Which individuals are giving?

In this record breaking fundraising season, the candidates have raised nearly 1 billion dollars, including $639 million by Barack Obama and $360 million by John McCain. As of October 27, 2008 Obama had already spent $573 million compared to McCain’s $293 million.



To break these numbers down further we examine donations by region, sex and race.

Looking at all 50 states, California is the largest donor to both candidates. 20% of Obama’s contributions and 14% of McCain’s contributions come from the Golden State. Though to break this up even more, Northern California is primarily supporting Obama, with 30 million in donations, while Southern California is for McCain, with 5 million in donations. This is attributed to the trend of liberalism in the San Francisco Bay Area compared to the conservatism of Orange County. The states that come in second for donations are New York for Obama, accounting for 13% of donations, and Texas for McCain, with 10% of donations.

When looking at donations by sex, we can see that males have contributed the majority of campaign funds. For the Democratic candidate, 58% of funds are from males, and for the Republican candidate, 72% are from males. In fact, women only contributed 27% of all campaign donations. Ilana Goldman, the President of the Women’s Campaign Forum, attributes this lack of donations to women giving generously to charities instead. Though she does point out that women are donating now more than ever for many reasons, the main being that they can donate online. But when exploring whom the women are donating to, the majority of women are giving to Obama. Some of the reasons that women are more drawn to the Democratic Party include their shared belief in the role of government and economic policies as well as their emphasis on issues of compassion. Women emphasize issues such as labor, equal rights, education and healthcare, just as the Democratic Party does.

Next we take a deeper look into the race of donors. While it is extremely difficult to find donor demographics in relation to race, we can examine who the top donors are for each candidate. For Obama, out of his top ten donors, only one is identifiably non-white. This is Woodrow Myers Jr , an African American healthcare consultant from Indianapolis who has donated approximately $28,500 to the Democratic campaign this season. Of the others nine voters, only one is a woman. For McCain, none of his top 10 donors are identifiable as non-white, but four are women.

In summary, those that are giving to both the Democratic and Republican campaigns are primarily white males and the biggest donations are coming from the larger states including California, New York and Texas.


For further reading:
www.opensecrets.org
http://elections.nytimes.com/2008/president/campaign-finance/map.html
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/09/women-increase.html