Fundraising figures for 2008 presidential candidates were due last Friday, and now everyone has their forms in and the data has been compiled. In many ways, how successful candidates in such a large field are at raising money is a far more significant indicator than where they stand in the polls, because it represents their ability to stay in the election, advertise to attract new votes, and the seriousness of the people backing them.
An average of the five most recent polls from major polling groups provides the following rankings for the candidates in the two parties:
Republican: Giuliani 27%, F. Thompson 18%, McCain 14%, Romney 10%, Gingrich 6%, Huckabee 3%, Paul 2%. Everyone else has 1% or less.
Democrat: Clinton 38%, Obama 25%, Edwards 13%, Richardson 3%, Biden 2%. Everyone else has 1% or less.
These positions should be pretty familiar. They've stayed awfully close to the same order for the past few months, with the one shakeup being the addition of Fred Thompson as an as yet unofficial Republican front runner.
This has been the most active campaign of all time in terms of fundraising, with more money raised earlier than ever before. The fundraising figures add some details and significant differences to the picture. Based on total fundraising to date the rankings for the candidates are:
Republican: Romney $44 million (38%), Giuliani $35 million (30%), McCain $ 25 million (22%), Brownback $3.3 million (3%), Paul $3 million (3%), Tancredo $2 million 2%), Hunter, $1.3 million (1%), Huckabee $1.3 million (1%). Others had less than $1 million.
Democrat: Clinton $63 million (27%), Obama $59 million (25%), Edwards $23 million (10%), Richardson $13 million (6%), Dodd $4.3 million (2%), Biden $2.5 million (1%). Others had less than $1 million.
The most striking difference between fundraising and polling occurs in the Republican group, where Romney comes in a strong first in fundraising, but a distant fourth in the polls, or third if you take out Fred Thompson who hasn't officially declared yet. That suggests that he is much more of a contender than he might be otherwise. The percentages also show that the much touted fundraising success of Ron Paul isn't quite as impressive as it seems. His fundraising is great compared to what might have been expected, but almost tying Sam Brownback for fourth place and remaining 7th in the polls doesn't suggest an impending dark horse victory. However, one thing which sets him apart from other candidates which isn't reflected in these figures is that he has spent very little of his money and has borrowed none at all. He has close to $3 million still available to spend, which actually puts him in third place if you subtract McCain's campaign debts from his remaining cash. That means that even if he doesn't leap ahead, Paul is likely to be around as a contender right up to the convention.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - Flo
You fail to tell people about the newest zogby Poll Paul was 3% or the fact that the polls that are calling our homes don't even give Paul as an Option. So this article is nothing but propaganda. You also leave off the fact that recent Presidents have polled no more than Paul this early in the race and still went on to WIN!
2 - Dave Nalle
In working out the averages I factored in the latest Zogby at 3% and also three other polls from the past week that had him at 1% and another which had him at 2% and rounded up a little to get 2%. That seemed eminently fair.
IMO I was more than fair to Paul, pointing out his main strength which is that he has spent so little money that he probably has the resources to stay in the election until the very end, which is not true of the others who are scoring low percentages.
What more do you want? I have to be honest here. What you seem to expect is some sort of pro-Paul propaganda piece. I'm just presenting the facts. That's why it's labelled news and not opinion.
For the record, I do think the Zogby poll is likely to be the most accurate of the various polls because it does include internet polling as well as phone polling. But 3% is not exactly dominating the race, plus the article is about fundraising not polling.
Dave
3 - bhumika
is still to early to predict and i think you cannot judge a candidate based solely on fund raising..
what if thompson raises most money among republicans..? will that make him a good candidate... looking at his record and lobbying past... NO
bhumika
politics desk,the newsroom
4 - vamonticello
You reported the WRONG fundraising numbers for Clinton, you included the funds she CANNOT use in the primary, your analysis is WRONG. At LEAST 10 million of your total she did not even raise in 2007, it was from her senate campaign of 2006.
5 - Carolyn
I'm interested in seeing the figures for donations made by ordinary citizens. Could you subtract corporate and group donations from the totals? I find it ironic that so much attention is paid to total contributions and not the source of the donations. Personally, I prefer candidates who aren't compromised by these types of donations. Thanks
6 - Tom Jefferson
Ron Paul has a staggering 52.53 percent of all military contributions. The military service men and women support Ron Paul above all other candidates. So maybe we should listen to the advice of our U.S. troops and vote Ron Paul!
