Politics has its style and its substance. Style requires the 2020 candidates to stump in New Hampshire diners and eat corn dogs at Iowa fairs. These stylistic rites of passage in American politics are on the verge of irrelevance as the kingmakers in California push up their primary and as the effort to eliminate the electoral college gains traction among the 2020 Democrats and, more importantly, their donors.
Forget the New Hampshire diners and Iowa corn dogs, the truth can be found if you follow the money.
The 2020 race is all about touting the democracy of small donors with a 130,000 donor threshold for the third Democrat debate. But certain zip codes keep coming up for the top Democrat candidates. The 100XX zip codes of Manhattan, the 90XXX zip codes of Los Angeles, the 94XXX zip codes of San Francisco, the 98XXX zip codes of Seattle, the 20XXX zip codes of D.C. and the 02XXX zip codes of Boston.
These are the core zip codes of the Democrat donor base. They are the pattern that recur in the campaign contributions lists of the top Democrats. And they explain the politics of the 2020 race.
Providing free health care for illegal aliens at taxpayer expense may not be very popular nationwide, but is commonplace in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston. Gun control is a loser nationwide, but a sure thing in the big blue cities. Even proposals to take away private health plans, allow rapists and terrorists to vote from prison, and open the border pick up more support there.
The 2020 Democrats aren’t speaking to Americans as a whole. Instead they’re addressing wealthy donors from 6 major cities, and some of their satellite areas, whose money they need to be able to buy teams, ads and consultants to help them win in places like New Hampshire and Iowa.
New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles show up in the top 5 donor cities for most of the top 2020 candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg. Boston shows up in the top 10, not only for Bernie and Warren, but for Kamala and Buttigieg. Seattle appears in the top 10 for Bernie, Warren, and Buttigieg. Washington D.C. features in the top 10 for Bernie, Booker, Warren, Kamala, and Buttigieg. And the rest of America doesn’t really matter.
Not if you’re a Democrat.
The democracy of small donors is illusory not only by zip code, but by industry. Google isn’t the largest company in America, but, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, its employees show up on the top company contributor lists for Kamala, Sanders, Buttigieg, and, Warren. Despite Warren’s supposed threat to break up big dot coms and Sanders’ talk of going after big companies, Google employees were the top backers of both candidates.
What do they know that we don’t?
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, does employ a lot people, but its number of employees is a fraction of those employed by Home Depot, Kroger or Wal-Mart. What Google does have is an enormous concentration of wealth and power through its monopolistic control over search advertising. That power also gives its radical employees a disproportionate ability to shape the 2020 Democrat field.
Despite Warren’s supposed threats to break up big tech, their employees are some of her biggest backers. Besides Google, Microsoft, Apple and Yelp employees are some of her major backers.
Again, what do the millionaire employees of big tech know about Warren’s plans that we don’t?
Microsoft employees show up on the donor leaderboards for Bernie, Kamala, Warren, and, Buttigieg. Amazon employees are a major donor group for Bernie and Buttigieg. Pinterest, which recently made headlines for the dot com’s aggressive censorship of pro-life views, appears on Buttigieg’s donor board. Apple employees are some of the major donors to Bernie, Warren, and Kamala.
There’s no question that big tech cash is helping shape the 2020 Democrat field.
But it’s not just big tech.
Some of the biggest financial players in shaping the 2020 field are government institutions.
After Google, University of California employees are the biggest donors to both Bernie and Warren. They also show up, somewhat less surprisingly, on the donor leaderboards for Kamala Harris and Buttigieg. The prominence of California college employees on donor lists for candidates from the other side of the country shows the sheer financial wealth of taxpayer funded institutions in California.
Aside from UC, employees of Berkeley, the city, show up as one of Bernie’s major donor groups. Employees of the State of California are a major donor group to Kamala Harris, a former state official.
New York City employees are a major donor group for Bernie Sanders.
The donor list roundups show the power of alumni networking with Warren tapping into a large donor base at Harvard and Buttigieg at Notre Dame. Harvard had positioned Warren for a profile in national politics and Notre Dame had made Buttigieg a viable candidate in a city where hardly anyone seems to even bother voting. And even Cory Booker managed to tap into his old Stanford connections
University of Michigan and University of Massachusetts employees are some of Warren’s most prevalent institutional donors. University of Illinois, Michigan, and Massachusetts employees fuel Bernie. As do Stanford and Columbia University employees.
