With only six weeks left before voters hit the polls and pick the next president, patterns in campaign donations are making clearer the landscape of big support on each side of the aisle from Maine donors.
What’s clear from overall donations is that most itemized donations to the presidential race went to Democrats.
(Campaigns are required to list names and ZIP codes of donations from people who gave $200 or more. Sometimes, they itemize donations before that point, too, in anticipation that a donor will cross that threshold.)
Looking at a more local level, however, individual towns reveal interesting splits on the party alignment of their biggest donors. But before we put any spoilers out there, try your hand at this quiz, and see if you can pick out the communities that have logged the most in itemized contributions to each candidate.
Find the answers and more after the quiz.
If you’re taking the odds in your head and felt Portland, Cape Elizabeth or Falmouth were good bets, you’re right. Those towns are at the top of the list (on both sides of the aisle) for the partisan lean of their campaign contributions through August.
For individual candidates, however, use the dashboard below to explore where they got the bulk of their donations (for Portland, click on the bar to view the breakdown by individual ZIP codes).
What’s telling from looking at the information another way is that the contribution trend lends more evidence to the idea that if Republican Donald Trump has a chance at picking up an Electoral College vote in Maine, it’s in the 2nd District.
Trump did not seriously begin fundraising until much later than other candidates and did not have the benefit of front-runner status until much later either. That suggests Democrat Hillary Clinton’s much narrower lead in the 2nd District is a clear indication he’s competing better there, at least with bigger money donors.
The latest polling shows Trump has gained support there, as well, boosting his forecasted share of the vote to more than 6 points ahead of Clinton, according to polling averages tracked by the news site FiveThirtyEight.
Trump’s statewide fundraising has lagged the momentum of the Clinton campaign, however, with a slight dip in the amount raised in August. Clinton’s campaign raised another $173,000 to the Trump campaign’s $26,812 in itemized donations from Maine.
All told, that brings the Clinton campaigns disclosed Maine haul to more than $9 for every $1 raised by the Trump campaign, which still remains behind Maine fundraising by the campaign of Texas Sen. Ted Cruz, who won the state Republican caucuses.
