As Kossacks undoubtedly know, the Presidential campaigns recently reported information about their finances. Yesterday Adam B wrote a front page post detailing large and small dollar contributions to each of the Democratic Presidential campaigns.
In this diary, I analyze geographic information about campaign donations to Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards. My apologies to supporters of the other Democratic candidates; I simply didn't have the time to look at everyone. I look at who raised the most money in each state, who raised the second-most, and the extent of the difference between the first place and second place fundraiser.
I also try to understand geographic patterns of donations as a proxy for regional support. I look at whether candidates are performing well across a geographically close group of states and, when appropriate, take into account the marginal advantage the top fundraiser has over his or her closest competitor. I also look at how candidates are performing (money-wise) in swing states.
Because I didn't find the NYTimes page that easy to use, I use data reported by open secrets. I believe it is the new data. If not, this is a very thorough breakdown of last quarter. ;)
Overall
To look at each candidates overall base of support, I counted the number of states where each candidate was the top Democratic fundraiser (of the three - this is only an issue in New Mexico, Delaware, and Connecticut where Richardson, Biden, and Dodd, respectively, were the top Democratic fundraisers), as well as the number of states where each candidates came second.
According to this metric, Obama has the broadest base of overall support. He was the top fundraiser in 21 states, and the second fundraiser in 16 states. Clinton was the top fundraiser in 16 states, and Edwards was the top fundraiser in 12 states. Clinton was the second place fundraiser in 20 states, and Edwards in 13 states.
Each candidate has several states where they hold a large advantage over their closest competitor. For the purposes of this diary, I considered a large advantage to be raising more then double the amount of money raised by their closest competitor. Clinton has a large advantage in 5 states: Arizona, Arkansas, Nevada, New York, and Rhode Island. Edwards has a large advantage in 6 states: Alabama, North Carolina, North Dakota, South Carolina, Tennessee, and West Virginia. Obama has a large advantage in 8 states: Colorado, Illinois, Kansas, Maine, Missouri, Montana, Vermont, Wyoming. He also almost doubles Edwards in Washington. The money race is varying degrees of closer in each of the other states.
By region
The first task for doing a regional analysis of contributions is breaking the country down into regions. Though sometimes it can be pretty clear (ie, New England), usually it isn't so obvious. I did my best to break the country down before looking at candidates totals, but in some cases I've found it clearer to move states around a little after looking at the results. Needless to say, my regions are not the end all and be all of regions, and I am happy to hear suggestions for regions! I'll try to talk you through it.
I started with New England, which I defined as Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont, Massachusetts, Connecticut, and Rhode Island. Obama is clearly the strongest candidate, fundraising-wise, in New England. He is the top money raiser in 5 of the 6 New England states and often outraises Clinton (who is always in second) by huge margins (6 times in Vermont, and double in Maine). The exception is Rhode Island, where Clinton raised 3 times as much as Obama.
Clinton is particularly strong in the Mid-Atlantic states (I defined Delaware, Maryland, New Jersey, New York, and Pennsylvania as Mid-Atlantic states). She leads in each state, and doubles Obama (who is second in 4 of the 5 states) in New York.
I originally included Kentucky and West Virginia as Mid-Atlantic states (mostly because I wasn't sure where to put them). After looking at the data and thinking a bit, I've decided they really belong in their own region, along with Tennessee, which I am calling the Appalachian region. If I was really thorough I would move the mountain regions of Virginia and North Carolina to this region as well, but I'm not so I didn't. Appalachia is an area of strength for Edwards. He is the leading fundraiser in both Tennessee and West Virginia, where he raises four times the money Obama does (TN) and doubles Clinton (WV). Obama is the leading fundraiser in Kentucky, but Edwards is a relatively close second (approx. 325,000 vs. 293,000).
