Which at-large campaigns have the most in-county donors?

With nearly 1,000 unique individual in-county donors, Evan Glass has convinced more Montgomery County residents to chip in to his campaign than any of the other candidates.

The chart below shows the number of in-county donors for each candidate, presented in the same order as the first chart (total funds raised this cycle).

A few things jumped out to me immediately:

1. In addition to Glass, Jawando and Riemer are leading not only in fundraising, but also in number of in-county donors. These three appear to have very good odds at winning the primary.
2. Ashwani Jain has the second-highest number of in-county donors. This was completely unexpected for me, as he is not participating in the public financing system. Jain very well could be a dark horse in this crowded race.
3. Although Conway, Dang, and Albornoz are doing well in fundraising, they each have about 300 fewer donors than the four candidates listed above. While 300 doesn’t sound like much, in a crowded race like this one, it’s easy to imagine that the winner could be decided by a few hundred votes.
4. Conway in particular appears to have relatively few unique individual donors compared to the other three candidates that have raised over $300,000. As noted later in this article, this is due to the high percentage of his donors that maxed-out on their contributions.
5. Although Chris Wilhelm ranks in the middle of the pack in terms of fundraising, he has the fifth-highest number of individual in-county donors. With the strong (and somewhat unique) endorsement of the teachers’ union, Wilhelm has a decent shot at beating out his better-funded opponents.
6. In addition to lagging behind in terms of dollars raised (as noted in Adam Pagnucco’s commentary), the female candidates are also lagging behind in number of donors. Personally, I find this somewhat unfortunate and hope that at least one or two of the top four female candidates in this cycle (Meitiv, Balcombe, Brooks, and Ortman-Fouse) win an at-large seat on the county council this year.

Who has the big donors vs. the small donors?

The public financing system allows candidates to receive between $1 and $150 from in-county residents. Some candidates are relying heavily on donors that can give the maximum amount, while others are aiming for more modest $20 or $50 donations.

The chart below shows the total number of in-county donors for each candidate segregated by contribution size.

Here is the same chart, but expressed as a percentage of total donors to a campaign.

As shown in the chart above, Wilhelm, Meitiv, and Brooks have relatively more small donors than the other candidates—nearly 40% of their donors contributed less than $30. On the other end of the spectrum, 55% of Conway’s donors contributed $150, the maximum amount. The candidates with the next-highest fraction of maxed-out donors are Albornoz (39%), Riemer (36%), Jawando (34%), Siddique (32%), and Dang (32%).

Publicly-financed candidates with the lowest fraction of maxed-out donors are Brooks (19%), Meitiv (21%), Wilhelm (22%), Ortman-Fouse (23%), Grimes (26%), and Glass (26%).

Jain is a special case: 71% of his in-county donors gave less than $30. In fact, 56% of his donors chipped in $5 or less. But because he is participating in traditional financing, Jain is also allowed to receive up to $6,000 from individuals, and he did! However, only 10% of his in-county donors contributed more $150 or more.

Also of note is that Jain’s campaign has not accepted any direct contributions from businesses—the only contributions listed on his filing that were not made by individuals were $1,000 from Opportunity First PAC, $500 from SEIU Local 500 PAC, and $150 from the campaign of Bill Romani, who ran for state delegate in 2014.

Balcombe also is relying on traditional financing: 35% of her in-county individual donors have contributed between $150 and $6,000. Note: “Individual donors” do not include contributions from self-funding, businesses, organizations, PACs, or other campaign committees—those will be presented in a later chart.

For several campaigns, a small number of donors appeared to have donated more than $150, the maximum allowable amount. I’m not sure what happened in those instances—it’s possible that any excess contributions were returned and the return was reported as an expenditure (this is a guess).

The next chart shows the total dollar amount of in-county individual campaign contributions segregated by contribution size.

As evidenced by the large red bars in the chart above, candidates can raise a lot more money when they are not limited by the $150 cap imposed in the public-financing system!

This limitation is outweighed by the 4-to-1 match provided by the county for the first $50 received from each county resident (contributions above $50 are matched at a lower rate). As a result, several of the campaigns participating in public financing have out-raised their traditionally-financed opponents, as shown in the second-to-last chart below.

What about other sources of funding?

In addition to receiving donations from in-county residents, candidates participating in the public financing system can also receive money from themselves and their spouse and out-of-county residents. Dollars from those contributions are not matched.

Below are two charts showing the number of individual donors segregated by location; first as the number of donors and second as the fraction of all individual donors.

More than one-third of the individual donors to Jain’s and Brook’s campaigns are from outside Montgomery County (37 and 35%, respectively). They also have the largest absolute number of out-of-state donors: Jain has approximately 441; Brooks, 276.

Other candidates with a relatively large number of out-of-county donors include are Balcombe (26%), Conway (23%), Dang (20%), and Jawando (17%).

There is nothing inherently wrong with having out-of-county donors—this simply suggests that these candidates have a large network of supporters from their previous jobs and/or activism.

Candidates with the largest fraction of in-county donors are Ortman-Fouse (95%), Grimes (94%), Glass (92%), Siddique (91%), Riemer (89%), Wilhelm (89%), and Meitiv (89%).

Candidates not participating in public financing can also receive money from businesses, unions, organizations, PACs, and other campaign committees. The two charts below show the total amount raised (including additional public matching funds requested but not yet deposited) for each candidate.

As noted earlier, the 4-to-1 public match appears to provide enough money to even the playing field between “people-powered” campaigns participating in the public system and candidates using traditional financing.

Closing Thoughts

While I applaud Seventh State for keeping close track of how much money is being raised by all the different campaigns, it’s equally important to examine the number of donors to each campaign, especially since this is Montgomery County’s first election with public financing.

With 33 candidates vying for four seats, this is going to be a very close race. I would not be surprised if the fourth-place candidate won by as little as a few dozen votes.

Recall that earlier this year, an election for a seat in the Virginia House of Delegates ended up in a tie. Each candidate had exactly 11,607 votes, and the Republican candidate, David Yancey, was declared the winner by a coin toss.

If you care about the future of Montgomery County, please vote in the primary election on June 26. You could very well be the deciding vote!

What can you do to get involved?

1. Vote in the 2018 primary election on Tuesday, June 26.
2. A helpful, unbiased guide to the election is available at www.vote411.org.
3. You can also visit the official State Board of Elections website to learn more, check your registration status, and find your polling place.
4. Tell your neighbors, friends, and family to vote in the primary!
5. Shameless plug: read the candidates’ responses to the “East County Questionnaire“.