Trump Leads in Donors in 32 States – Converts Twice as Many Clinton Donors

A lot of people are saying this is going to be a landslide, but I gotta tell you; it’s a close race, folks

With just about a month to go until the election, our country’s fate and our sanity hangs in the balance. The candidates are going head to head; pantsuit to “hair”. The outcome will undeniably upset a near-majority of the country, no matter the winner. As a New York-based 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 data science muscle and weigh in on this nightmarish election cycle.
 

The map and graph below shows how close the donor counts are in each state. Dark red and dark blue indicate a 50%+ lead in unique donors, light blue and light red indicate a 10-50% lead, and gray indicates their donor counts are within 10%. Clicking a state will reveal more details including the candidates’ donor counts, the number of Electoral College Votes up for grabs, and the candidate’s effective donor conversion in that state.

Some of our key findings include:

• Clinton leads Trump by just 17,000 donors nationwide
• Trump holds a majority share of donors in 32 states
• Trump has more effectively converted donors intra-party, capturing 4.39% (11,346) of the 258,325 unique donors to past GOP candidates
• Clinton has converted 1.53% or 3,878 of the 253,327 donors that gave to (mostly)Bernie Sanders, Lessig, O’Malley, and Webb
• Trump has been able to convert only 154 donors across party lines, while Clinton has recruited 777 donors from former GOP candidates
• 106 donors have been so impressed with Trump’s performance that they switched from Hillary, 13 of them from New York
• Clinton has converted just 59 former Trump Donors, 9 of them in New York
• Clinton and Gary Johnson have performed similarly in converting Republicans
• Jill Stein has done a better job recruiting Democrats than Trump

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 September 21, 2016, contains over 5.3 million lines of donor data, since the beginning of the election cycle. We’ve chosen to ignore dollar amounts in favor of donor counts, allowing us to go much deeper. This focus allowed us to look at donor habits and donation trends.

Specifically we looked at:

• Number of Unique donors – by candidate, state, and month
• Donors who have given to multiple candidates – possible undecideds or flip-floppers
• Effectiveness of each candidate to convert donors from intra and inter-party opponents

Although Hillary leads in nationwide totals, that’s not how the election works. Of the 50 states and D.C. that make up the electoral college, Hillary only leads in 19 of them. Trump has more unique donors in 32 states, including Ohio and Florida, where he leads by 47% and 46.6%, respectively. If Electoral College votes were distributed this way, Trump would win 314 to 224 if it was based on these documented donor counts (thankfully it’s not).

Looking at the graph above the map, we can see that Hillary Clinton, as of the most recent disclosure, leads Donald Trump by just under 17,000 documented donors nationwide (336,576 to 319,812). That’s really close given that Trump didn’t really start raising money until this May. We also see that the 16 former GOP Candidates had nearly the same number of unique donors as the 4 former Democrats, aka Bernie.

These 5 States (and D.C.) are Hillary’s strongholds

1. D.C. – 9,483 donors to Trump’s 195 – Leading by 4,863%
2. Massachusetts – 15,526 donors to 4,958 – Leading by 313%
3. New York – 42,000 donors to Trump’s 13,878 – Leading by 302.6%
4. Maryland – 11,183 donors to Trump’s 5,189 – Leading by 215.5%
5. California – 67,026 donors to Trump’s 31,466 – Leading by 213%

Donald has a huge lead in these 5 States

1. Mississippi – 2,900 donors to Clinton’s 628 – 461.7% lead
2. Alabama – 5,651 donors to Clinton’s 1,713 – 329.9% lead
3. Oklahoma – 5,216 donors to Clinton’s 1,740 – 299.8% lead
4. Louisiana – 4,523 donors to Clinton’s 1,639 – 276% lead
5. North Dakota – 677 donors to Clinton’s 249 – 271.9% lead

What is a “unique donor”?

To calculate unique donors, we combed through the 5.3 million donations, looking at the names, 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 people with the same name and zip code together, we found there were just under 1.2 million unique donors between all candidates.

The table below shows how donors have “flipped” between candidates.

The RentHop data science team also thought it would be interesting to take a look at an important subset of the data: donors that have given to more than one candidate. A lot of good candidates, the best ones – some may argue – have left the race, but their donors haven’t given up hope in having some influence on whom becomes our next president. To find this subset we used our calculation of unique donors as a starting point.

Donations from the same person to multiple candidates were counted as “flipped” if they made a donation to Trump or Clinton after having given to another candidate.  Due to name changes and moves, some flip-floppers may not have been counted. There’s inevitably some margin of error in any data set that requires human input, but great efforts have been made to clean the data, and we have confidence that the data presented represents a more than substantial portion of the shifting donors.

Key Flip-Flop Findings

• In Florida Trump flipped over 5 times as many donors as Hillary, and converted his highest number of Hillary supporters (14)
• Trump has been able to convert only 154 across party lines, while Clinton has recruited 777 from former GOP candidates
• Just 1 donor in Alabama jumped off the Trump train.
• Clinton has been much less effective overall at converting donors within her own party, leaving a lot to be answered about the direction Bernie Bros will head

The numbers from this campaign disclosure are through the end of August, before some of Donald’s most recent antics, but there are still one debate left. He seems to recover within a week from any appalling thing he does, truly demonstrating the lack of love there is for Hillary.

At RentHop we 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.