NC donors favor Bush, Clinton so far

North Carolina donors have given presidential candidates more than $658,000 since the beginning of the year, just a fraction of the $73.5 million raised nationwide in that period.

Posted 9:44 a.m. Jul 20, 2015 — Updated 11:00 p.m. Jul 20, 2015

Mark Binker

RALEIGH, N.C. — North Carolina donors have given 2016 presidential contenders $658,210.34 since the beginning of the year, more than half of that going to Democrat Hillary Clinton and Republican Jeb Bush.

Federal Elections Commission figures collected and broken down by MapLight, a nonpartisan 501(c)(3) nonprofit that has had some liberal donors, show presidential candidates have raised more than $73.5 million between Jan. 1 and June 30. Those figures don't include Republicans Chris Christie and Scott Walker and Democrat Jim Webb, who announced their candidacies in the past three weeks.

Of that total, $41 million came from four states: California ($12.7 million), New York ($10.5 million), Florida ($8.6 million) and Texas ($7.1 million).

North Carolina ranks 24th on the list of money given to presidential candidates in terms of total dollars.

It's important to note that these FEC figures count only money given directly to candidates through traditional fundraising. Candidates and their allies raise millions of dollars through super-PACs and nonprofit organizations that do not face fundraising limits and do not always have to disclose their fundraising and spending.

For example, although Bush reports raising only $11.5 million in his traditional FEC account, an allied super-PAC, Right to Rise, raised more than $100 million by May.

Nationally, the top three fundraisers to their traditional FEC accounts have been Clinton ($47.5 million), Democrat Bernie Sanders ($15.2 million) and Republican Ted Cruz ($14.4 million), followed by Bush, according to the MapLight data.

In terms of donations from North Carolina givers, Clinton and Bush rank first and second, respectively, followed by Republican Lindsey Graham of South Carolina.

^{Source: Federal Elections Commission as analyzed by MapLight.}

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