Ron Paul places 1st or 2nd in every straw poll, debate, and active participation survey.
Ron Paul is 1st in YouTube, MySpace, Facebook, Meetup, Google, etc. The old media is just too slow to realize what is happening.
‘Scientific Polls’ at this stage only measure name recognition. Over the next six months Ron Paul will gain name recognition and people will learn about who Ron Paul is. Most people who learn about Ron Paul become major supporters.
Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton were doing about the same in the 'Scientific Polls' at this stage in their elections. Ron Paul has tremendous momentum and his support is growing exponentially. The other candidates are stagnant. Only Ron Paul's support is growing and will continue to grow!
Visit YouTube and search Ron Paul to learn more…
7 - Lumpy
Vamonticello. Unless they have some weird election rules in New York money not spent in one campaign can be carried over to the next.
BTW how Ron Paul scores in the poll on some website where any idiot can vote over and over means less than nothing.
8 - gonzo marx
solid article, credit where due...
/golfclap
i tend to use this resource for all my polling needs, their baseline averages just about all the major poll indecis and works from there, good stuff, imo
Excelsior?
9 - Tara Briner
Hmm. One reason Ron Paul has not had to spend most of his money is because his supporters are also supporting him in volunteer local efforts (meetups). Personally, I contributed $75 to his official campaign, and I contributed an equal dollar amount to my meetup group's efforts. Not to mention the hours of time and work I and others like me have donated for the cause.
These figures aren't accounted for, but they're very, very real.
10 - Clavos
Interesting to me is the breakdown of sources for the candidates' funds.
As the most left-leaning of the serious contenders, I would expect Obama to get money from Soros, but was somewhat surprised to see Buffet supporting him, too.
One last point; a complaint (or whine, depending on your POV):
Are we going to be subjected to a barrage of "unofficial" campaigning on the part of Paul supporters in EVERY political thread from now to the end of the campaign?
We get it, already. He's Jesus Christ re-incarnated and walks on water.
ENOUGH.
11 - Brock J. Toon
You say "the intellectual right want McCain" !? You're way off base on that one! Intellectual Conservatives love Ron Paul!
12 - Dave S.
Dave,
Great article... and I'm actualy a Dr. Paul supporter sayin' so.
Heck... with the mainstream skepticism about his campaign, I'm just happy to see somebody acknowledge that he does help shape the debate at least, which I'd consider a modest victory for the philosophy I'd like to see in place.
Ron Paul could prove to be surprising, and hopefully even win. We who support him are indeed vocal and strident. I take it upon myself to apologize for any that are less than civil. The issues Dr. Paul is speaking to are hot ones, and ones that have often been ignored like the elephant in the room for many decades. This creates some warranted passion.
I've already sent the good Dr. four figures in USD... and it's been well amortized in the form of AU since. :-) We gotta' have honest money, or you can forget about honest government and an honest society. Keansian theory is killing our country.
Thanks,
Dave S. in SoCal
13 - Dave Nalle
You reported the WRONG fundraising numbers for Clinton, you included the funds she CANNOT use in the primary, your analysis is WRONG. At LEAST 10 million of your total she did not even raise in 2007, it was from her senate campaign of 2006.
The website I link to in the article, which I used as my main source for the figues provides those details, but I don't believe those funds are unavailable. Several of the other candidates also have leftover money from previous campaigns, including Obama. And as I said in the article, this is their total fundraising so far not just for this quarter.
Gonzo, thanks for the link to your poll info site. I find it a bit bewildering. I prefer pollingreport.com which I link to in the article, because it provides all the polls and most importantly includes the questions so you can tell if the answers are influenced by how the questions are worded.
To whoever asked about the breakdown of where money came from, go to the link in the first paragraph and if you click on any candidate's name there it will give you that breakdown as well as other info. At this point none of the candidates seems to have huge amounts of corporate money. I think that starts to become a larger factor later in the campaign.
Dave
14 - RJ
Great post! I appreciate the links.
Ron Paul will not be the GOP nominee - that is certain. But he is doing a lot better financially than any other Republican except Rudy and Romney. I expect Fred Thompson to eventually "officially" enter the race and start scooping up money all over the place. But, until that happens, Ron Paul is #3 in the GOP race (because, let's face it, McCain is finished).
