March 17, 2016
When it comes to donations by greater Bostonians to Democratic presidential candidates Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, Clinton is winning the money contest by a large margin while Sanders is leading in number of donors, according to a neighborhood breakdown by the data-driven real estate startup RentHop.
An interactive city map released by RentHop on Tuesday listed political donations to all candidates that had been reported to the Federal Election Commission by zip code in both number and sum. Clinton leads the pack with $3,261,226 raised from 2,703 donors across Boston, Cambridge, and Quincy. Sanders, who leads in overall donors with 3,203, reported $995,478 in total donations.
On the Republican side, Marco Rubio had pulled in $513,967 from 348 donors. Cruz, the only GOP candidate to receive financial contributions in Dorchester, took in $385 from three donors. Frontrunner Donald Trump gathered $39,561 – and the primary win.
Dorchester generally aligned with the rest of the region. Clinton pulled in $31,544.58 from 30 donors in Dorchester and Mattapan, while 33 donors contributed a third that amount ($10,636.01) to Sanders.
A cautionary note: The FEC does not require campaigns to report individuals who give less than $200 during an election cycle, but many campaigns voluntarily offer it. As Sanders touts his primarily small-donor model, the totals may not be reflective of the overall contributions.
In Dorchester zip codes 02124 and 02121, only the Democrats received donations. The two donors in Mattapan’s 02126 zip code gave $150 to Clinton and $100 to a former candidate.
Cambridge zip code 02138, which includes Harvard Square, topped the list for total contributions. Of the 342 donors who gave $409,460.29, half of them donated to Clinton, handing over $289,851.14. In Boston proper, 260 donors in Back Bay squeaked in second place with $406,001.80 in donations. A solid majority of donors and donations from that area gave to Clinton.