I spent some time digging into James Comer’s latest FEC numbers, to see just where his campaign money is coming from. Mainly, I wanted to know if he was getting his support from Kentucky, or from other states.
After looking at the data, if I had to summarize my findings in one sentence, it would be “Some ... but not mostly.”
Let’s take a look.
Donor locations by amount
The FEC site does a lot of data breakdown for you, including donations by state and donations by size. So it was easy to grab the top states where Comer is raising his money. And the top one is not Kentucky.
| Florida | $286,348 |
| Kentucky | $158,080 |
| Texas | $156,545 |
| California | $105,354 |
| New York | $99,644 |
| Virginia | $84,837 |
And here’s a nice map showing that same data:
Donor locations by number of donations
But of course, total dollars isn’t the only metric you care about. After all, a few donors can max out and skew the totals. So, how does Comer do in getting large numbers of donors from his home state?
Uhm ... not very well. In fact, it appears that Kentuckians are not that enamored with their 1st District rep, at least when it comes to opening their wallet.
Here’s the top states by number of donors:
| 1) Virginia | 9,404 | 49.9% |
| 2) Texas | 1,084 | 5.8% |
| 3) California | 1,060 | 5.6% |
| 4) Florida | 1,047 | 5.6% |
| 5) Arizona | 442 | 2.3% |
| 6) Mississippi | 431 | 2.3% |
| 7) Georgia | 329 | 1.7% |
| 8) New York | 304 | 1.6% |
| 9) Colorado | 262 | 1.4% |
| 10) Illinois | 260 | 1.4% |
| 11) Kentucky | 259 | 1.4% |
You can basically throw out the Virginia number, because that is where WinRed (the Republican answer to ActBlue) is located.
But even so, it’s fascinating that Comer has so few donors from his supposed constituents.
And that’s the real lesson in all of this: Comer’s constituents aren’t from the 1st District. They’re from right-wing groups and voters all across the country. And, those are the constituents he consistently represents – not the voters of his district.
Perhaps those voters should ask themselves if they would be better off to elect someone who would actually represent THEM.
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