Sunday, August 24, 2008
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In fundraising, Georgia’s more blue than red

Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama has raised twice as much money...

By Stephanie Ramage

Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama has raised almost twice as much money as Republican rival John McCain in Georgia, the so-called "reddest of red states."

The deadline for the presidential campaigns to report July contributions to the Federal Elections Commission was midnight Aug. 20—just a couple of days before Obama was due to announce his running mate. According to accumulated totals—which add the latest figures to total contributions collected by the campaigns since the candidates started raising money—of the $13 million total that Georgians have donated so far to all presidential candidates, $4.2 million has gone to Obama, as compared with $2.3 million contributed to McCain.

Should this be seen as a predictor of the general election?

Morris Fiorina, a political scientist at Stanford University, says it's more complicated than that. 

“The basic problem is that candidates who look like winners find it easier to raise money, and having more money, they are more likely to win,” he says. “How do you disentangle the effects?”

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton, before bowing out of the race earlier in the summer, got more than $2 million from Georgians. Some of Clinton’s money, says University of Georgia political scientist Scott Ainsworth, will likely go to Obama, but that money doesn’t necessarily reflect who’s more likely to win Georgia, much less the general election in November.

“I don’t think anyone is really going to know until the end,” says Ainsworth. “It’s clear that Obama wants to see Georgia in play, and it’s clear that he has raised money from small contributors in Georgia that other campaigns have ignored, and eventually those small contributions add up. But the reason that it is hard to know whether the contributions are predictors is that you can raise contributions large or small, but each person only gets one vote.”

In terms of campaign contributions, Georgia’s Obama/McCain contributions  mirror those of the nation. Nationally, Obama has been the recipient of $389 million, while McCain has tucked away less than half that, $158 million.

In the two biggest money states, California and New York, the difference is more pronounced. Californians have ginned up a total of almost $118 million for presidential campaigns. Of that, more than $46 million has gone to Obama, while less than $14 million has gone to McCain. In New York, where contributors have dished out almost $91 million, locals Clinton and Republican Rudy Giuliani—neither of whom is still vying for the White House—still hold the leading money slots, with $33 million and $9 million, respectively. Obama has raised $28 in New York, while McCain has raised less than $8 million.
   
But in the other big two cash-cow states, Texas and Florida, the financial race is much tighter. Texans have given more than $48 million in total to all the presidential campaigns so far. Republicans were the recipients of $24.4 million of that, while Democrats took in $23.6 million. Obama leads McCain in Texas, but only just: He’s raised almost $11 million there, while McCain has raised almost $10 million. In Florida, all the presidential campaigns raised a total of more than $44 million, with almost $24 million going to Democrats and more than $20 million going to Republicans. Obama has raised more than $10 million in Florida, while McCain has raised almost $9 million.
   
Most of the contributions, says Ainsworth, are the old-fashioned kind—checks signed over at fundraisers or sent via mail. Internet fundraising, though much vaunted by the Ron Paul campaign, isn’t as much of a factor.
   
“Ron Paul was very successful on the Web, but he was not a very successful candidate,” Ainsworth says.

    For more information about campaign contributions, visit www.fec.gov and click on the presidential election map. SP