Maryland ranks 6th in presidential race donations; Hillary gets the most
Photo above: By Tom Lohdan with Flickr Creative Commons License
By MarylandReporter.com
Maryland ranks sixth in the country for its overall contributions to presidential campaigns, outranking many much larger states, including nearby New Jersey, Pennsylvania and Virginia, according to an analysis by Maplight, a nonpartisan research organization that examines money in politics.
Based on candidate reports filed July 15, Marylanders contributed $2.7 million this year to candidates of all parties. According to the Maplight analysis, more than half the Maryland contributions, $1.4 million, went to Hillary Clinton, and another $882,000 went to former Maryland governor Martin O’Malley. Former Florida governor Jeb Bush was by far the most popular Republican with $180,000; Maryland neurosurgeon Ban Carson got just $14,200.
MARYLAND CONTRIBUTIONS TO PRESIDENTIAL CAMPAIGNS
| Ben Carson | $14,200.00 |
| Bernie Sanders | $68,846.93 |
| Bobby Jindal | $3,150.00 |
| Carly Fiorina | $5,950.00 |
| Donald Trump | $500.00 |
| George Pataki | $2,000.00 |
| Hillary Clinton | $1,421,175.59 |
| Jeb Bush | $180,900.00 |
| Lindsey Graham | $10,700.00 |
| Marco Rubio | $78,703.00 |
| Martin O’Malley | $882,060.08 |
| Mike Huckabee | $2,214.50 |
| Rand Paul | $20,747.25 |
| Rick Santorum | $6,950.00 |
| Ted Cruz | $22,350.00 |
Only residents of the much larger states of California, New York, Florida and Texas, along with the highly politicized District of Columbia, contributed more to campaigns than Maryland.
In releasing the numbers, Maplight said, “The total cost of the 2016 presidential election is expected to reach an unprecedented $5 billion, with outside groups, like single-candidate super PACs, accounting for an increasingly larger portion of expenditures.”
Filings for outside groups are due to the Federal Election Commission on July 31.
MarylandReporter.com is a daily news website produced by journalists committed to making state government as open, transparent, accountable and responsive as possible – in deed, not just in promise. We believe the people who pay for this government are entitled to have their money spent in an efficient and effective way, and that they are entitled to keep as much of their hard-earned dollars as they possibly can.