More on the Senate fundraising numbers

Welcome to those of you who have come via Polinaut and Minvolved. I'll try to live up to their praise. I've done some more slicing and dicing of the data on individual donations to the Minnesota Senate campaigns through the end of 2005. (All of the numbers, by the way, come from the FEC website.)

First, let me remind you that candidates are only requried to itemize contributions of $200 or more. Thus, before playing with those numbers, it's good to remind ourselves what part those larger contributions played in each candidate's overall fundraising profile:

Kennedy through 12/31/05
   Itemized contributions: 2,227,613 (63%)
   Unitemized contributions: 322,696 (9%)
   PAC contributions: 985,556 (28%)
   Party committee contributions: 10,250 (0.2%)
   Self-financing: 0

Klobuchar through 12/31/05
   Itemized contributions: 1,872,041 (76%)
   Unitemized contributions: 537,867 (22%)
   PAC contributions: 46,875 (2%)
   Party committee contributions: 0
   Self-financing: 0

Bell through 12/31/05
   Itemized contributions: 423,338 (91%)
   Unitemized contributions: 25,570 (6%)
   PAC contributions: 5,250 (1%)
   Party committee contributions: 0
   Self-financing: 10,050 (2%)

Wetterling through 12/31/05
   Itemized contributions: 455,576 (41%)
   Unitemized contributions: 641,138 (58%)
   PAC contributions: 3,691 (0.3%)
   Party committee contributions: 0
   Self-financing: 0

Just to restate, all of the contributions listed under "unitemized contributions" are left out of the discussion below. That means that since the numbers are different for each candidate, we can't really make direct comparisons. In particular, since Wetterling had such success among small donors, her numbers are going to be particularly skewed in comparison to the other candidates. However, I think that we can draw some other interesting observations out of the data.

First of all, let's look at when contributions came in. The following chart combines itemized, PAC, party committee, and self-contributions (again, remember that those sources constituted less than half of Wetterling's fundraising):

Update: Forgot to note that the above chart also includes monies transferred by Kennedy and Wetterling from their congressional campaign committees. More noteworthy for Wetterling ($47K) than Kennedy ($3K.)

I think the most noteworthy thing here is how well Klobuchar kept pace with Kennedy up through late November. After that, Kennedy got a monster boost from the fundraiser held with President Bush in Minneapolis in early December and closed out the year well in the lead. But bear in mind that close to a million dollars of the difference between the candidates came from Kennedy's PAC money.

One can also see in the data how campaigns try to ratchet up their fundraising at the end of each reporting period so that they can report (and release to the media) the highest total possible. Particularly in the Klobuchar and Kennedy numbers, there are clear little bumps on March 31, June 30, and September 30.

I've also done a little more mapping. (Can you tell how much I like playing with these?) These maps show the distribution of individual contributions in the metro area by zip code. They're on the same scale as the maps in my post on the suburbs, so you can go back and compare with that data.

See a larger image of the Kennedy map. See a larger image of the Klobuchar map. See a larger image of the Bell map. See a larger image of the Wetterling map.

A couple of notes: The mapping software I use (ESRI's ArcView) places the dots randomly within each zip code area, so there is no particular meaning to the exact placement of any dot. If a zip code is shown without any dots, that means (as I understand it) that the itemized contributions from that zip code totaled less than $1000. Bear in mind that this does not show the distribution of contributors, but rather the distribution of money. Five $200 contributors would be represented by one dot; a couple giving $2100 each would be represented by four dots and part of a fifth. Finally, my zip code data set is from 2001, so any zip code areas that have changed since then would be misrepresented.

Not surprisingly, the two hotspots for contributions are the western suburbs and downtown Minneapolis (I assume that this includes a lot of people listing their business address). Wayzata gets the prize for the most generous zip code. I am rather interested to see how much money Klobuchar pulled from south Minneapolis.

Do you see other patterns? Let me know in the comments...

posted by DK @ 4:09 AM permalink