PORTLAND, Maine — In the Democratic corner, Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders’ Maine campaign for president is catching up in the money race to former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, whose campaign is leading the state for cash donations.
In the Republican corner, Maine donors’ two favorite candidates — former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush and former Hewlett-Packard chief Carly Fiorina — have already dropped out, leaving neurosurgeon Ben Carson as the money leader among those still in the running (as of this week).
Green Party candidate Jill Stein has earned a few contributions, too.
As Maine’s caucuses approach, disclosures for donors who have given or are expected to give more than $200 provides some sense of which candidates have done the best job of getting Mainers to part with their money.
That measure doesn’t necessarily align with public support, but exploring answers to three of journalism’s most familiar questions gives a sense of the dynamics in the race in Maine: who raised the most, where and when.
Donation data reflects Federal Election Commission filings through Jan. 31.
Through January, party establishment favorites Bush and Clinton led for cash raised.
Since then, Bush has suspended his campaign as billionaire Donald Trump keeps winning, contrary to predictions of some political pundits, as he said after taking Nevada. With a mostly self-financed campaign, Trump’s popularity is masked in looking at cash raised.
On Friday, Gov. Paul LePage followed his first choice, New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, in endorsing Trump. Other GOP leaders, including former Senate President Kevin Raye and Maine Sen. Amy Volk, joined House Republican Leader Ken Fredette in backing Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
With the two fundraising frontrunners out of the race on the Republican side and the third-most favored candidate, Carson, trailing the pack nationally, other campaigns have a sizable pool of donors and voters to court.
Statewide, Democrats have outraised Republican candidates, capturing about $1.35 for every $1 to Republicans. That’s about the same as the split in the Democratic field, where Clinton took in about $1.30 to every $1 raised by Sanders, through Jan. 31.
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That fundraising varied by region.
Within 30 miles of Bangor, Sanders held a small lead over Clinton, and Carson led Texas Sen. Ted Cruz by a small margin. Along the campaign-cash rich coast from Camden to Kittery, Clinton held about a 2-to-1 lead over Sanders, as did the Bush campaign over Fiorina.
Along that stretch of coastline that accounted for the bulk of campaign donations, Carson held a lead over the campaigns of Rubio and Cruz, whose campaigns raised nearly the same amount. Carson’s campaign has raised more nationally than any other candidate, sparking concerns that aides used the presidential bid to generate work for companies of associates.
Statewide, Cruz trailed Carson as he continues to battle Rubio for the position to unite their supporters with the “anyone-but-Trump” vote. Through January, Rubio had raised less in Maine than libertarian Rand Paul, who dropped out of the race Feb. 3.
Sanders and Carson raised money from the most places.
The Sanders campaign has picked up donations from 214 different Maine ZIP codes, compared with 110 for the Carson campaign and 93 for the Clinton campaign.
Among the leading Republican candidates, Cruz had the broadest geographic support with donations from 87 areas, almost three times the range of Rubio’s campaign.
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Carson camp kept up momentum as Sanders made late January gains.
The Clinton campaign has sustained fundraising in Maine after a big boost from a fundraiser in September that helped bring in more than $65,000.
In the last full week of January, however, the Sanders campaign had its strongest showing in Maine yet, raising about $12,000 more than the Clinton campaign with about three times the number of individual contributors, at nearly 300.
The fundraising momentum between those candidates is much simpler to compare than on the Republican side, where much of the earliest money went to Jeb Bush, who had his biggest week of fundraising in Maine in June 2015, with lower weekly totals than both Carson and Cruz at the end of the year.
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By late summer, Fiorina had taken the lead in weekly fundraising totals among Republican candidates. The Carson campaign had a steady but smaller draw of cash, but from a slightly larger number of contributors through the fall and into January.
Cruz also broke into a higher number of individual contributions in late 2015 and into January, topping 30 individual donors in two weeks.
These contributions are no crystal ball into the Maine caucuses.
Republican candidates are battling over their share of 23 delegates March 5; Democrats are vying for 25 delegates on March 6.
Republicans will apportion delegates by shares of the statewide vote. For Democrats, 10 delegates are assigned for the share of the vote in the 1st Congressional District, another seven for the 2nd District and eight for the statewide vote share. Party leaders will serve as another five “superdelegates.”
On the Republican side, the early departure of the most prolific fundraisers in Maine makes clear there’s little predictive power in the dollar totals. If those numbers did reflect broader appeal, it might still be hard to forecast who will come out on top.
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Carson had a fundraising lead in the 1st and 2nd Districts, with more individual donors in both areas. Rubio had few donors in the 2nd District while Cruz had about equal amounts in each district.
On the Democratic side, Sanders had the money lead in the 2nd District while falling behind by about $100,000 in the 1st District. In both districts, Sanders had more individual donors.
Across all candidates, those individual donors reflect just a sliver of the population that will decide how delegates are assigned on the way to both parties’ nominations.