Beyond the regional geography, there is a political and industrial geography shaping the 2020 field with New York City and Berkeley employees funding the candidacy of a Vermont socialist and the employees of public and private universities (but either way heavily subsidized by taxpayers) across the country funding the rise of a Massachusetts socialist with an academic background.
By contrast, Trump is the only 2020 candidate whose top 5 donor groups don’t contain a single big data firm, but do contain employees of the United States Army and the Department of Defense. He’s also the only candidate whose top donor groups contain multiple branches of the military, the Army, Navy, and Air Force (Space Force still pending), but not a single college or FAANG tech monstrosity.
In contrast to the 2020 Dems, there isn’t a single law firm, but there are several manufacturing firms. Meanwhile not a single of the top 2020 Dems appears to have a manufacturing donor base.
The sharp contrast between Googlers and steelworkers, between professors and soldiers, draws a truer picture of the clash of cultures between the Democrats and Republicans, lefties and righties in America.
Bernie Sanders claimed that his campaign was grass roots because his average donation was $27. Bernie, a 1 percenter socialist who claims to advocate for the poor from one of his three homes, was under the impression that $27 was what poor people could donate to a political campaign.
Then President Trump raised $54 million. His average donation was four bucks.
The parts of the country are also more diverse with Milwaukee, San Antonio, Greensboro, Dallas, and Houston appearing on the list of Trump donor bases.
The 2020 election will come down to the question of whether six influential blue cities will be able to buy the election and dictate their politics to the country, whether the big tech firms and professors will be able to drown out the sailors and steelworkers, or whether the rest of the nation will be heard.
The dot coms and academics of San Francisco and Boston, the financial firms of New York and the lobbyists of Washington D.C. will pick the Democrat nominee. But will they pick the president?
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
Thank you for reading.
Forget the New Hampshire diners and Iowa corn dogs, the truth can be found if you follow the money.
The 2020 race is all about touting the democracy of small donors with a 130,000 donor threshold for the third Democrat debate. But certain zip codes keep coming up for the top Democrat candidates. The 100XX zip codes of Manhattan, the 90XXX zip codes of Los Angeles, the 94XXX zip codes of San Francisco, the 98XXX zip codes of Seattle, the 20XXX zip codes of D.C. and the 02XXX zip codes of Boston.
These are the core zip codes of the Democrat donor base. They are the pattern that recur in the campaign contributions lists of the top Democrats. And they explain the politics of the 2020 race.
Providing free health care for illegal aliens at taxpayer expense may not be very popular nationwide, but is commonplace in New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle and Boston. Gun control is a loser nationwide, but a sure thing in the big blue cities. Even proposals to take away private health plans, allow rapists and terrorists to vote from prison, and open the border pick up more support there.
The 2020 Democrats aren’t speaking to Americans as a whole. Instead they’re addressing wealthy donors from 6 major cities, and some of their satellite areas, whose money they need to be able to buy teams, ads and consultants to help them win in places like New Hampshire and Iowa.
New York, San Francisco and Los Angeles show up in the top 5 donor cities for most of the top 2020 candidates, including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, Kamala Harris, Cory Booker and Pete Buttigieg. Boston shows up in the top 10, not only for Bernie and Warren, but for Kamala and Buttigieg. Seattle appears in the top 10 for Bernie, Warren, and Buttigieg. Washington D.C. features in the top 10 for Bernie, Booker, Warren, Kamala, and Buttigieg. And the rest of America doesn’t really matter.
Not if you’re a Democrat.
The democracy of small donors is illusory not only by zip code, but by industry. Google isn’t the largest company in America, but, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, its employees show up on the top company contributor lists for Kamala, Sanders, Buttigieg, and, Warren. Despite Warren’s supposed threat to break up big dot coms and Sanders’ talk of going after big companies, Google employees were the top backers of both candidates.
What do they know that we don’t?
Alphabet, Google’s parent company, does employ a lot people, but its number of employees is a fraction of those employed by Home Depot, Kroger or Wal-Mart. What Google does have is an enormous concentration of wealth and power through its monopolistic control over search advertising. That power also gives its radical employees a disproportionate ability to shape the 2020 Democrat field.
