Richard G. Haworth, Gideon Powell, David K. Reyes, Elizabeth Uihlein, Michael Smith, Richard Baxter Gilliam, Robert Granieri, Warren A. Stephens, Yash Sandesara, Byron D. Trott, Cameron Winklevoss, Daniel G. Devos, Don Brodie, Douglas L. Devos, James S. Davis, Jared T. Isaacman, John F. Fish, Jonathan Jacobson, Marlene M. Ricketts, Richard Devos, Suzanne Cheryl Devos, Tyler Winklevoss, Allen Liu, Jukaku Tayeb, Mansoor Ahmed, Saikat Chakrabarti, Susan Sarofim, Natasha Chokhani, Connell William, Marwan Nafal, Rafiq Mohammadi.

Donor flags

Donor flags, shown beside the industry and never added to any total: a line is flagged "Pro-Israel donor" or "Pro-Palestine donor" when the donor is itself an advocacy group coded to that issue, when the gift went to a committee coded to that issue (every UDP gift), when FEC records show the donor also gave to or through one of the committees listed for that issue in donor_flags.networks (matched by surname, first name and ZIP code, with a labeled same-state fallback), or when donor_flags.researched lists a sourced record. A flag describes the donor's record, not the purpose of each dollar. Religion, ethnicity, national origin, charity and business ties never count.

Researched records were added for donors who also gave to United Democracy Project under a different name spelling or address (found by comparing this file's lists), for Edward C. Levy (found on the Michigan general-election page's AIPAC donor list) and for Miriam Adelson (single-issue donor rule). Every other FEC match is computed by the site from the committees in donor_flags.networks and shown with its match tier.

One flag per donor line, by the strongest basis that applies, in this order:

1. Advocacy group coded to the issue
2. Gift to a committee coded to the issue
3. Researched record
4. FEC match: same name and ZIP code (FEC cross-match, below)
5. FEC match: same name and state (FEC cross-match, below)

Networks (committee IDs and the start date from the classification file; each committee's individual receipts read from its own FEC reports the way section 7.9b of the race page reads AIPAC PAC's: direct and earmarked lines, netted, memo entries excluded):

• Pro-Israel donor, receipts since January 1, 2023: AIPAC PAC (C00797670): 44 reports, coverage January 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026, 94,231 individual receipt lines, 18,211 identities; United Democracy Project (UDP), AIPAC's super PAC (C00799031): 24 reports, coverage January 1, 2023 to August 31, 2026, 2,747 individual receipt lines, 1,160 identities; NORPAC (C00247403): 45 reports, coverage January 1, 2023 to September 30, 2026, 5,321 individual receipt lines, 2,148 identities; Republican Jewish Coalition PAC (RJC-PAC) (C00345132): 19 reports, coverage January 1, 2023 to June 30, 2026, 9,261 individual receipt lines, 1,711 identities.
• Pro-Palestine donor, receipts since January 1, 2023: A New Policy PAC (C00876904): 9 reports, coverage April 1, 2024 to June 30, 2026, 223 individual receipt lines, 132 identities; ACMER MERIT PAC (American Committee for Middle East Rights) (C00945550): 4 reports, coverage January 1, 2026 to August 31, 2026, 4 individual receipt lines, 4 identities. MCARE and Emgage PACs are coded to the same industry but are Muslim-American civic and civil-rights committees, not Palestine-focused, so they are not in this network.

Researched records:

• Miriam Adelson (Pro-Israel donor; Senate Leadership Fund (SLF PAC)): Documented record: her political giving is documented as driven by Israel (single-issue donor rule). Sources: gvwire.com, forward.com, aljazeera.com, timesofisrael.com. Line: Miriam Adelson (Adelson Drug Clinic), row 2.
• Paul Singer (Pro-Israel donor; Great Lakes Conservatives Fund (GLCF, Inc.), Senate Leadership Fund (SLF PAC)): Gave $2.6 million to United Democracy Project this cycle (his UDP line on this list). His SLF and GLCF lines give a Florida address and his UDP line a New York one, so a name and ZIP match would miss them. Sources: fec.gov. Lines: Paul Elliott Singer (Emc), row 4; Paul Singer (Elliott Management), row 1,254.
• Marc Rowan (Pro-Israel donor; Great Lakes Conservatives Fund (GLCF, Inc.), Senate Leadership Fund (SLF PAC)): Gave $1.5 million to United Democracy Project this cycle (his UDP line on this list). His GLCF line gives a Connecticut address. Sources: fec.gov. Lines: Marc Rowan (Apollo Mgmt), row 23; Marc J. Rowan (Apollo Management), row 1,276.
• Jonathon Jacobson (Pro-Israel donor; Senate Leadership Fund (SLF PAC)): Gave $1 million to United Democracy Project this cycle (his UDP line on this list). This SLF line spells his name Jonathan and gives his family office, Highsage Ventures. Sources: fec.gov, en.wikipedia.org, investing.com, fec.gov, altss.com. Line: Jonathan Jacobson (Highsage Ventures), row 54.
• Andrew Lappin (Pro-Israel donor; Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action)): Gave $120,000 to United Democracy Project this cycle (two UDP lines on this list, same firm, Shetland Properties). Sources: fec.gov. Line: Andrew Lappin (Shetland), row 273.
• Edward C. Levy (Pro-Israel donor; Americans for Prosperity Action (AFP Action)): Gave $355,100 to or through AIPAC PAC since 2023: the Michigan general-election page's AIPAC donor list matches him by name, ZIP code and employer (Edw. C. Levy Co.). Sources: fec.gov, votelog.org. Line: Edward C. Levy (Edw. C. Levy Co.), row 220.

