Follow the Money: Massachusetts in Congress
Tonight we're following the money for the four Massachusetts Democrats in Congress: Senators Ed Markey and Elizabeth Warren, and Representatives Jim McGovern and Richard Neal.
Quick note first. I live in Northampton, so my congressman is Jim McGovern, in the Second District. Richard Neal represents the First District next door. I'm including him because his numbers make a useful comparison.
Everything here comes from public records: the Federal Election Commission, and VoteView, a database of every vote in Congress. Anyone can look these up.
Richard Neal (MA-01): PAC-heavy
In 2024 he raised about $3.3 million. About $2.4 million of that, nearly three out of every four dollars, came from political action committees, or PACs. Neal sits on Ways and Means, the committee that writes the tax code. PAC money tends to follow power.
Elizabeth Warren: small donors
Warren is the opposite. In 2024 she raised about $9 million, and about $8.7 million came from individual people. More than $7 million came in donations under $200. Her PAC money was just under $60,000, a rounding error.
Ed Markey: the 2026 surge
Markey is up for re-election in 2026, and his fundraising has jumped. He's raised about $6 million so far this cycle, up from about $1.5 million last time. His PAC money went from about $112,000 to about $690,000. His donors are also getting less local. The share of his itemized donations from Massachusetts dropped from about 52% to about 45%.
Jim McGovern (MA-02, Northampton): a balanced mix
McGovern has raised about $1 million this cycle, roughly $300,000 of it from PACs. More than half of his itemized donors live right here in Massachusetts.
The votes
Markey and Warren almost always vote together. In this Congress they've cast the same yes or no on 892 votes. They split on only two, both on a single nomination in March 2025. On votes where most Democrats and most Republicans took opposite sides, all four lawmakers voted with their party about 99% of the time.
What this tells us
It shows how the money comes in. Some lawmakers rely on PACs, others on small donors, and some are drawing more money from out of state. It doesn't prove anyone traded a vote for a donation. These are patterns, not proof of wrongdoing.
But you have a right to know who funds the people who represent you. Look up your own representatives at fec.gov, and ask them the hard questions.
Sources: Federal Election Commission candidate summaries and PAC contribution files (fec.gov), OpenFEC, and VoteView roll-call data (voteview.com).