Edwards is also doing well in the South. He is the leading fundraiser in North Carolina, South Carolina, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas. He raised more than 10 times as much as Obama in North Carolina, four times as much as Clinton in South Carolina, and twice as much as Clinton in Alabama. There are bright spots for the other candidates in the South. Clinton leads the money race in Virginia and Florida (where she leads Obama) as well as Arkansas (where she tripled Edwards). Obama leads in Georgia, and came second in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, and Mississippi (though he is often well back). Initially I included Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Oklahoma as a separate Gulf Coast region. They didn't seem to hang together (Edwards leads in LA and TX, Clinton in Arkansas, and Obama in OK), so I split them and moved LA, TX, & AR to the South and Oklahoma to the Mid-West.
Although there is some diversity in the Mid-West, overall it is a strong area for Obama. He leads the money race in Ohio, Illinois, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri, and Wisconsin. Clinton leads in Indiana, Michigan, and Minnesota. Edwards leads in North Dakota and Iowa. Obama is the second place money raiser in each of the states he doesn't win (except Indiana) further underlining his strength in the region. He also leads by large margins (more than double) in Illinois, Kansas, and Missouri. Edwards leads by a large margin in North Dakota, but because so little money was raised there in total, he leads by only $2000.
Obama is also very strong in the Northwest. I originally separated the Pacific Northwest (Oregon, Washington, and Alaska) from the Rocky Mountain states (Colorado, Wyoming, Utah, Montana, and Idaho) but I group them together here since the trends are similar. Obama is the top fundraiser in Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, Washington, and Alaska. In this region, he often leads by dramatic margins. He raised three times as much as Clinton in Colorado, twice as much as Clinton in Wyoming, and twice as much as Edwards in Montana. He outraised Edwards by near-double in Washington. Edwards is the leading fundraiser in Oregon and Utah, and Clinton leads in Idaho. Obama is a very close second in Idaho ($1000) and a more distant second in Oregon. Clinton is second in Utah.
Clinton is strong in the Southwest and California. She outraised her competition in Arizona, Nevada, and California. Edwards raised the most of the top three candidates in New Mexico, but raised only a fraction of Richardson's total (66,000 to 4,177, 000).
Unsurprisingly, Obama raised the most in Hawaii.
Swing States
Wikipedia defines Oregon, Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Michigan, Minnesota, Wisconsin, Iowa, Missouri, Arkansas, Florida, Virginia, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and New Hampshire as states. I'm not an expert on swing states, so I'm going with their list, but adding Montana since we picked up a Senate seat there in 2006. Using this definition, no candidate is dominating fundraising in the swing states, but Clinton has a narrow lead in states won. She has the fundraising lead in 7 swing states: Nevada, Michigan, Minnesota, Arkansas, Florida, Virginia, and Pennsylvania. Obama has the fundraising lead in 6 swing states: Colorado, Missouri, Wisconsin, Ohio, New Hampshire, and Montana. Edwards leads in 3: Oregon, Iowa, and New Mexico.
Using fundraising as our metric of support in swing states, Obama and Clinton do similarly, and Edwards seems weak (Don't hate me Edwards, folks!! I'm just shooting for accuracy!). New Mexico and Iowa are somewhat quirky states at the moment since Richardson is blowing everyone away in New Mexico and Edwards has focused heavily on Iowa for a number of years.
Candidate Summary
Clinton is drawing support from a relatively broad geographic area and is the leading or second place fundraiser in 36 states. She does especially well in the Mid-Atlantic states and the Southwest (including California). She leads the money race in the largest number of swing states.
Edwards fundraising support comes predominately from the South and Appalachia. He is the leading fundraiser in 8 states (of 13) in these regions, but in only 5 states (including New Mexico) in the rest of the country. Additionally, he finishes second in only 8 states outside those regions, and is behind by a large margin in 2 of those (and is significantly behind in Washington as well).
Obama is also drawing support from a wide geographic region. He is leading or in second place in 37 states. He does especially well in New England and the Northwest, and to a slightly lesser extent, in the Midwest as well. He is also the leading fundraiser in six swing states.
I make no claim that fundraising will translate into electoral victory in a given state. I just thought it was interesting in its own right, and a nice change of pace from looking at polls.