Local, State & National Campaign Contributions
2008 September 23
I just finished a visualization for my second assignment at Berkeley. It was made using Tableau, a rapid-visualization application, and Photoshop. You can read more about the process behind it.
Presidential campaign contributions made by individuals during the 2007-2008 election cycle, by political party and contributor location
Using FEC data of individual contributors to presidential election campaigns, this bar chart illuminates that both California- and San Francisco-based individuals give significant portions of the total amounts received by campaigns of each party. It is also clear that Democratic campaigns have received over 1.5 times as much as Republicans in this election cycle, at the national, state, and city levels. Contributions to Independent and Libertarian campaigns barely even register in comparison, and Green ones not at all.
That’s great hunting on the data. I’m glad you took the time to get to the meat of it and then started splitting off the data as you became interested in specific details. I wonder if it’s worth studying the process of data-usefulness through visualization?
Comment by Colin Owens — 2008 September 23 @ 5:55 pm
Nice graph Scott. I am confused though. You wrote “It is also clear that Democratic campaigns have received over half as much as Republicans in this election cycle…”. I’m not sure I understand what you mean. “Over half as much” kind of implies that Democrats received less than Republicans right? Maybe I am just tired.
Comment by jason — 2008 September 23 @ 6:37 pm
Good catch, Jason, thanks! I changed “half” to “1.5 times,” which is what I really mean here.
Comment by Scott — 2008 September 24 @ 10:24 am