“He’s raising money from out of state!” has never quite been the devastating attack that campaigns seem to think it is. But in Virginia, there is at least some difference between the two major candidates in where their biggest donors reside.
The Virginia Public Access Project, which collects and organizes state-campaign finance data, allows you to sort the candidates’ donations by which zip code the donor lists as his residence.
So far this year, Republican Ken Cuccinelli has raised $4.3 million; Terry McAuliffe has raised $6.7 million.
Sixteen of Cuccinelli’s top 25 zip codes for fundraising are in Virginia. His top zip code is Washington, D.C., where the Republican Governors Association gave him $1 million on March 29.
His top 20 include Roanoke (two different zip codes), Bristol, Richmond (four different zip codes), McLean (two different zip does), Centreville, Norfolk, Virginia Beach, Abingdon (two different zip codes), Herndon, Burke, and Clifton.
Only five of McAuliffe’s top 25 zip codes are in Virginia — three in McLean, one in Richmond, one in Norfolk. His top zip code is a familiar one, 90210, where billionaire Power Rangers producer Haim Saban gave him $250,000. His other top locales include New York City, Chicago, Los Angeles, and Chappaqua, New York, where Bill Clinton donated $100,000 on March 22.