Berkeleyans have donated over $5.4 million to the two presidential campaigns, 98.5% of which is to one candidate, and over half of that has come from two of the city’s ten zip codes.
Those, and other interesting factoids about how Berkeley residents are supporting both presidential candidates in the 2020 election, are drawn from a New York Times analysis published this week of $1.8 billion donated by 7.6 million people across the country to both campaigns between April 1 to Oct. 14 — presented on maps by zip code.
It won’t surprise anybody that the vast majority of Berkeleyans donating to this year’s presidential campaigns are directing their money to Biden — 12,404donors chipped in to bring the total to $5,359,291, with only $83,054 going to incumbent Donald Trump from a total of 300 donors.
The North Berkeley 94707 zip code raised the most money overall for Biden, at $1,685,393, from a total of 2,105 donors — making the average donation $800. (Individuals can donate $2,800 per election – which can be primary and general – to a candidate, but The Times’ data includes donations to committees associated with the candidates, which makes donations effectively limitless.) Forty-eight people in the same zip sent $11,487 Trump’s way — an average of $239.
The Elmwood/Claremont 94705 zip area follows behind with 17,247 donating a total of $1,251,596 to the Biden/Harris ticket.
How Berkeleyans are donating to the presidential contenders mirrors the national picture where, according to the New York Times, Joe Biden has outraised President Trump on the strength of some of the wealthiest and most educated ZIP codes in the country. Biden has collected more money than Trump on all but two days in the last two months, according to its analysis.
The analysis looked at more than 25 million donations from April 1 to Oct. 14, merging Federal Election Commission filings from the campaigns of Trump and Biden, their joint operations with the Republican National Committee and Democratic National Committee, and data from the donation-processing sites WinRed and ActBlue. Its analysis does not include direct donations to the parties themselves, but it covers more than 90% of contributions to both candidates and the committees directly linked to them.Correction: The original story omitted the 94709 zip code from the table. This has been corrected, as well as relevant numbers. We apologize for the error.
