Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton is getting a lot of love from donors who consider themselves a part of the Republican establishment.
According to Federal Election Commission filings through the month of June, donors who gave over 200 dollars to former Republican Governor of Florida Jeb Bush, Republican Governor of Ohio John Kasich, Republican Governor of New Jersey Chris Christie, or Republican South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham have a higher likelihood of donating to the Clinton Campaign than to the Trump Campaign.
In a typical presidential election, donors whose candidate has dropped out of the race typically donate to another candidate of the same party.
This is clearly not your typical presidential election. Members of the Republican Party establishment are recognizing this fact and do not want Donald Trump to win this election and then embarrassing the party in the White House. This explains the uptick in donations to Hillary Clinton from established Republican moderates.
These party-switching donations are starting to add up for the Clinton Campaign. According to the FEC filings, Clinton has received over 2.2 million dollars from donors who previously donated to a Republican presidential candidate that was either defeated or dropped out of the race. Mr. Trump has received only 600,000 dollars from these same types of donors.
It is true that people who give to multiple candidates represent a small percentage of anyone’s campaign finance totals. However, donors to Republican candidates who have dropped out of the race typically give to the party nominee in fairly high percentages. This means nothing for Trump, who is receiving record low donations from donors of prior candidates.
Only two percent of these types of donors has given to the Trump campaign. This is according to the July filings by the Trump campaign in accordance with the FEC. This is a record low for a Republican presidential candidate that has not been seen since 1980. Previous donors to moderate candidates are giving at the lowest rate to the Trump campaign.
For example, there were 303 donors to the Jeb Bush campaign who gave over 200 dollars. According to statistics, only one percent of these donors gave to the Trump campaign. Two percent of these donors gave to the Clinton campaign. This may not seem like much, but it means that Clinton out-earned Trump by a two-to-one margin with Jeb Bush supporters.
Perhaps the saddest statistic for the Trump campaign has to be that more Chris Christie donors have given to the Clinton campaign than to him. Even with Christie’s maniacal support, 103 of the governor’s donors have given to Clinton, while only 49 have given to Trump. This is one of those crazy statistics that proves you never really know what is going to happen during a political race. No one would ever think that Christie’s primary donors would be giving at a higher rate to the Clinton campaign. It just defies logic.
This defied logic appears to be the theme for this presidential election season. In an era that has been defined by partisan politics, it has taken a nutcase like Donald Trump to force some well meaning Republicans to cross over and support Hillary Clinton for the presidency. These campaign contribution numbers solidify this trend. After all, the phrase “put your money where your mouth is” is used for a reason. If the Republican establishment were not backing Clinton, then you would not see these record lows for Donald Trump among members of his own party.
Here is a video detailing why the Republican establishment has been so hesitant to support Donald Trump after he won the Republican presidential nomination:
Image via NYTimes.
