The 54th Assembly campaign contribution breakdown: Where have all the in-district donors gone?
We've posted before about the financial dealings in the 54th Assembly District in Brooklyn. The three candidates are all pulling money from their networks of donors, and we had been asked--sometimes sarcastically--when we'd breakdown the donations to see, mostly, who had done the most fundraising in district.
Well, folks, ask and you shall receive is our mantra over at the Empire blog. Thanks to the map wizardry of WNYC's John Keefe, we've been able to break down the data from the Board of Election to paint a fiscal picture of where the candidates are getting their support.
First, some background and general info. What you're looking at are the donors to each campaign, not the individual donations. Looking at the number of unique donors is a better measure than total number of donations. The individual donors were then tagged to the map using their address information. Some of the addresses didn't compute, meaning a small percentage -- less than two percent -- aren't present on the map. Corporate, PAC and other group donations were combined with individuals in all averages and tallies.
Here are the raw numbers:
The first thing you notice is that, despite calls from a number of quarters for a breakdown of in-district donations, the truth is not one candidate managed to get into double digits when it comes to either total donations, or the percentage of money raised.
That being said, the Towns and Gonzalez campaigns have the highest totals, respectively. In truth, these ridiculously low in-district numbers shouldn't be surprising. The area we're talking about is a poor one, and raising tens of thousands of dollars in-district would have been a tall feet.
Still, no one can really claim to be pulling their support--at least financially--directly from the people they represent.
What's interesting about the map below is how close to home the candidates ended up raising money. Take a look for yourself and let us know what you think.