15 - RJ
"Ron Paul has a staggering 52.53 percent of all military contributions. The military service men and women support Ron Paul above all other candidates. So maybe we should listen to the advice of our U.S. troops and vote Ron Paul!"
Uh, cite?
16 - RJ
"Vamonticello. Unless they have some weird election rules in New York money not spent in one campaign can be carried over to the next."
Yeah, but I don't think they can be spent on the PRIMARY campaign. I believe they can only be spent in the GENERAL ELECTION campaign. But I could be wrong...
17 - Dave Nalle
That might be, RJ. But it's not like Clinton is going to have any problem with money during the primary.
I'd also like to see a source for that 52.53% number. As far as I can tell there's no absolute requirement for donors to give their employer info. It's blank on many of the records, so I don't see how the information can be complete or verifiable.
Dave
18 - Dave Nalle
I'm going through the donation records now and searching for every possible variant of a name of a branch of the armed services. The problem is that there's no set format for employer names. But my initial data looks like it runs about 90% not Paul for military donations, or maybe more. McCain seems to be in the lead. But since it's the weekend I'll try to compile all the data.
Dave
19 - RJ
Personally, I go to RealClearPolitics for my poll numbers. Their projections were solid in 2002 and 2004. They were ... uh ... somewhat less solid in 2006. But it's still a great resource.
20 - RJ
Ron Paul's MySpace has almost 50,000 friends.
John McCain's MySpace has barely over 40,000 friends.
Mitt Romney's MySpace has under 30,000 friends.
Just sayin'...
21 - Dave Nalle
Ok, I'm still crunching numbers. I'm figuring out pretty quickly where that number is coming from. Paul seems to get more contributors making multiple small contributions so if you count contributions his number is inflated - sort of like multiple votes from the same people in an internet poll - if you count actual contributors the numbers are quite a bit different. Harder to count too, but I'm working on it.
Dave
22 - RJ
So...you're saying that Ron Paul's military supporters donate 5 or 10 dollars every week or month, while McCain's or Giuliani's military supporters give 50 or 100 bucks, but just once?
That would be an interesting finding...and one that hasn't been mentioned before in the MSM as far as I can tell...
23 - RJ
Okay, let's take Ron Paul out of the GOP race. Make him an independent candidate instead, with roughly $3,000,000.00 in the bank and solid support on the internet.
In a general election, I think he would be able to steal at least 5% of the popular vote as a Southerner in an all-NY Hillary-Rudy matchup. (And he'd be the only pro-life candidate! Make that 10%!)
He'd be like Ralph Nader in 2000, only times three, and hurting the GOP candidate instead of the Dem candidate.
So, a Clinton wins the White House with a plurality instead of a majority, and Republicans blame some little guy with crazy ideas from Texas. (Remember Ross Perot?)
Okay, who would be his running-mate? Can't be Bloomberg or Nader. Maybe Bob Barr?
24 - Dave Nalle
Ok, here are the correct numbers for military contributors:
Obama 25%
Paul 16%
Clinton 13%
McCain 12%
Edwards 8%
Richardson 6%
Romney 6%
Giuliani 5%
Tancredo 5%
I was pretty surprised to see Obama in first place by such a good margin, but what's abundantly clear is that the military does not support Paul by the large margin suggested.
I also calculated pro and anti war candidate support, assuming that anyone in favor of some sort of withdrawal was basically anti.
Anti-War 54%
Pro-War 46%
About the same as the population in general.
Then I calculated pro republican and pro democrat totals.
Republican 48%
Democrat 52%
Again, not so surprising based on the general population.
The one thing I didn't do was recount by number of separate contributions, but based on what I noticed in passing, even by that measure Obama beats Paul because he also had a lot of small, multiple contributors.
Dave
25 - Dave Nalle
So...you're saying that Ron Paul's military supporters donate 5 or 10 dollars every week or month, while McCain's or Giuliani's military supporters give 50 or 100 bucks, but just once?
Yes, but Obama seems to have the same profile as Paul but moreso. What's more, although I haven't run all the numbers (yet?), it looks like in those cases where ranks were given McCain's support comes overwhelmingly from officers, including a couple of generals. Obama seems to have support more from enlisted men. Paul has a mix, but a much heavier level of support from the Navy than any other service. I have no idea why since he was in the Airforce himself. Maybe craziness caused by being on a ship for too long?
Dave