This article was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
This content was republished with permission from WTOP’s news partners at Maryland Matters. Sign up for Maryland Matters’ free email subscription today.
Money in politics always tells a story.
It’s examined in breathless horse-race analyses. Also in detailed examinations of influence.
And into the 2020 presidential election, monetary contributions are a barometer of candidate support that decides who in the crowded Democratic field will appear in nationally televised debates and who will not.
Even the smallest of donations — $1, candidates promised — would help bolster their campaigns and help them make their way to the stage.
In Maryland, nearly 125,000 donations were made to candidates through June 30, sometimes by the same donor more than once. Sometimes, the same donor gave to more than one candidate.
More than half of the donations in the state were a sawbuck ($10) or less.
Former Vice President Joe Biden raised the most: $758,197.02.
South Bend, Indiana, Mayor Pete Buttigieg comes next, bringing in $642,375.26.
However, both of them combined haven’t achieved the number of donations that Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders has in the state: more than 30,295 since January. Sanders’ fundraising in particular includes dozens of donors who gave to his campaign dozens of times, often in small amounts.
The figures — which cover Jan. 1 to June 30 — come from a report produced by the Center for Public Integrity and FiveThirtyEight. It recently combined the campaign finance numbers from Federal Elections Commission filings and Internal Revenue Service reports from ActBlue — a major nonprofit Democratic fundraising force — to give a detailed look at small-dollar donors.
When the IRS data is combined with information from the FEC, where donations less than $200 don’t have to be individually reported, it is possible to track most individual donations made to the majority of Democratic candidates.
In Maryland, identifiable individual donors gave $4,388,035.04 to 23 Democratic candidates.
The Democratic National Committee guidelines to take part in Thursday night’s 10-person debate required candidates to receive at least 2% support in approved polls and to raise money from at least 130,000 unique donors with at least 400 unique donors in 20 states.
Eight of the 10 candidates who will appear on stage were top fundraisers in Maryland.
Former Maryland Rep. John Delaney and Washington Gov. Jay Inslee raised $130,488.98 and $81,883.72 in the state, respectively. Delaney is still in the race, while Inslee suspended his campaign last month.
Two candidates appearing on stage who raised less than them in Maryland are entrepreneur Andrew Yang, who raised $78,893.83 in the state, and former U.S. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Julian Castro, who raised $71,801.38.
