The Campaign Financing War Part III:42 WA LD 09/01/2014 PDC data

Editor's Note: Two minor corrections as noted below.  -RMF

Above is a quantile plot of Republican (red) vs. Democrat (blue) campaign donations for the six candidates in the 2014 WA LD 42 races as of 09/01/2014. Quantile plot for all donation levels are in gray.  The extensive difference between the 60th to 90th percentiles corresponds roughly to the $200 - $850 donation levels; a difference which has allowed the Republicans to raise more funds than the Democrats by $96K ($324K - $228K),  despite the fact that the Democrats  have 368 more unique contributors (1157 -789).  A total count of  contributions favor the Democrats as well 1512 to 1160, revealing a large number contributors who have donated to multiple campaigns.

Below are charts and data from the WA LD 42nd District PDC database for the 2014 campaign as of 09/01/2014.  The data essentially shows that Democratic Party candidates in the 42nd have a broad base of supporters in WA, but less contributions in total than the Republican Party due in part to significant out of state donations.  The code for this piece is here.Click on graphs to enlarge.

Background

$7.6M  (about half of all total donations to WA 48 legislative districts) has been contributed to the top ten Legislative districts as of 09/01/2014. The 42 WA LD is ranked ninth in donations. A revealing color intensity "Legislative Money Map" shows that Whatcom County's LD 42 competes with WA most urban districts in  Puget Sound, Spokane, and Clark County for campaign monies. Quite possibly, WA LD 42 is the most rural district in the chart below, something that probably speaks to the importance of  industrialist and environmentalist goals for this district:

These totals include all primary and general election candidates.

The Campaign Fundraising Face for WA 42 LD

Here are two summary tables of contributions by sum and (unique) Contributors, City, State, Zip for the Candidates and their parties in the WA 42 LD.  Alias for 'CN' (candidates) and 'PA" (party affiliation should be apparent:

   CN       SUM CONTRIB CONTRIB.UNIQ CITY.UNIQ STATE.UNIQ ZIP.UNIQ

1 DJE 207978.45     599          447        95         28      142

2 SMF 159471.99    1094          921        58          7       92

3 VKB  63533.45     254          208        43         11       57

4  SS  57086.00     273          247        30          5       37

5 LVW  52580.01     307          290        38          4       50

6  JM  11950.00     145          125        18          5       22

  PA      SUM CONTRIB CONTRIB.UNIQ CITY.UNIQ STATE.UNIQ ZIP.UNIQ

1  R 324091.9    1160          789       125         30      182

2  D 228508.0    1512         1157        71          9      110

Notice that all candidates accept money from multiple cities, states, and zip codes. All candidates have multiple donations from select contributors. Below is a summary look at the top 25 and top 50 supporters for the six candidates (three Republican, three Democrat) contributing to this district. Note that the donations for these top 25  and top 50 contributors are nearly twice as much for Republicans as for Democrats. Although the graphs below are equal in length, their respective scales favor the Democrats Republicans by nearly 2x.

• sum top 25 Republican Contributors 73600
• sum top 25 Democrat Contributors) 39225
• sum top 50 Republican contributors 120950 
• sum top 50 Democrat 63175

The top fifty contributors from each party account for 33% (27.6% (D) vs 37.3% (R) ) of all contributions by amount or $120K $184 out of $552K in total contributions  to the WA LD 42 to date. Click on graphs to enlarge:

Another visualization of the difference between Republican and Democrat funding is below. There are currently 1945 unique contributors to the 42 WA LD. Their profile is indicative of

1.  a long, thin tail of small donations
2.  a multi-tiered levels of mid-range donations
3.  a very tall and thin head of high end donors

How do these profiles line up for Democrat vs Republican donations? The two charts below show that the Democrats have a longer tail showing more small donation or populist reach from their contributors. But they are missing an entire level of donors that give over $1000.

All Donations to the WA LD 42nd to date.

The Democrats have a longer tail showing more small donation or populist reach from their Contributors. But they are missing an entire level of donors that give over $1000.