Sunday, June 5, 2016

The Bern in Washington State

The LA Times has an article and interactive map on Bernie Sanders donations.     http://www.latimes.com/projects/la-na-pol-sanders-donors/. Sanders is not going to prevail in his campaign, but whether you feel the Bern or not, the donation support he has received is impressive.

The map interactive feature of being able to click a zip code allows a quick assessment of how much money came from each zip code. The color coding is based on a per capita of total money in the zip code divided by the population. Hence, the dark patch in central Washington is based on a few donations within in a very small population zip code that covers a large rural area.


I checked out a few areas on the LA Times map. My own zip code is dark green. This is not a surprise as the zip code area is very heavy Democrat, tends to be very lefty even within the Democrat party and simply my own interactions with folks in my hood. The zip code donated $185,481 to Sanders. This donation rate far out paces local elections! My mother's zip code has a slightly larger population and sent $18,939 Sanders way and is colored light green. This is consistent with Democrats in that area being a much smaller percentage of the population.

However one may interpret the map and the numbers, the Democrat Party leadership is likely to want to somehow keep at least some of that deeply felt support. And if that enthusiasm could be directed to state and local elections, maybe the Bern folks would get their revolution after all. 

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