A name and ZIP match can miss a donor who gave from another address and can, rarely, join two people with the same name in the same ZIP code; same-state matches are weaker and labeled. Overlap with a network says nothing about who directed any gift.

FEC cross-match, computed October 15, 2026, 2:55 PM ET: 5,435 individual lines on 8 donor lists (5,658 lines in all), 5,435 with a usable name and address, 653 matching a network. Pro-Israel donor: 577 lines ($44,554,522 on the lists) at the same name and ZIP code tier, 73 lines ($7,611,874 on the lists) at the same name and state tier; Pro-Palestine donor: 3 lines ($20,000 on the lists) at the same name and ZIP code tier, 0 lines ($0 on the lists) at the same name and state tier. Lines matching both networks: 0. C00799031's own list was not matched against itself. A matched line's network committee and amount are shown in the "Donor flag" column even when a stronger basis supplies the flag.

Flags shown on this page, by basis (contribution lines on the super PAC donor lists; amounts are those lines' own totals, national, not Michigan spending):

Confidence labels in the current data

Every line on this page carries the label the classification file assigns it. Labels are never upgraded here: a Medium line stays Medium, a "Researched, not identified" line stays unidentified, and an unmatched line is "Not yet classified". Counts are lines in the current race data (donor-list lines include the non-contribution and transfer lines of section 6).

Matching the classification file to the race data

• direct PACs: Match on candidate and committee_id. Committee name is supplied for identification.
• donor-list lines: Match on committee_id, donor, employer and occupation, copied exactly from the source export. Empty strings remain empty. Repeated identical keys have identical classification fields.
• unmatched lines: a line in the race data with no exact match in the classification file is shown as Not yet classified with its amount, is never given an industry or a receipt nature, and is carried in section 2 as its own row. A line in the classification file with no counterpart in the current race data is not shown.
• amounts: every dollar figure comes from the race page's current data snapshot; the classification file supplies labels only.

Sources

• direct PAC contributions: the race page's data snapshot (pacDirect), generated October 12, 2026, 4:49 PM ET; FEC committee-to-candidate file, types 24K and 24Z.
• super PAC donor lines: the race page's donor tables, exported line by line as superpac-donors.csv (the classification file records SHA-256 b399b33dd5590b57b347f68eb5503ebd2f1913bf87b9fd4f0bda7b1329e8d310, which matches the file served today); entity type and state from the snapshot, matched line for line.
• PAC type and connected organization: FEC committee records (Form 1 data: organization type, designation, connected organization, leadership sponsor) retrieved October 14, 2026 for all 214 committees in the direct lists; gaps filled by cited research.
• donor research: FEC Schedule A receipts, two-year period 2026: non-individual receipts for SLF, AFP Action, GLCF, WinSenate, Defend The Vote; line 12/15/17 checks for UDP and Fighting for Michigan PAC; FEC attribution memos for LLC and trust donors, on the receiving super PAC's report or on other committees' reports of gifts from the same entity (looked up Oct. 14, 2026); public sources are linked per line in the evidence columns.
• race data: Michigan Senate general-election money page (independent expenditures, two-way attribution, super PAC donor tables and the direct PAC list), snapshot generated October 12, 2026, 4:49 PM ET.

Scope and limits

• Super PAC donor lists are national. No donor-list total on this page is Michigan spending, and no figure outside section 2 relates donors to this race.
• Industry totals count Contribution lines only. Transfers between political committees and money from 501(c)(4) organizations are not traced to the people behind them.
• An individual donor's employer identifies the donor's industry; it is not a contribution by that employer.
• Direct PAC contributions follow the race page's rule: FEC transaction types 24K and 24Z, memo entries excluded, the candidate's own authorized committees left out.
• Section 2 is a proportional estimate. Committees whose donors are not itemized or not in the page tables are shown as a separate row, not distributed.
• Donor-list cutoff dates differ by committee (section 3) and lag the spending reports; the "spent as share of listed funding" column exceeds 100% when they do.

How this page updates

Spending, two-way totals and donor lists come from the race page's data snapshot, which is refreshed on that page's schedule through the election. Sections 1 to 7 are recomputed from the race page's current data whenever it refreshes, so the estimate in section 2 always sums to the race page's current totals. The classification file changes only when a new version is published; its date is in the header.

Downloads

• Classification file (JSON) (5.2 MB): every direct PAC and donor line with sector, industry, PAC type, receipt nature, confidence, notes and evidence links; classification date October 14, 2026. SHA-256 580de33f2276b27e29f9e6c73e15f324cefb04370b99f60ebb1779ba28ef9501.
• Super PAC donor lines (CSV): the race page's donor tables, line by line, as served today. SHA-256 b399b33dd5590b57b347f68eb5503ebd2f1913bf87b9fd4f0bda7b1329e8d310, which matches the checksum recorded in the classification file.
• Flagged donor lines (CSV): every flagged line of the super PAC donor lists with committee, donor, employer, occupation, state, amount, flag, basis, match tier, network committee and network amount (the network columns are filled for every FEC-matched line, including lines whose flag rests on a stronger basis).
• Race data snapshot (JSON): the race page's full data, including the independent-expenditure ledger and the two-way totals used here.