Political Donor Map: Where out-of-state money goes
Where do political donors like to send their money?
Do you have an aunt in Virginia who’s oddly obsessed with the Iowa senate elections? A nephew in Arizona who can’t stop talking about Sherrod Brown? Are these isolated incidents, or do donors in certain areas have a predilection for inserting themselves into the political happenings of specific states? That’s the idea behind the Political Donor Map: Understanding where a given state’s political donations tend to go, and where the incoming cash tends to come from.
The map can be filtered down to each state, the direction of the money flow (sends/receives), political party (Dem/Rep/All), and unit being measured (dollars vs. donors). States tend to over-index on flows to and from neighboring states, and so those states can be removed from the model and analysis with the click of a button.
Because the raw totals tend to be boring (California is the biggest out of state Democratic donor for most states), the map defaults to showing the flows in and out of each state compared to the nation as a whole. If Montana gives Kentucky a bigger share of its out-of-state money than the rest of the country, that line is green and the index is > 1. If it gives less, the line is red and the index is < 1. You can play around with the embedded map below.
Big Sky for Amy McGrath
Digging into these flows can uncover some strange things. Montana’s Democratic money goes to Kentucky at 6.2 times the national rate. Look under the hood and this is largely driven by 14 people giving the $3,500 maximum to Amy McGrath’s Senate campaign (she lost the May primary by over 10%). Apparently Amy has lots of friends in Montana.
Have fun exploring. And as always, shoot me an email if you find any errors.