Polls suggest Democratic Sen. Kamala Harris is no longer the front-runner in her home state. But year-to-date, she remains the preferred candidate by that other major metric of campaign success: money.
Yet even in the race for cash, her share of itemized California contributions has plummeted from a high of 60% in January to a low of 8% in September.
The candidate taking the largest portion of those California contributions in September was President Donald Trump, with 30%. But that doesnât mean the âResistance Stateâ has suddenly gone all Trump â keep in mind, 70% of contributions went to the array of contenders with the shared goal of trying to oust him.
Another caveat: This data doesnât capture small donors. Most people donât give money to presidential campaigns, and even fewer give enough to show up on federal campaign finance databases. Contributions only have to be âitemized,â with the name and zip code of the donor made public, if they amount to at least $200 a year.
Itâs worth noting that some presidential candidates report receiving more than half of their political money nationwide from small donors. A FiveThirtyEight analysis indicates those candidates include business Andrew Yang, Texas Rep. Julian Castro, Williamson, Sanders and Warren.
The latest round of campaign finance totals just published by the Federal Election Commission show Harris raised $11.5 million in itemized contributions from California donors in the first nine months of 2019. Thatâs more than any other candidate.
Propelled by a telegenic late January campaign rally in Oakland and soaring national expectations, Harris took in over $2 million in both February and March of this year. Since then, former Vice President Joe Biden has entered the race and both Massachusetts Sen. Elizabeth Warren and South Bend, Indiana. Mayor Pete Buttigieg have frequently elbowed Harris out of the limelight. Her polling numbers have slumped accordingly.
Not uncoincidentally, Harrisâ financial take came in below $1 million in both August and September, making up around 10% of total itemized contributions from California.
That drop-off in financial support is particularly damaging to Harrisâ campaign which, more than any other, save that of Tom Steyer, is dependent on California cash. Through 2019, just over half of Harrisâ itemized donations came from the state.
Steyer, a billionaire former hedge fund manager whose campaign is largely self-funded, is the other prominent Californian in the race. A third Californian, author/spiritual guru Marianne Williamson, ranked just after Steyer and Harris among candidates who collected the biggest portion of their campaign cash from the Golden State.
Keeping tabs on how every candidate is doing in California is yet another way to measure the health of their campaign in the nation’s most populous state. And thatâs particularly important in 2020, when voters here will be among the first in the country to cast ballots because of the stateâs new March 3 primary.
The itemized contribution numbers also offer some insight into the surprisingly varied political geography of the state. Despite its reputation as a deep blue anti-Trump bastion, breaking down itemized contributions at the zip code level tells a more complicated story.
In 785 zip codes, President Trump received more itemized contributions than any other candidate â Democrat or Republican.
In the map below, hold down the Control or Command key and scroll to zoom in and out. Use the magnifying glass to search for your own zip code.
The top Trump-backing zip code: 92067. For non-wealthy southern Californians, thatâs the tony enclave of Rancho Santa Fe, just north of San Diego. Residents there have given the president $131,414 this year so far.
The top zip code for Harris was in downtown Los Angeles. Buttigieg topped out in West Hollywood. And Bidenâs top neighborhood was Tiburon in Marin County.
Color-coding each zip code by the Democratic candidate who received the most itemized contributions there makes the state look like a rainbow of political diversity.
All that purple indicates Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders was the top recipient of itemized contributions from more California zip codes than any other Democratic candidate. Thatâs 231, compared to 220 for Harris and 88 for Warren.
But the geographic diversity of Sandersâ approach can be misleading since many of the zip codes where he dominated gave relatively little.
The 3-D map below corrects for that. By showing the financial totals for the top funder in each zip code, this much becomes clear: Most of the political money here is coming from San Francisco and Los Angeles. Using the Command and Control keys, the map allows you to zoom, tilt, spin and explore the towers and valleys of California campaign cash. (And if your browser has trouble displaying the interactive version, you can see a 2-D version here.)
Or to show this another way, while Trump and Sanders have “won” more zip codes than any other candidate, they havenât struck gold in the wealthier sections of the state where candidates like Harris, Biden and Buttigieg have cleaned up.
Also, while Harris out-raised the president in 2019, Trump, who has been soliciting money for his reelection since inauguration day, garnered more than $3 million from Californians in 2017 and 2018.
CalMatters.org is a nonprofit, nonpartisan media venture explaining California policies and politics.
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