By Adam Pagnucco.
In Part Two, we found that 66% of all contributions received by Congressional District 6 candidates were made by individuals (aside from the candidates themselves). Today, we will begin discussing where these individuals live.
Records from the U.S. Federal Election Commission (FEC) list addresses for individual donors. There is an important exception: the FEC only requires a contribution to be itemized if it “exceeds $200 or aggregates over $200 when added to other contributions received from the same source during the election cycle.” That means small contributions are often not reported individually and therefore do not have associated geographic information.
Some of these candidates have not itemized a lot of their contributions, making geographic analysis challenging. The chart below shows the percentage of total contributions accounted for by unitemized individual contributions by candidate. Democrats appear in blue bars and Republicans appear in red ones.
Democrat Tekesha Martinez, the Mayor of Hagerstown, is the clear leader in small contributions. She reported receiving $443,970 in unitemized contributions, or 77% of her total fundraising. Only two other candidates had more than $100,000 in unitemized contributions: Republicans Tom Royals ($191,944) and Mariela Roca ($120,826). Note: Republican Heath Barnes and Democrats Geoffrey Grammer, Joel Rubin and Peter Choharis have dropped out of the race. Democrats George Gluck and Kiambo White have not filed regular reports.
In analyzing candidate contribution geography, it’s important to remember that we can only assess itemized contributions, giving at best a partial picture.
That said, the chart below shows candidate receipts from itemized contributions of Maryland residents. This does not include self-funding.
Democrat April McClain Delaney leads the field in itemized contributions from Maryland residents, followed by Royals and Republican Neil Parrott.
For the entire field, just 19% of total fundraising came from itemized individuals in Maryland while 28% came from itemized out-of-state individuals. For the seven candidates who have raised at least $200,000, here are their percentages of contributions from itemized individuals in Maryland.
Neil Parrott (R): 53%
Tom Royals (R): 31
Mariela Roca (R): 23
April McClain Delaney (D): 15
Joe Vogel (D): 14
Geoffrey Grammer (D): 5
Tekesha Martinez (D): 3
Note: Grammer has dropped out. Also, Martinez’s real percentage is likely much higher owing to her sky-high percentage of unitemized contributions.
We will look at in-district fundraising and cash balance in Part Four.