By Peter Ricci

The National Association of Realtors spends quite a bit of money advocating Realtor issues, and nowhere are its expenses more prominent than in the realm of politics. In 2012 alone, NAR contributed $2.92 million to political candidates across the country, according to OpenSecrets.

Now that the election has come and gone, though, we thought it prudent to revisit what political candidates, both locally and nationally, NAR supported – and how they fared on election day.

NAR’s Local Political Candidates

The political candidates that NAR supported in the Miami area received hefty sums of money in their reelection bids, and the results of the elections were universally in NAR’s favor:

• Debbie Wasserman Shultz,  a Democrat in Florida’s 23rd district, received $10,000 from NAR, the most of any politician in the Sunshine State, and she won reelection with two-thirds of the vote.
• Bill Nelson, Florida’s Democratic Senator, received $8,000 from NAR, and he sailed to reelection for his third term in the Senate.
• Mario Diaz-Balart, a Republican in the 25th district, received $5,000 from NAR and won with 75.6 percent of the vote.
• Alcee L. Hastings, the Democrat in the 20th district, won handily with 88 percent of the vote; Hastings had received $4,000 in funds from NAR.
• Finally, Republican Ileana Ros-Lentinen of the 18th district, won with nearly 60 percent of the vote, and received $3,000 from NAR.

NAR’s National Political Candidates

The five highest recipients of funds from NAR on the national stage all won in their respective congressional races. Janice Hahn (D-CA), Robert Hurt (R-VA) and Marc Veasey (D-TX) all received $15,000 for their campaigns for the House of Representatives, while Michael G Fitzpatrick (R-PA) and Mark Amodei (R-NV), who also campaigned for the House, received respective amounts of $14,500 and $13,000.