Bernie Against the Beltway

[Uncle Joe]

(snip)

The mainstream media has almost unrelentingly cast Sanders as a fringe figure: at best, a well-intentioned but single-minded ideologue who eschews the niceties and conventions of electoral politics and lacks the common touch possessed by the ostentatiously warm and down-to-earth personalities who have historically secured major party nominations.

Very little seems to have changed when it comes to the media’s treatment of Sanders, who — even in 2019 — is intermittently marginal, invisible, anachronistic, or only relevant to a handful of committed supporters unrepresentative of the country at large. Though favored by many a cable news pundit and op-ed columnist, this narrative has always been detached from reality. In truth, Sanders generates widespread enthusiasm across the country — and newly visualized data puts into perspective the sheer breadth of his support.

Made available in map form by the New York Times, data on the individual donations to the various Democratic presidential candidates paint a startling picture. With a total of 746,000 individual donors, Sanders leads the pack, with Elizabeth Warren coming second at 421,000. Others are far behind. Joe Biden, nominally the race’s current front-runner, has attracted a mere 256,000 individual donations — well under half Sanders’s total. But at least as significant is the regional distribution of the contributions, with the majority of America’s counties colored in various shades of blue to signify that the Vermont senator leads there in the number of individual donations — so much so that the Times saw the need to produce a second map with Sanders excluded, to make the other candidates’ relative strongholds visible at all.

(snip)

Individual donations, of course, aren’t the only metric by which a candidate’s overall viability can be judged. But they nevertheless tell us a great deal about the level of organic enthusiasm being generated by the different campaigns and, on that score, Sanders is leaving his rivals in the dust. Add to the geographic breadth of his support the considerable popularity of policies associated with him — like Medicare For All, higher taxes on the wealthy, a $15 dollar minimum wage, and the Green New Deal — and there’s a strong case to be made that his campaign can assemble a broad, working-class coalition the likes of which American politics hasn’t seen for decades.

(snip)

https://www.jacobinmag.com/2019/08/bernie-sanders-campaign-donor-map-nyt-democratic-presidential-campaign

[brooklynite]

1. Donors don't translate to voters...neither do rally crowds.

[Uncle Joe]

2. Logic dictates that if someone contributes their hard earned money to a candidate

that increases the chances that said contributor will vote.

[brooklynite]

4. Correct: The problem is that most voters don't contribute to anyone.

And FWIW - Sanders had more donors in 2016,

[Uncle Joe]

7. And Bernie was a largely unknown candidate to the public coming from a small state

at least for the first months of the primary.

I'm curious about the numbers though, do you have a link to this?

"And FWIW - Sanders had more donors in 2016,"

[George II]

5. Plus, the Jacobin writer is mixing up donatIONs with donORs. Many of BS' donors....

....make multiple small donations giving the aura of more widespread "grass roots" support.

For example, although he eschewed "big money" donors by talking about the size of the donation, some of his "small money" donors have already maxed out by making a number of small donations that total $2800.

One has made 938 individual donations for an aggregate of $2851 (actually $51 over the legal limit). While one person giving another candidate $2800 is derided as a "big donor", this one slips under the radar but is equally a "big donor". There are many others like that, too (and many who have given over the $5600 limit for a couple).

[Uncle Joe]

6. The Jacobin article pulled its' information from the New York Times article

and it spells out "individual donors"

Senator Bernie Sanders of Vermont has a huge lead over other Democratic presidential candidates in the number of individual donors they have each accumulated so far.

This is the first time since the primary race began in earnest that we can estimate how many individual donors each candidate has attracted — a key indicator of how much they are catching on with voters.

(snip)

Attracting individual donors has been particularly important in the 2020 race because the Democratic National Committee is using grass-roots fund-raising as one of the qualification standards for the debates. To qualify for the next round of debates in September, candidates will need to have at least 130,000 unique donors, in addition to meeting a polling requirement.

(snip)

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/02/us/politics/2020-democratic-fundraising.html

[George II]

10. Your excerpt includes "Individual donations, of course, aren't the only metric....", too.

This article from the Times has been used a few times to demonstrate various points. However, one wonders really how deeply they analyzed the data although they have some pretty maps. There seems to be a lot of misinformation going around. Not maliciously but through misuderstanding.

Some points to note:

Data includes individual donations reported by campaigns to the Federal Election Commission as well as those made through ActBlue, an online fund-raising platform that processes donations for Democratic candidates. These sources combined account for 94 percent of dollars donated to candidates by individuals. Information about donors giving $200 or less directly to a campaign is not available.

The number of individual donors was estimated based on the name and ZIP code of the donor. The New York Times approximated donors’ locations from their ZIP codes, then took a weighted average of the nearest donors for each location. Shapes are combined census tracts, each containing at least one donor.

According to the FEC filings, ActBlue has reported only 137,000 (some multiples from the same person) contributions and the campaign has reported itemized contributions from an additional 28,000 individuals.

[Gothmog]

3. If sanders is the nominee, trump will win 45+ states in the real world

[SouthernProgressive]

8. Jacobin is not source that should be trusted by anyone.

They take bits and pieces from real outlets and smear them into their own shady opinion pieces. Others do the work, they take bits and pieces and sell it as snake oil.

[Uncle Joe]

9. Jacobin pulled its' information from the New York Times article

regarding the number of individual or unique donors.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/08/02/us/politics/2020-democratic-fundraising.html

Is there something specific in the article that you disagree with or do you just dislike Jacobin?

[SouthernProgressive]

11. I already made the point that they form their shady opinion pieces off the backs of

real reporting.

Thanks for the backup on that.

These days they cater to low information voters. It's the only way to sell the snake oil they push.

I think this should be in creative speculation.

[Uncle Joe]

12. Nothing "specific" in the actual article then.

Peace to you SouthernProgressive.

[SouthernProgressive]

13. I cannot comment on something I won't read.

I don't read Brietbart either. They aren't far off from one and other as to how they compile and sell their content.

[George II]

14. Back in 2016 Breitbart published a photograph of thousands of people at a "trump rally"....

...in Orlando, Florida. But the photograph was really from a month earlier - it was the championship victory rally for the Cavaliers in Cleveland!!!

Scummy "journalism".

[SouthernProgressive]

15. Propaganda aimed at the lowest common denominator. NT

[LanternWaste]

16. When the polling looks bleak, blame the "media narrative."

It's an old trick, but still one we like to use when convenient.

When pressed for (objective) evidence to support that conclusion, more often than not, we dramatically fail and simply move the goalposts to hide it.