Summary:
Zoe Thomas, a reporter from the BBC, throughout her article US election 2016: Who's funding Trump, Sanders and the rest? discusses the various financial contributors for each campaign. Hillary Clinton's campaign receives most of its money from corporate lawyers and bankers while Bernie Sander's campaign seems to raise the majority of its money from ordinary people. On the Republican side, Ted Cruz received a bulk of its funds from native Texans and large energy businesses. Marco Rubio and John Kasich acquired a lot of their money from large donors and financial institutions. Finally, Donald Trump has funded his campaign primarily through loans and donations from individuals.
Connection:
Learning about the trends in campaign finance and the major donors will help relay information about the possible problems with the campaign finance system. It will also provide insight into the motivations of each candidate. The article gives some real life examples of the information we recently had learned about in class.
Questions:
What do the sources of each candidates funding say about them?
What do the similarities between Hillary Clinton's donors and many of the Republican's donors say about where she lies on the political spectrum?
Does the abundance of large donors effectively make it useless for the general public to try to influence campaigns through small scale donations?
The sources of funding really highlight the differences between candidates, especially in the Democratic party. Whereas Clinton relies on Wall Street banks and law firms for her main source of donations, Bernie Sanders campaign money mostly came from small donations. From this data, it seems clear that Hillary is supported more by "the establishment," while Bernie relies heavily on individual voters. Because of this, I would say that although SuperPACs have significant power, small scale donations can still impact campaigns. After all, "nearly three-quarters of Senator Sanders' donations [were] under $200." The Sanders movement displayed that the collective power of individual donations can actually grab the attention of a nation.
ReplyDeleteThe abundance of large donors such as interest groups and big businesses essentially makes it useless for the general public to try to influence campaigns through donations. Especially with all the loopholes created for wealthy interests to donate unlimited amounts of money, such as Super PACs and 527 groups, these wealthy interests are able to exercise great influence over the campaigns and in turn on public policy. As a result, those who aren't as wealthy aren't able to participate and have their opinions heard.
ReplyDeleteI agree with Priya that interest groups and big businesses ability to donate such large amounts of money makes it difficult for the general public to influence campaigns. However, I do not believe it is entirely useless. As Dylan stated Bernie Sanders was able to run his campaign almost entirely off small scale donations. For candidates like Sanders, appealing to the common man allowed him to have a successful campaign. Therefore for candidates that do not receive large scale donations from interest groups and big businesses, like Sanders, the public is able to influence campaigns through donations, and are not entirely useless.
DeleteThe source of Clinton's donations in comparison to her Republican opponents is relatively similar in that they are both largely supported by wealthy, established individuals or corporations. As seen through Clinton's platform, her moderate leaning stance compared to Sanders' reflects the large donor origin of her campaign funds. Sanders' more left leaning ideas alienate the traditional donors of the Democratic Party, and leave him to gather funds through the atypical route of individual donors and avoiding the help of Super PACs. The campaign donors of a candidate give interesting insight into how close candidates are to the status quo and where their loyalties lie towards the establishment and their constituents.
ReplyDeleteAs seen through the campaign of Bernie Sanders, grass root campaigns are still possible in a time where government is greatly influenced by the money of interest groups. Through Bernie Sanders and his refusal to take part in "corrupt campaign finance system" the populace gained a voice. Bernie reperesented the views of the people with his liberal support instead of Super PACs. While small donations may have negligible impact on candidates, the average candidate is still greatly influenced by public opinion in the form of polls. For example, Hillary Clinton shifted from moderate Social Security policies to a more liberal stance of the topic after beating Bernie in order to get out the liberal vote in the general election.
ReplyDeleteEven though most campaigns get their support from donors that give very large sums of money to their campaign, it is interesting to see how campaigns that don't use this model can still succeed. I think that it is a pretty reasonable statement to make that most of these campaigns that get large amounts of money from a small number of donors are usually part of the establishment. This therefore makes it more difficult for campaigns without this advantage to succeed, as they have to push people harder to donate, like with the Sanders campaign, which makes it all the more impressive when it happens.
ReplyDeleteThis is an interesting point. I think one reason that some candidates are capable of doing so well without being backed by the establishment is because they have so much public support. Bernie Sanders is a great example of this. While the majority of his donations were less that $200, he was still able to make it far in his campaign because this fact demonstrated that the people supported him, not the establishment, which drew in even more voters. Being backed mostly by other ordinary Americans has a strong appeal to the millions who are disenfranchised with the establishment and were attracted to Bernie because he had such high popular appeal, earned by gaining the support of the average American and not by paying for it with big business money.
DeleteClinton's donations are quite similar to those of her Republican opponents because they have largely received their donations from big companies or wealthy individuals. However, this is not seen in her Democratic opponent, Bernie Sanders who lies fairly far towards the left, who has largely raised his funds through small individual donations from average citizens. In other words, this tells us that Clinton is a moderate Democrat who represents more of the wealthy "Wall Street" type individuals.
ReplyDeleteThe sources of each candidates fundings reflect both what they stand for and who is supporting them. For instance, the fact that Hilary Clinton is received a majority of her money form corporate lawyers and bankers shows how she was favorable by the establishment. However, someone like Bernie Sanders, who appeared to be the underdog during this presidential election process, raised money form ordinary people. This shows how it is possible for the general public to try to influence campaigns, but it is difficult due to the abundance of money other candidates are receiving from more wealthy business and groups.
ReplyDelete