Despite Warren’s supposed threats to break up big tech, their employees are some of her biggest backers. Besides Google, Microsoft, Apple and Yelp employees are some of her major backers.
Again, what do the millionaire employees of big tech know about Warren’s plans that we don’t?
Microsoft employees show up on the donor leaderboards for Bernie, Kamala, Warren, and, Buttigieg. Amazon employees are a major donor group for Bernie and Buttigieg. Pinterest, which recently made headlines for the dot com’s aggressive censorship of pro-life views, appears on Buttigieg’s donor board. Apple employees are some of the major donors to Bernie, Warren, and Kamala.
There’s no question that big tech cash is helping shape the 2020 Democrat field.
But it’s not just big tech.
Some of the biggest financial players in shaping the 2020 field are government institutions.
After Google, University of California employees are the biggest donors to both Bernie and Warren. They also show up, somewhat less surprisingly, on the donor leaderboards for Kamala Harris and Buttigieg. The prominence of California college employees on donor lists for candidates from the other side of the country shows the sheer financial wealth of taxpayer funded institutions in California.
Aside from UC, employees of Berkeley, the city, show up as one of Bernie’s major donor groups. Employees of the State of California are a major donor group to Kamala Harris, a former state official.
New York City employees are a major donor group for Bernie Sanders.
The donor list roundups show the power of alumni networking with Warren tapping into a large donor base at Harvard and Buttigieg at Notre Dame. Harvard had positioned Warren for a profile in national politics and Notre Dame had made Buttigieg a viable candidate in a city where hardly anyone seems to even bother voting. And even Cory Booker managed to tap into his old Stanford connections
University of Michigan and University of Massachusetts employees are some of Warren’s most prevalent institutional donors. University of Illinois, Michigan, and Massachusetts employees fuel Bernie. As do Stanford and Columbia University employees.
Beyond the regional geography, there is a political and industrial geography shaping the 2020 field with New York City and Berkeley employees funding the candidacy of a Vermont socialist and the employees of public and private universities (but either way heavily subsidized by taxpayers) across the country funding the rise of a Massachusetts socialist with an academic background.
By contrast, Trump is the only 2020 candidate whose top 5 donor groups don’t contain a single big data firm, but do contain employees of the United States Army and the Department of Defense. He’s also the only candidate whose top donor groups contain multiple branches of the military, the Army, Navy, and Air Force (Space Force still pending), but not a single college or FAANG tech monstrosity.
In contrast to the 2020 Dems, there isn’t a single law firm, but there are several manufacturing firms. Meanwhile not a single of the top 2020 Dems appears to have a manufacturing donor base.
The sharp contrast between Googlers and steelworkers, between professors and soldiers, draws a truer picture of the clash of cultures between the Democrats and Republicans, lefties and righties in America.
Bernie Sanders claimed that his campaign was grass roots because his average donation was $27. Bernie, a 1 percenter socialist who claims to advocate for the poor from one of his three homes, was under the impression that $27 was what poor people could donate to a political campaign.
Then President Trump raised $54 million. His average donation was four bucks.
The parts of the country are also more diverse with Milwaukee, San Antonio, Greensboro, Dallas, and Houston appearing on the list of Trump donor bases.
The 2020 election will come down to the question of whether six influential blue cities will be able to buy the election and dictate their politics to the country, whether the big tech firms and professors will be able to drown out the sailors and steelworkers, or whether the rest of the nation will be heard.
The dot coms and academics of San Francisco and Boston, the financial firms of New York and the lobbyists of Washington D.C. will pick the Democrat nominee. But will they pick the president?
Daniel Greenfield is a Shillman Journalism Fellow at the David Horowitz Freedom Center. This article previously appeared at the Center's Front Page Magazine.
Click here to subscribe to my articles. And click here to support my work with a donation.
Thank you for reading.
Comments
$54M with an average of $4?
ReplyDeleteIf my math serves me, that's 13.5M donations.
I think the MSM is going to get whiplash once the primaries are over, pivoting hard to Mom and apple pie - as opposed to gender neutral person of color and churros.
Thank you Daniel for that amazing article. I am always impressed at how you manage to dig up these kinds of facts.
ReplyDeleteI think though, that there are some questions that could be asked about these recurring donations to the DNC candidates from the same people. Remember what happened to Dinesh D'Souza when he foolishly had a friend make a political contribution and then reimbursed that person?
