The Presidential Race is in full swing, and so is the fundraising. I ran across a site today called Fundrace.org, which has a huge database of personal contributors to presidential candidates. It’s neat. They also have a nifty map… observe!
Another really neat feature of the site is allowing you to search the database of contributions by name or by ZIP CODE. Go ahead… see if you can find someone you know.
UPDATE: For those of you who don’t read the comments, Walt pointed out a site that I’ve seen before, but haven’t linked… Election Projection — interesting stuff that will matter a bit more as polls solidify and November rolls around. Thanks, Walt!
April 22nd, 2004 at 11:22 pm
Forgive me if you’ve already seen the site, but you might be interested in Election Projection.
April 23rd, 2004 at 10:24 am
I’d say the most surprising (to me) part of that map is Missouri. Go figure. Obviously, this is fund raising and not voting, but the two are harldy unrelated - but whoever wins in Missouri usually wins the race (every single election but one - crazy).
April 23rd, 2004 at 11:28 am
Right. All the sagebrush and jackrabbits are for Bush. With supporters so dopey, no WONDER he’s able to pull the wool over your eyes so easily — the draft dodging “war” President who cuts military pay and benefits while sending soldiers to die in unjustified wars of occupation; the “borrow and spend and borrow and spend” conservative who decries “tax and spend” liberals; the president of the prairie dog and the yucca plant. Get a clue: most of our population is concentrated in urban areas, and the “red” zones are MOSTLY uninhabited! Sheesh. What brilliant analysis. What YOU worry?
April 23rd, 2004 at 11:29 am
your fundrace.org has lots of famous people and who they donated to and their adresses. interesting. but it is pretty nifty.
April 23rd, 2004 at 11:54 am
The fundraising map isn’t exactly accurate–I checked the database for my contribution to Lieberman and it wasn’t there. Not sure why–maybe a lot of smaller contributions are missing from the database.
April 23rd, 2004 at 12:21 pm
Bjorn — a few “facts” you might want to be careful to not get in the way of your political babble:
a) Bush dodged the draft a hell of a lot less than Clinton and Dean did… but you probably didn’t complain about them, did you?
b) You’re going to have to make a case that Iraq isn’t justified… because I really haven’t heard any compelling arguments to that effect.
c) If he’d just cut all the freakin’ bleeding-heart liberal programs that have been enacted over the years, we could afford the tax cut.
d) the population is “concentrated” in urban areas by definition… brilliant analysis indeed.
e) The red zones are not “uninhabited” — they’re simply inhabited in a way that doesn’t cause people to spend thousands of dollars a month to live in a shoe box.
You’re really going to LOVE getting four more years of Bush, aren’t you?
Bacon — read the fine print: “All calculations are based on records filed with the FEC of contributions by all individuals
totalling more than $200 to a single campaign between January 1, 2003 and February 29, 2004.”
Besides… Every tally I’ve seen has Bush taking in more small donations than democrats have. The map would be “redder”, most likely.
April 23rd, 2004 at 1:01 pm
OK, was wondering about that…thanks for clearing it up. Mine was less than $200, but I also saw other contributions less than $200 that were posted. If I’m not mistaken, campaign finance law only requires contributions over $250 to be disclosed.
Dean was the leader in small contributions according to that site so this map is overstating the GOP’s geographic advantage. The county breakdown has more blue. Not that any of that matters–the only poll that really counts is electoral votes November 2.
April 23rd, 2004 at 1:05 pm
I’d guess that the contributions in the database are all of the ones reported, but the ones used for the maps, rankings, etc, are just the ones over $200… that’s my take on the interpretation.
I’d be curious to see how they calculated that ranking for Dean… but if it’s only donations of $200+ then it’s not exactly a very good measure of “small” donations, I don’t think.