Obama’s donors vs. Clinton’s poll-responders
Barack Obama has nearly as many new donors in the third quarter (75,000) as all Republican candidate donors, new and old, for the first six months of this year, Jeanne Cummings at Politico.com reports today.
“According to the Campaign Finance Institute analysis, 55,755 people gave more than $200 to the Obama campaign in the first six months of this year,” Cummings reported. “That is at least double the number of donors for every other candidate — Republican or Democrat — except for Clinton, who had 36,307 donors.”
She goes on:
“Yet those figures only scratch the surface of Obama’s strength. His campaign says — and other camps don’t dispute — that its total number of donors as of June 30 was 258,000.
“That means about 202,000 people gave him less than $200 in the first six months of this year.
“Small change? Think again. According to campaign financial disclosure reports, Clinton raised $4 million from donations under $200, and Romney reported $3 million.
“Edwards’ small checks amounted to $5 million and Republican front-runner Rudy Giuliani gathered less than a million from the little guys.
“In contrast, Obama raised $16.4 million, or 29 percent, of his record-breaking second-quarter total of $57 million from those small donors.”
That’s really impressive. Although Bloomberg reports that Clinton might be closing in on Obama in fund-raising and could beat him this quarter. If that happens, his mystique is diminished. But if not, he will have some real momentum going into the final quarter. He already has the ability to show that despite the polls his campaign is connecting with more Democratic donors than Clinton’s is. If he beats her in total dollars raised, too, that’ll be a coup.
The interesting bit is that the poll numbers do not correspond with Obama’s fund-raising totals.
When Howard Dean was racking up big numbers of small donors back in 2003, he was also topping the polls. Obama is trailing Clinton badly. As his fund-raising rolls into a juggernaut that eclipses Clinton’s, she is pulling ahead by about 20 points in most polls.
The Real Clear Politics averages show Clinton leading Obama by 16.5 percentage points nationwide, five points in Iowa, and 21 points in New Hampshire. How can Obama be claiming so many more donors than Clinton while Clinton leads him by such big margins in the polls? I think the polls are inaccurate.
Think of it like a House, M.D. episode. When you have a test result you know is accurate (in this case, the fund-raising numbers) that contrasts with a symptom or test result you can’t explain (the poll numbers), you go with what you know is right and keep testing the other one until they match.
I suspect that the polling is way off. More than half of Democratic voters tell pollsters they haven’t made up their minds. I think a lot of them are leaning toward Obama. They almost certainly are not leaning toward Clinton, the most known candidate. I suspect that Clinton has the bulk of her supporters already, while the ones who will support Obama in the end, including many who gave him $20 or $50, are telling pollsters that they are still undecided.
Of course, a lot of voters don’t donate to any candidate. But Obama’s donations show that he is appealing to people who might never have voted before, or at least not in a Democratic primary. If there are a lot of younger people Obama is energizing to vote and donate (and that’s the sort of phenomenon I’m seeing some here), and pollsters fail to identify them as “likely” primary voters, the pollsters won’t be interviewing them. And if they have no landline phone, the pollsters won’t be interviewing them either.
I still think the pollsters are not reaching a lot of Obama supporters, despite the pollsters’ claims that they are not missing those folks who use only cell phones. The pollsters say the young people with landline phones are no different than the young people without landline phones, and in any case those people don’t vote. I don’t buy that. Besides, I see young people, in their early 20s, walking down the street in Manchester wearing Obama t-shirts on days when no campaign event is scheduled. I havn’t seen that with any other candidate. Will they vote? Maybe, maybe not. But the evidence shows that Obama has broader support than is being picked up by the polls. So the polls must be wrong.
Comment from Jon Maltz in Hudson: “Wander into Murphy’s Tap Room and see how many Ron Paul shirts you see, on any random day of the week. You can’t tell me you don’t see people wearing Ron Paul shirts in Manchester.
“Dr. Paul wanted to boost his donations by $500k in online contributions during the last week of the quarter. After one day it went to $120k It’s at $375k the next day, with 4 days to go. Pretty good for a candidate the media makes every effort to ignore.”
ME: Well, I don’t spend a ton of time in Murphy’s, but I can tell you I don’t see a lot of Ron Paul T-shirts when I walk around. Just my personal experience, but I haven’t seen a lot of them.
Comment from Kevin Houston in Bridgewater: The Plain Old Telephone Surveys (POTS) are completely inaccurate, but not for the reasons that most people think.
The main reason they are inaccurate is that most voters have not really decided who they are voting for. They have not done their research yet, so when the pollsters call - they just go with whatever name sounds familar.
Look at Kerry’s POTS numbers in Dec 2003 (~ 4%) Yet after he won Iowa Caucuses, his POTS went up to 53%
How is it he won the Iowa Caucuses if he had only 4% support? And how did his numbers change so drastically nationwide after winning in IA?
Answer: the POTS are cooked.
Comment from lynn s. in Bigfork, Mont.: FINALLY, someone who gets it right!!
Now if you could just go onto Hardball and tell all of this to Chris loudmouth Matthews who insists the race is over.
Thank you for your awesome piece!
Comment from vw cat in Machesney Park: I have never voted in a primary nor has my husband. Actually, I don’t know anyone who has. I am 50. I support Barack Obama. It is not just the young who are supporting him. Many are older and have been sporatic voters for the presidential and non voters in the primaries.
On Obama’s site in the blogs many of us are over 30 and it’s our first primary, our first candidate we have donated to and the first politician we have been really excited about and determined to get elected. Before it was flip a coin as they were all about the same and caused as much excitement about supporting them as watching a fly land.
Barack Obama stirs something in people of all ages, races and ideologies. He has republicans, lifelong, reregistering as democrats just to vote for him in the primaries. their reason for switching and voting for Obama is as simple as they just like the guy. I personally think he makes them feel the same way Reagan did. Proud to be an American and of it’s leader and country.
A man who stirs that kind of feelings and causes this much deep and abiding support, especially in the face of the msm touting Hillary as inevitable and they are always talking negative about Obama while promoting Hillary on a daily basis. Yet, his supporters keep growing and his grassroots movement is massive.
You are the first reporter in print or air who actually is questioning the polls and the fact that Obama has a huge amount of supporters that are not ever going to get polled. the great unknowns. The great uncounted.
But, come primary day we will be known and heard.
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