On July 2nd, campaigns were furiously assembling their finance reports due by close of business.  Since then, we’ve been working on giving voters a peek into which candidates have the most union backing.  Not surprisingly, most of the union sponsorship ends up helping Democratic candidates in “races to watch”, as named in both The Colorado Statesman and The Colorado Observer.  The candidate with the most union “investment” is (drumroll) State Senator Evie Hudak, who has taken at least $15,250 from unions.  We wish we could say we were surprised. Please congratulate Ms. Hudak next time you see her on her big win.

Here is our top ten list, plus five honorable mentions.  A quick note about these figures – these numbers are simply the donations we could clearly identify as unions.  With the complex state and federal campaign finance rules, more union money may be out there, so this is not meant to be an all-encompassing figure, but merely a snapshot of direct union contributions.

SD19: Hudak ($15,250)
HD3: Kagan ($13,450)
SD22: A. Kerr ($13050)
SD26: Newell ($10,450)
SD25: Hodge ($9,250)
SD17: M. Jones ($9,000)
HD36: Ryden ($8,700)
HD29: Kraft-Tharp ($7,975)
HD50: Young ($7,950)
HD33: Primavera ($7,650)

Honorable Mentions:
SD21: Uliberri ($7,500)
HD18: P. Lee ($5,800)
HD35: Peniston ($5,200)
HD47: Rodosevich ($5,000)
HD17: Exum ($4508)

To see which unions supported which candidates, please view the chart below.