The Federal Election Commission has released data on contributions to presidential campaigns as of the last day of September, so it’s time for some geographic data-crunching. (But if you go to the FEC site, beware of the ghost of Tommy Thompson! The FEC lists the withdrawn Republican candidate from Wisconsin in the same charts as the current Republican candidate from Tennessee, and refers to them both as simply “Thompson.”)
The map above compares the money (“contributions” meaning dollars, not individual contributors) given to Democratic and to Republican candidates in each state. Not surprisingly, the resembles the red/blue split of the last election, though the candidacies of North Carolina Democrat John Edwards and Republican Mitt Romney (of the Michigan Romneys, even though he lives in Massachusetts) have skewed things a bit.
Below are maps showing where each candidate have raised the largest shares of money given to all candidates in his or her party. That is, the maps are more likely to indicate strength in primaries and caucuses than in a general election. For those of you who like to play with Excel, the data used in these maps are here: Download PresidentialcampaigncontributionsthroughSept2007.xls
More data and analysis to follow in later posts…
