San Diego Union-Tribune (Sunday)
BIDEN LEADS BY FAR IN S.D. CAMPAIGN DONATIONS
Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden has received more than three times as much money from San Diego County donors as his opponent, Republican President Donald Trump, according to an analysis of campaign finance reports.
Data from the Federal Elections Commission show Biden beat Trump in both the amount raised and the number of individual donations from county residents.
The Democratic nominee received more than $2.1 million from 19,400 individual donations to his campaign from January 2019 through July of this year, the most recent data available.
Trump, the incumbent, has received about 4,000 donations totaling $620,300 to his campaign during the same time period.
In all, San Diego County residents have donated nearly $2.8 million to both candidates. Biden took nearly 75 percent of that total, mostly from coastal regions, while Trump re
ceived more donations than his opponent in rural areas.
“This is just confirmation, with some rare exceptions, that the closer you are to water, the more likely you are to be in Democratic territory,” said John Pitney, a professor of American politics at Claremont Mckenna College. “There’s a saying that if you can smell saltwater, you’re probably in a Democratic district. If you smell dust, you’re probably in a Republican district.”
Historically coastal areas comprise a workingclass population, especially voters employed by port industries, Pitney said. It’s also an area that attracts upper-income, educated professionals, who have increasingly gravitated toward the Democratic party in recent years and led to a purple — then a blue — shift throughout the county.
“For one, educated professionals tend to take a more liberal stance on social issues,” Pitney said. “Second, Trump’s attitude toward science and educated people in general hasn’t played well with that demographic.”
As of this week, there are more than 1.9 million registered voters countywide, according to the San Diego County Registrar of Voters. Nearly 40 percent, some 757,500 voters, are registered Democrats, 28 percent are Republican and slightly more than a quarter have no party preference — also known as independents.
It’s a stark difference from the makeup of voters in 2007, when 13 of the county’s 18 cities had more Republicans than Democrats. Today, there are only three — Coronado, Poway and Santee.
And in 2010, Republicans and Democrats were almost equal in proportion countywide, both representing about 36 percent of all voters. Less than 25 percent were independents.
Since then the Democratic party has gained more than 244,400 voters, a 48 percent increase, while the GOP added just 4,000 voters, less than a 1 percent gain, the data show.
The number of no party preference voters saw the biggest increase, jumping nearly 50 percent to 485,600 voters, up from 327,800 in 2010, according to county voter registration databases.
Pitney said this trend extends beyond San Diego County. In the 2018 midterm election, Democrats flipped all four of Orange County’s Republican-held Congressional seats, picked up two Republican state legislative seats, and a county supervisor position.
According to a poll released Tuesday, Biden leads Trump by 27 points in California. Close to 60 percent of voters said they plan to vote for Biden and 32 percent favored the president, with more Republican voters crossing party lines than Democrats.
“This shift is seen in the donations .... Biden has an overwhelming fundraising advantage in areas of Southern California that used to be considered deep red,” Pitney said. “What used to be ATMS for the Republican Party are now an ATM for Democrats.”
The total amounts raised and total donations to both candidates could be higher. The FEC only requires candidates to disclose details about donors when their contributions total $200 or more in an election cycle.
The sum also does not account for donations to party committees or Political Action Committees, also known as PACS, both of which have higher donation limits and often work alongside a candidate’s official campaign to further their election effort.
“(PAC money) is access money, not believe money,” Pitney said. “Access money doesn’t necessarily buy you someone’s favor but it gets you a meeting, gets you in the room. Belief money is donated because people believe in a candidate or believe in a candidate’s issues.”
According to FEC guidelines, individual contributions to a candidate’s campaign, which the San Diego Union-tribune analyzed, are limited to $2,800 per election cycle. But donors can give up to $5,000 to an unlimited number of PACS, up to $35,500 to national party committees each year, and up to $106,500 per year to additional national party committee accounts.
An NPR report published in late September analyzed all contributions to the presidential candidates, including those given to PAC and party committees. It showed Trump has received more than $7.7 million from San Diego County, exceeding Biden’s total of nearly $5.2 million.
Thad Kousser, chair of the political science department at UC San Diego, said this is expected, since Trump is more popular among high-income voters.
“If your fundraising base is more affluent, then they’re more likely to send money to the party,” Kousser said. “Why? Because there’s a higher limit on what they give.”
Individual contribution data show Trump received the biggest amount, some $32,600, from donors in a La Jolla ZIP code. But Biden still outraised him, receiving nearly $264,800 from the same ZIP code.
Trump received $29,400 from Rancho Santa Fe donors, the second highest sum he received by ZIP code, but again, he was outfundraised by his opponent, who received $87,000 from 340 donations.
Demographic data in 2018 from the San Diego Association of Governments, or SANDAG, show both areas are Whiter and wealthier than the rest of San Diego County.
In La Jolla, more than 70 percent are White, 12 percent are Hispanic, 11 percent are Asian and less than 2 percent are Black. About 4 percent identify as two or more races.
Nearly half the households have annual incomes of $100,000 or more. One in five households earns $200,000 or more.
In Rancho Santa Fe, three in four people are White, 15 percent are Hispanic, 6 percent are Asian and less than 1 percent are Black. More than a quarter of households have an income of $200,000 or more.
In comparison, the median household income of San Diego County is about $74,900, according to 2018 estimates from the U.S. Census Bureau.
Kousser said Trump’s lead in PAC and party committee donations doesn’t necessarily translate to a lead in votes on Election Day. For instance, Trump lost San Diego County by 20 percentage points against Hillary Clinton in the 2016 election.
Kousser said the president is more likely to win in rural areas, including Ramona, Lakeside and southern Escondido, where he raised more money and received more donations than his opponent.
“East County is Trump’s voting base, not his fundraising base, and that’s where you’re more likely to see medium-size contributions,” Kousser said. “And that’s where you’ll see donations translate into votes .... President Trump will earn more votes east of the Interstate 15, but raise more money west of I-15.”
FEC contribution data are self-reported by donors and input by campaign staff, and therefore contain some level of error. Some donors listed ZIP codes inside San Diego County but reported living in cities outside of county limits. These donations were eliminated from the analysis.
About a dozen donations were listed as contributions for the 2019-2020 donation cycle but had a transaction date prior to 2019. These donations were not included in the analysis.
The map does not include contributions from donors who listed a P.O. box ZIP code, since these represent individual post office locations and not geographic areas.