Rand Paul's Early Fundraising: Small Town Appeal, More Than 10 Percent of Donors Gave to Ron [Archive]

jct74

05-06-2015, 02:40 PM

Rand Paul's Early Fundraising: Small Town Appeal, More Than 10 Percent of His Givers Gave to Ron Paul

Brian Doherty | May. 5, 2015 10:55 pm

Some number crunching from The New York Times regarding the first wave of Rand Paul online fundraising:

After starting his campaign on April 7 with a “Stand With Rand” online appeal, his campaign brought in its first $1 million in less than 30 hours, from more than 15,500 donations..... The initial flurry for Rand Paul faded quickly. It took an additional 16 days for the figure to double.

....a disproportionate number [of Rand donors] have come from donors in smaller cities and towns. More than a quarter of Rand Paul’s online donors list addresses in communities with populations of less than 10,000....

Only 4.7 percent of Rand's April online money came from people from cities with more than a million population, the Times analysis says.

He's drawing a lot, though by no means a majority, of donors from Ron Paul's fan base:

At least 2,000 of the donors to Rand Paul in April gave money to his father’s 2012 campaign, an analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows; the number is very likely higher because many small-dollar contributors do not appear on F.E.C. filings.

...

read more:
http://reason.com/blog/2015/05/05/rand-pauls-early-fundraising-small-town

William Tell

05-08-2015, 02:56 PM

Online fund-raising data from the first several weeks of Rand Paul (http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/04/08/us/elections/rand-paul.html?inline=nyt-per)’s presidential campaign suggests that much of his initial small-dollar support has come from smaller cities and towns.

After starting his campaign on April 7 with a “Stand With Rand” online appeal, his campaign brought in its first $1 million in less than 30 hours, from more than 15,500 donations, according to data published on RandPaul.com (http://RandPaul.com) and collected by The Upshot.

He has far to go to match the success of his father, Ron Paul (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/people/p/ron_paul/index.html?inline=nyt-per), in collecting money over the Internet. The initial flurry for Rand Paul faded quickly. It took an additional 16 days for the figure to double.

Supporters of Ron Paul contributed $4 million in a single day in 2007 (http://www.nytimes.com/2007/11/06/us/politics/06paul.html?_r=0), and in 2011 the elder Mr. Paul did a one-day “money bomb” online fund-raising effort that netted $1 million (http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9502E5D91139F934A35756C0A9679D8B 63) for his presidential campaign.

Although Rand Paul has received hundreds of contributions from donors in cities such as Houston, New York, Los Angeles and Phoenix, a disproportionate number have come from donors in smaller cities and towns. More than a quarter of Rand Paul’s online donors list addresses in communities with populations of less than 10,000. According to the 2010 Census (http://www.census.gov/compendia/statab/2012/tables/12s0028.pdf), about 15 percent of Americans lived in incorporated areas with populations of less than 10,000. That support reveals his appeal among rural donors (like those in his home state of Kentucky).

At least 21 contributions have come from donors listing an address of Cumming, Ga. (http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US1320932-cumming-ga/), which has a population of about 5,500, although places with a Cumming mailing address, in the Atlanta metropolitan area, have a population of around 100,000. At least 15 donations are from Magnolia, Tex. (http://censusreporter.org/profiles/16000US4846056-magnolia-tx/), one for every 105 residents in the Houston suburb.

The two Pauls do share some of the same donor base: At least 2,000 of the donors to Rand Paul in April gave money to his father’s 2012 campaign (http://www.fec.gov/fecviewer/CandidateCommitteeDetail.do?tabIndex=2&candidateCommitteeId=C00495820&electionYr=2012), an analysis of Federal Election Commission data shows; the number is very likely higher because many small-dollar contributors do not appear on F.E.C. filings.

Smaller Cities and Towns Play Bigger Role for Paul Percentage of online donations in April based on the population of the donor’s city.

1 million or more

500k-999k

250k-499k

100k-249k

50k-99k

25k-49k

15k-24k

10k-14k

5k-9k

1k-4k

Less than 1,000

4.7

6.0

6.2

12.4

14.8

14.0

9.0

6.5

9.5

12.6

4.4

http://int.********/chartmaker/2015/05/05/20150503-most-rand-paul-web-donor/5/artboard-540px.png

Based on analysis of 25,111 contributions displayed on RandPaul.com
Source: RandPaul.com, Census Bureau

The average donation recorded by the RandPaul.com site hovered around $60 during the first few weeks, although the site did not list the amount of each contribution, just the total number of donors and the total amount. That means that Rand Paul will be able to go back to many of these supporters during the primary season. Indeed, some of them have already given multiple times.

Beginning on April 7 and continuing through Sunday, The Upshot was able to collect records of more than 28,000 online contributors (https://github.com/TheUpshot/rand_paul_online_donors) to Rand Paul. That data, which represents at least $2.6 million, doesn’t include all of the contributions that the campaign has received (the campaign declined to release a total). In particular, it doesn’t include high-dollar fund-raising events where donors typically provide a check. The Upshot was able to match more than 25,000 records with census data to obtain population figures.

https://github.com/TheUpshot/rand_paul_online_donors