Surprise! Hyde Park, Obama’s Old Hood, is a Stronghold of Hillary supporters
As we enter the home stretch on this election cycle, the only thing left to do is vote (seriously, get out and vote!). We’ve been bombarded with scandals, controversies, and conspiracies. As Hillary and the Donald go pantsuit to “hair”, we’ve been left with a hunger for some cold hard data. As a data-driven real estate startup, RentHop recognizes the magnitude of the situation. Not only will renters and brokers be affected, but as half the country simultaneously moves to Canada, rent prices may finally decrease! We feel it is our duty to lend some of our data science muscle and weigh in on this nightmare.
Our Key Chicago Findings:
- In Cook County, Hillary has raised $9.59 million from 9,829 donors (up 2,000 since last month) giving her a majority of donors in 100 zip codes
- Trump leads in 53 zip codes across Cook County, with 2,704 donors and $587,054
- Cook County is the only Northeast Illinois county where Hillary is strongly in favor
- Gary Johnson has just 89 donors and Jill Stein only 59 in Cook County
The map and graph below show the share of unique donors each candidate has in zip codes across Northeast Illinois. The drop down list allows you to type in a zip code or county. You can also click a zip code on the map. Purple areas are where neither Clinton nor Trump have more than 55% of the donors. Light blue and light red represent areas where the candidate has 55-70% of the donors, and dark blue or red represents a 70+% majority.
As you can see, Hillary is holding it down pretty well in downtown Chicago, but as soon as we look north, south, or west, support for her wavers. Hillary’s 77.5% of donors in more populous Cook County does narrowly outweigh the many areas where Trump is leading, but it’s still a relatively close race for such a historically blue state.
The data for this study was provided by the Federal Election Commission (FEC.gov). Here, disclosures for all campaigns can be found, documenting every dollar in and out. The most recent disclosure, dated October 21, 2016, contains nearly 6 million lines of donor data, since the beginning of the election cycle. We’ve chosen to rank zip codes by donor counts instead of dollar amounts, as we feel this better represents how many people support each candidate.
Here are a few Chicago area Zip Codes Where Hillary is Untouchable
- 60653 (Bronzeville) – 23 donors to Trump’s 0 – 100% donor share
- 60637 (Hyde Park/ UChicago) – 141 donors to Trump’s 2 – 97.2% (96.5% in neighboring 60615 where Obama’s house is at)
- 60622 (Wicker Park) – 213 donors to Trump’s 8 – 95.2% donor share
- 60202 (Evanston) – 242 donors to Trump’s 12 – 95.3% donor share
- 60657 (Lake View) – 540 to Trump’s 25 – 94.4% of donors
- 60614 (Lincoln Park) – 646 donors to Trump’s 38 – 94% donor share
There are quite a few zip codes where each candidate had 100% or close to that of the donors, but most had 10 or less donors. The Zip Codes that favored Hillary were all generally in the downtown area, with support for Hillary fading fast as we reach the edge of Cook County.
Donald has a Huge Lead in These Chicago Zip Codes
- 60171 (River Grove) – 11 donors to Clinton’s 0 – 100% Donor Share
- 60084 (Wauconda) – 22 to Clinton’s 3 – 88% of donors
- 60081 (Spring Grove) – 19 donors to Clinton’s 3 – 86.4% Donor Share
- 60544 (Plainfield) – 33 Donors to Clinton’s 8 – 80.5%
- 60101 (Addison) – 32 donors to Clinton’s 9 – 78% Donor Share
- 60477 (Tinley Park) – 43 donors to Clinton’s 14 – 75.4% Donor Share
What is a “unique donor”?
To calculate unique donors, we combed through 5.9 million donations, looking at the names, dates, and zip codes. We removed common prefixes (Dr., Mr., Mrs, Ms,) that are often added accidentally or inconsistently across forms, and shortened 9-digit zip codes to 5 digits, since some candidates weren’t collecting the longer version, and many people don’t know theirs. People that have changed their names or moved in between donations could artificially inflate these numbers. After grouping donations from the same name and zip code together, we found there were just over 1.3 million unique donors between all candidates.
Some interesting facts about the surrounding area
- Lake County is the only other county where a majority of donors (54.6%) support Hillary 1118 to 907, a large increase since last month, when it was 926 to 848 donors
- Trump has 67% of the donors in McHenry and Will Counties
- In most areas, even if Trump has more donors, Hillary still raised more money
- Evan McMullin, that guy you’ve definitely heard of, is a real candidate and he has 2 real donors in the 9 counties we looked at
We at RentHop recognize that this is just one take on the current political climate, and it may under or over-represent some demographics. We believe in the power of knowledge and the transparency of open data to allow voters and all people to make informed decisions. We hope the consequence of this election is not overlooked, and no winner is assumed until every vote, including yours, is counted.