I think it bears investigating to see if there are too many contributions from the same zip codes and companies that suggest some one else is really making the donations and using proxies.
But then, that would be: bigoted, racist, misogyny, ant-LGBTQWXYZ, anti-immigrant, fascist, Nazi, redneck, and white supremacist. Did I forget anything in that list?
Your research confirms expectations from
ReplyDeletelong experience, Daniel. Here in Silicon
Valley, I continue to be surrounded by smart
people with stupid opinions. A paradox.
Trump knows that they underestimate him, and
spend too much attention preening their egos.
If the sucker Republican Party can limit voter
fraud and other Dem crimes, it’ll be a Red
Landslide.
Charlie
Is it really about the money? My gut feeling is that no matter how loud and repetitive the message, it won't sway any voters. The political lines are too clearly drawn. That said, if 2020 is the year when those who see themselves as have-nots finally outnumber the haves (i.e., working stiffs who pay taxes), then Trump will lose.
ReplyDeleteIn Massachusetts, the LACK OF BUMPER STICKERS , AND YARD SIGNS, RIGHT UP TO A WEEK BEFORE THE ELECTION TELLS THE TALE OF WHOSE VOTING FOR WHO.
ReplyDeleteAlthough Trump lost Massachusetts, we are out here flourishing in this economy, and anyone who reads this knows its true. The company I represent just hired 2 more Union Workers, A new Truck, probably a 200 k investment because the economy IS ROLLING.!
After the Russian Fiasco, and the outright lies being perpertrated by the Democrats, it amazes me that ANYONE WOULD VOTE Democrat... They are out for themselves, not their constituents.Free education, no fossil fuels, Free healthcare?? Whose going to pay for THIS WELL THOUGHT OUT FARCE... The hardworking Taxpayers, who have made 50% of the current Congress Millionaires, while the rest of us struggle paying thousands more for healthcare since Obama care was instituted.
What a GD JOKE THE DEMS ARE.
ANYONE, WITH 1/2 A BRAIN, CAN ASK THEMSELVES THE SAME QUESTION...Whos going to pay for all their freebee promises??
Please review Warrens work record, throughout her illustrious Career.
Why would the company she worked for, to oversee the Corporate corruption in New York, NOT HIRE HER TO TAKE OVER, WHEN SHE WAS SUCH A GREAT WORKER THERE?... Oh yea... She was being paid by the companies she was overseeing, to make sure The working Middle Class was not being HAMMERED by their Company policies.
Skip forward to her senate win..."If Elected to the Senate, "I will not run for president" She has done NOTHING FOR THE STATE OF Massachusetts, and even less then she did working for the oversite committee watching over Corporate America. A confirmed liar, Hiawatha Warren... Can you imagine her standing next to Putin, Kim Jung Un, or any number of world leaders? Hillary will be installed in some manner, to get her Pantsuited ARSE back into politics again.
Is this what Our Faithful Dedicated Countrymen Deserve??
The funding of the Democratic primary is only a small problem. The much larger problem is that these donors (in both parties) are funding Congress as well, including in states/districts where they can't vote. THAT is the reason the politicians are often voting against the interests of their constituents.
ReplyDeleteWhat we have is six zip codes (more or less) picking the representatives for 50 states. Perhaps that data is available as well. I know Paul Ryan and Luis Gutierrez,to name two, typically got nearly 100% of their funding from people outside of their district.
Ah! but Daniel you neglected to mention the four biggest donors to the Presidents campaign. FEAR, HATE, DIVISVNESS and RACISM. No need to expand his base simply whip the crowd into a frenzy and then deny any participation.
ReplyDeleteThe real question is not the billion dollar zip code donors. It is how many fake votes they can come up with. Do any of them own voting machine manufacturing companies?
ReplyDeleteOnce Steyer runs through his $100 million in a losing effort, he'll throw another $100 million at the Democrat nominee.
ReplyDeleteIf Epstein gains access to his money he'll do the same.
The Democrats are the Party of Deep Pockets.
The minds are made up. Not many will change their views. The right want's more freedom, the left wants more free stuff. It's pretty clear. On side want self reliance and tradition, the other side wants cradle to grave care. Which of those character types do you most respect.
ReplyDeletePost a Comment