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Who pays for the political conventions?

The Democratic National Convention is expected to cost $67 million. That's $10 million more than the cost of the 2012 convention and $51 million more than the 2000 convention.

<p>The 2016 DNC is expected to cost $67 million.</p>

The Democratic National Convention is expected to cost $67 million. That’s $10 million more than the cost of the 2012 convention and $51 million more than the 2000 convention.

So who pays for it?

While the numbers for the 2016 convention aren’t yet available, a Public Interest Research Group report shows that corporations paid for most the the 2012 DNC:

$5.6 million came from Duke Energy.
$5.2 million from Bank of America.
$1.2 million from AT&T.
$600,000 from Time Warner Cable.
$500,000 from Wells Fargo.

The price tag for the GOP convention, meanwhile, was expected to be $81 million. That party’s 2012 convention also was funded by corporations:

$3 million from AT&T.
$2 million from the American Petroleum Institute.
$1.5 million from Microsoft.
$1 million each from Bank of America and Met Life.

Millions of dollars went to pay for event production costs. One contractor for the 2012 RNC was paid $750,000; another was paid $630,000. Seven different vendors each received $100,000.

Venues also aren’t cheap. Arena rental for the 2012 DNC cost $4.5 million.

Finance reports for the 2016 conventions won’t be available for several weeks. However, this will be the first year that neither the DNC nor the RNC received public money for event production. The federal government did spend $50 million on security for each convention.

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