Bachmann’s Election 2010 Out of State Fundraising Fueled by Democratic States

Conservative Congresswoman’s large donor out of state individual fundraising for 2009 was 33 percent higher per capita in blue states than in red states

As Smart Politics reported earlier this week, Minnesota U.S. Representative Michele Bachmann has relied increasingly on contributions from individuals and less from PACs while tallying more than $1.5 million to her campaign coffers through the end of 2009.

Bachmann’s fundraising numbers reveal substantial support in particular from small donors, with 47.3 percent of her total funds raised in 2009 coming in contributions of less than $200 ($726,154). Small donor money to Bachmann’s campaign also increased in each quarter – from $80,138 in Q1, to $101, 245 in Q2, to $193,838 in Q3, to $350,931 in Q4.

(The large uptick in Q4 receipts can be attributed, in part, to Bachmann’s high profile “Send a Message to the Left” campaign in mid-October).

With just 12.3 percent of Bachmann’s funds coming from PACs ($188,785), the balance of her 2009 receipts, large donor individual contributions, still comprise a significant portion of her fundraising portfolio, at 40.4 percent ($620,129).

In fact, over a quarter of a million dollars of Congresswoman Bachmann’s 2009 fundraising haul came in the form of large donor contributions from outside of the Gopher State ($253,238) or 40.8 percent of her total large donor contributions.

And which states were the most supportive of one of the U.S. House’s most conservative members?

In what the Bachmann camp must find to be a delicious twist, a Smart Politics analysis finds that not only is the vast majority of such out of state money coming from the most Democratic states in the country, but that, even on a per capita basis, the nation’s bluest states are giving 33 percent more money to Bachmann’s campaign than the nation’s reddest states.

The deep blue state of Maryland has set the pace for Bachmann’s per capita out of state large donor fundraising this year, coming in at $406.05 per 100,000 residents. The Old Line State gave consistently to Bachmann’s reelection campaign in each quarter of 2009 – $7,750 in Q1, $5,750 in Q2, $4,050 in Q3, and $5,325 in Q4 for nearly $23,000 for the year.

Other heavily Democratic states giving in large amounts per capita to Representative Bachmann are Maine (#3, $239.28 per 100,000 residents), Michigan (#6, $114.46), Wisconsin (#8, 112.64), California (#9, $109.82), and Illinois (#11, $98.44).

Overall, residents from the nation’s 19 bluest states (excluding Minnesota) contributed $138,013 in large donor funds to the controversial Congresswoman, at a rate of $96.78 per 100,000 residents.

That amounts to a 33 percent higher rate of return for Bachmann than what she has received from residents of the nation’s 19 reddest states, who gave just $64,131 to Bachmann in 2009, at a rate of only $72.63 per 100,000 residents.

The nation’s 11 ‘purple’ states contributed to the Congresswoman at a nearly identical rate – $69.70 per 100,000 residents – for $47,345 in total.

Only five ‘red states’ appear among the Top 30 from which Congresswoman Bachmann received her highest per capita large donor funds in 2009: Nebraska (#2), Texas (#4), Wyoming (#7), and Kentucky (#24).

And while Bachmann raised large donor funds from 41 states plus the District of Columbia last year, some of the deepest red states in the country did not deliver any large donor money to Bachmann in 2009 – such as the heavily Republican states of Utah, Mississippi, Alaska, and the Congresswoman’s neighboring states of North and South Dakota.

Of course, it is true that, in general, there is a per capita income disparity between blue states and red states across America, with the more Democratic states in the country generally having a higher per capita income than the more Republican states. (Hence, they have more wealth to give to the campaigns of elected officials).

Even still, based on the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis’s 2007 per capita personal income rankings, the states with the highest personal incomes (Connecticut, New Jersey, Massachusetts, and New York) were not driving Bachmann’s numbers – none of these states even cracked Bachmann’s Top 10 list (ranking #13, #20, #29, and #21 respectively).

In fact, only two states among the Top 10 highest incomes per capita cracked Bachmann’s Top 10 states for large donor per capita contributions: Maryland (which has the #5 per capita income rank) and Wyoming (which is #6 and a red state).

Unfortunately, small donor contributions are not itemized by state – so it is not knowable whether or not this pattern of the nation’s most Democratic states fueling Bachmann’s 2010 reelection campaign still holds when factoring in the more than $725,000 in contributions of less than $200 that the 2-term Republican raised over the last 12 months.

Out of State Individual Large Donor Contributions to Michele Bachmann Per Capita, 2009

Rank	State	Partisan tilt	Total	per 100,000 residents
1	Maryland	Blue	$22,875	$406.05
2	Nebraska	Red	$6,825	$382.69
3	Maine	Blue	$3,150	$239.28
4	Texas	Red	$43,176	$177.48
5	D.C.	Blue	$1,000	$168.97
6	Michigan	Blue	$11,450	$114.46
7	Wyoming	Red	$600	$112.64
8	Wisconsin	Blue	$6,300	$111.94
9	California	Blue	$40,365	$109.82
10	Louisiana	Purple	$4,600	$104.29
11	Illinois	Blue	$12,700	$98.44
12	Nevada	Purple	$2,550	$98.07
13	Connecticut	Blue	$3,400	$97.11
14	Rhode Island	Blue	$1,000	$95.17
15	Virginia	Purple	$7,044	$90.67
16	Florida	Purple	$14,300	$78.02
17	Ohio	Purple	$8,750	$76.18
18	Colorado	Purple	$3,700	$74.91
19	Washington	Blue	$4,575	$69.86
20	New Jersey	Blue	$5,633	$64.88
21	New York	Blue	$12,215	$62.67
22	Missouri	Purple	$3,550	$60.05
23	Pennsylvania	Blue	$6,875	$55.23
24	Kentucky	Red	$2,250	$52.70
25	Iowa	Blue	$1,450	$48.29
26	Hawaii	Blue	$550	$42.70
27	Oklahoma	Red	$1,500	$41.18
28	Oregon	Blue	$1,500	$39.58
29	Massachusetts	Blue	$2,525	$38.86
30	Arizona	Purple	$2,401	$36.94
31	Idaho	Red	$500	$32.81
32	Kansas	Red	$755	$26.94
33	North Carolina	Red	$2,450	$26.57
34	Tennessee	Red	$1,625	$26.15
35	New Mexico	Blue	$450	$22.68
36	Alabama	Red	$1,000	$21.45
37	New Hampshire	Purple	$250	$19.00
38	Georgia	Red	$1,700	$17.55
39	South Carolina	Red	$750	$16.74
40	Indiana	Red	$1,000	$15.68
41	Arkansas	Purple	$200	$7.00
42	Delaware	Blue	$0	$0.00
42	Vermont	Blue	$0	$0.00
42	West Virginia	Purple	$0	$0.00
42	Alaska	Red	$0	$0.00
42	Mississippi	Red	$0	$0.00
42	Montana	Red	$0	$0.00
42	North Dakota	Red	$0	$0.00
42	South Dakota	Red	$0	$0.00
42	Utah	Red	$0	$0.00
	Other (territories)		$3,750
	Total		$253,239

FEC data compiled by Smart Politics. This table reflects the definition of a ‘red state’ as having an average margin of victory over the past five presidential election cycles of more than five points for the Republicans, a ‘blue state’ as having more than five points for the Democrats, and a ‘purple state’ as having less than a five point tilt in either direction.

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