Hillary Clinton Faces a More Liberal Democratic Fund-Raising Landscape
Hillary Rodham Clinton will seek out donors to her presidential campaign from a Democratic fund-raising landscape vastly altered since her first presidential bid and far more ideologically aligned with the party’s liberal activists.
Democrats now get far less money from Wall Street, military contractors, health care companies and other industries that for decades ladled out cash more evenly to both parties, according to a New York Times analysis of data collected by the Center for Responsive Politics, a watchdog group. And the party now relies far more on constituencies that have achieved new clout in the era of “super PACs” and carefully targeted digital fund-raising.
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As many as one-fifth of elite Democratic “bundlers” — volunteers who raise money from friends and business associates — are active in gay-rights causes or are themselves gay or lesbian. Outside Democratic groups rely heavily on wealthy environmentalists, such as the billionaires Tom Steyer and Michael R. Bloomberg, and on labor unions, whose financial might has been magnified by the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision in 2010 even as their membership rolls decline.
Female donors and bundlers have become both a bigger source of funding and a more organized financial force in party affairs: Emily’s List, a political group dedicated to electing female Democrats, now has five times as many members and twice as many donors as it did when Mrs. Clinton ran for president in 2008. And Democrats now rely far more on grass-roots donors to be financially competitive with Republicans. Democratic Party committees raised $200 million from donors giving $200 or less in 2014, according to Federal Election Commission records, twice as much as in 2008.
The shift in the party’s donor base is being driven, in part, by the same polarizing demographic and political trends that have made the Democratic Party more ideologically liberal and have aligned business more closely with Republicans.
“Historically, business was very pragmatic and played both sides,” said Simon Rosenberg, president of NDN, a left-leaning think tank with ties to business leaders in Washington. “Now, business had thrown its lot in with the Republicans. It means that the traditional arguments of business are losing their grip on Democrats, in part because business isn’t any longer investing in Democrats.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/06/30/us/politics/hillary-clinton-faces-a-more-liberal-democratic-fund-raising-landscape.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&_r=0
Industry Money Shifts to Republicans
Over the last three election cycles, several major industries have shifted their political donations to Republicans from Democrats. Below are the 10 industries with the largest percentage-point shifts.
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2015/06/21/us/politics/donors-shift-chart.html
I can't post graphic from second link but the 3 industries with the 20 percentage increases for the Republicans are mining, commercial banks, and Securities and Investments.
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