INSTITUTE INDEX: Following Art Pope's money
Amount of money that Art Pope, a discount-store millionaire and North Carolina's leading conservative benefactor, has pumped into his favorite causes over the past decade: $40 million
Amount of the total that went to a network of North Carolina think tanks and advocacy groups that push ultra-conservative views: $35 million
Amount of the total that went directly into state and national politics: $3 million
Total estimated value of Pope's family foundation, which draws its wealth from Variety Wholesalers, a discount retail company: nearly $150 million
Median household income in the neighborhoods the company favors for its stores: $40,000
Minimum percentage of African-Americans in the neighborhoods the company targets: 25
Amount Pope has invested in Americans for Prosperity, a national conservative advocacy group and a force behind the tea party movement, and on whose board of directors he serves: $2.2 million
Amount he has invested in the John Locke Foundation, a conservative North Carolina think tank he co-founded and on whose board he serves: $19.7 million
Percent of the John Locke Foundation's income over the past decade that Pope's contributions represent: 79
Amount Pope contributed during that same period to the Civitas Institute, another conservative think tank: $8 million
To the N.C. Institute for Constitutional Law: $3.3 million
To the Pope Center for Higher Education: $3 million
Percent of the budgets of those four North Carolina groups provided by Pope: over 90
Amount that three independent groups backed by Art Pope -- Americans for Prosperity, Civitas Action and Real Jobs NC -- spent supporting Republicans in 22 N.C. legislative races in 2010: nearly $2 million
Amount donated to those three groups by Variety Wholesalers: at least $470,000
Amount contributed to 19 of those legislative races by Pope and his family members: $252,000
Percent of those races won by Republicans: 78
Percent of the outside spending in the 2010 N.C. election that came from groups connected to Pope: 75
Last time both houses of the N.C. legislature, captured by the Republicans in that election, were controlled by the GOP: 1870
Current number of Democrats in North Carolina's congressional delegation: 7
Number of Republicans: 6
Number of those Democrats whose seats have been put at risk because of how the GOP legislature re-drew the electoral maps in the redistricting process: 4
(Click on figure to go to source. To learn more about Art Pope, visit ArtPopeExposed.com. You can also follow on Twitter at @ArtPopeExposed.)
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