Are We In Bernie Territory? FEC Filings Show Strong Support In Our Area

Your neighbors’ political views may surprise you — or maybe not!

An interesting new dataset has just been released by Renthop, which looks at contributions to presidential candidates — by zip code — across the New York City metro area. It appears to show that three out of the four zip codes in our area are leaning fairly heavily toward Bernie Sanders in terms of number of unique political donors.

This is particularly the case for the zip code that covers Kensington (along with a portion of Ditmas Park and Windsor Terrace), which had the third highest share of Sanders donors of any zip code in the metro area.

Renthop says it took the data from the most recent — as of February 20th, 2016 — Federal Election Commission (FEC) campaign disclosure filings. There were just over 1.17 million documented contributions, totaling nearly $300 million for all the candidates’ campaigns, they report.

Bernie Sanders has a “strong” presence in New York State with 7,830 unique donors, says Renthop. He has raised $2.3 million in funding here but compare that to Hillary Clinton’s $21.8 million, raised from 12,488 different donors in New York.

But, Renthop adds, Sanders is the candidate “most affected by the lack of data from donations under $200, so one should assume his supporters are being drastically underrepresented here.”

Check the data out for yourself but here’s what we’ve noticed in our area:

1.) Three-quarters of the donors in zip code 11218 gave money to Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign; while 22 percent donated to Hillary Clinton.

Zip code 11218 covers a large portion of Kensington, along with sections of Ditmas Park and Windsor Terrace. It extends as far south as Ditmas Avenue.

2.) In zip code 11226, the Sanders campaign had 56 percent of all campaign donors; while Hillary Clinton had 30 percent. Zip code 11226 covers the heart of Flatbush, going as far east as New York Avenue and as far south as Foster Avenue.

3.) In 11230, which covers Midwood, running from Ditmas Avenue to Avenue P, Sanders (lilac blue) was still the leading recipient of individual donations, but Clinton (light blue) was close behind.

4.) In zip code 11210, which extends south from Foster Avenue and east from Ocean Avenue, Hillary Clinton has 45 percent of all unique political donors, followed by Sanders who has just 14 percent.

Interestingly, this zip code also has one of the highest shares of donors to the Trump campaign in the metro area, says Renthop. But, they stress, Trump has raised only $208,891 across New York State from 404 unique donors.

What do you think about this data from Renthop? Does it reflect what you are hearing in your neighborhood?