The inspiration for my project is two-fold. The first inspiration is around the rise in up-start working-class people who are running for office. Before the Sanders 2016 race, conventional wisdom around political races was summed up by the acronym of the Democratic Party’s organization “EMILY’s list”: Early Money Is Like Yeast. If you didn’t have the social connections to raise tens of thousands of dollars from friends and family in a couple of days, you weren’t a viable candidate. The 2016 race totally transformed what what was considered possible via small dollar donations and a reliance on volunteer labor for outreach to voters. It inspired Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and led to her ultimate victory. Julia Salazar followed in her footsteps, as did Tiffany Caban, who almost won in a district that has more voters than many states.
My initial question is who are the major players in donations to New York state level politicians? What groups pay the most? How many are they? Who pays who? Have we seen a rise of other candidates like AOC who rely much more heavily on small-dollar donations and raise less money in general? Can we tell who they are just by looking at who their donors are and how much they gave?
The intended users are local-politics nerds who want to better understand the “players” in Albany, and local journalists who are looking for breadcrumbs that might lead to stories.
The data comes from the statewide board of elections for state-level officials. It is currently limited just to elected officials whose districts cover at least part of the 5 boroughs (not other parts of the state).