Neighborhood Intel

Map: Which of your neighbors donated cash to failed presidential candidates?

By Virginia K. Smith  | May 20, 2016 - 1:59PM

The contentious New York primary may be mercifully in our rearview mirror, but even so, aren't you at least kind of curious about how your neighbors voted? Or to whom they donated?

On the heels of its report about which neighborhoods voted pro-Trump, RentHop has put together several maps and charts based on FEC open data, comparing candidate donations versus votes in different neighborhoods and, more amusingly, calling out which areas of the city gave the most donations to candidates who ended up dropping out of the race.

First up is an interactive map that'll show you ratios of donors, donation, and primary votes for the Hillary vs. Bernie battle. "What surprised me was how close Hillary and Bernie actually are," RentHop data scientist Shane Leese tells us. "It's a really tight race." For instance, in Williamsburg's 11211 zip code, Hillary snagged 5,758 votes, while Bernie got 5,775.

The site also condensed the data on how the two candidates did overall in the five boroughs, and though Bernie showed a huge jump in percentage of donation cash, Hillary still came out on top of the heap, money-wise. ("For the percentages, it's a lot easier to double $1 than it is to double $1 million," Leese notes of Clinton's already-high starting point).

The numbers also show Clinton's top donor neighborhoods as Chelsea, Brooklyn Heights, Soho, and the Upper West Side; Sanders netted the most cash from Ridgewood, Bushwick, Greenpoint, Bed-Stuy, and Flatbush.

image
As for the Republican race, perhaps unsurprisingly, the traditionally more conservative Upper East Side almost singlehandedly dominated the field as far as donations made to Republican candidates in general, and for the purposes of Renthop's study, Republican candidates who later dropped out of the race. (The top "most wasteful" neighborhoods were Lenox Hill, Midtown East, the Upper East Side, Carnegie Hill, and Yorkville.)
 
Interestingly, though, the city's right-leaning voters didn't have a ton of love for Ted Cruz or John Kasich, the last non-trump GOP candidates left standing. "I was surprised that Jeb Bush and Chris Christie had gotten so much money, while the ones who stayed until the end got so few donations from people in New York," says Leese.

image

In any case, poke around and see how your neighborhood stacks up this election season—and consider yourself armed with some uncomfortable conversation fodder for your next board meeting or block party.

 

Brick Underground articles occasionally include the expertise of, or information about, advertising partners when relevant to the story. We will never promote an advertiser's product without making the relationship clear to our readers.

topics: