Hillary Clinton's Fundraising Juggernaut

With the word out that Vice President Joe Biden considering a run for the Oval Office in 2016, I thought that now was a good time to take a detailed look at who is backing his main rival, Hillary Clinton.

According to Open Secrets, as of June 30, 2015, this is how much Hillary Clinton has raised and spent:

Ms. Clinton has raised nearly three times as much as her closest Democratic competitor and spent nearly four times as much.  Of the total of $47,553,801 raised, 99 percent has come from individual contributions with 17 percent or $8,098,546 of individual donations coming in the form of small contributions and 82 percent or $38,840,036 coming in the form of large contributions.  PACs have contributed a total of $33,396 and Hillary Clinton has self-funded her run to the tune of $278,821 or less than 0.6 percent of the total raised. 

The donation size information is quite interesting.  A total of 10,311 donors have each donated more than $2700 for a total of $28.86 million.  By way of comparison, a total of 5,693 donors have donated between $200 and $400 for a total of only $1.534 million.

As shown in this table, there are three main campaign and outside committees that are backing Hillary Clinton:

Here is a pie chart showing which states have contributed the most to Ms. Clinton in this election cycle:

The top five metropolitan areas by level of contribution include:

New York - $5,897,764

Washington, DC - $4,708,710

Los Angeles - $3,841,120

San Francisco - $2,116,359

Chicago - $1,703,175

Here is a table showing the top industries that have contributed to Ms. Clinton thus far in the 2016 cycle:

Lastly, here are the top contributors:

As you can see, Wall Street, American academia and Hollywood are represented.  As well, for those of you who aren't aware, let's give a bit of background info on the top three donors:

1.) Morgan and Morgan touts itself as a leading personal injury law firm that is "dedicated to protecting the people, not the powerful", nonetheless, it seems quite willing to cosy up to the potentially powerful.  They recovered $90.2 million in a lawsuit against R.J. Reynolds tobacco in one settlement and a further $90.8 million in another suit against the same company.  Morgan and Morgan was founded in Orlando, Florida and has offices throughout the southeast United States.

2.) Sullivan and Cromwell is a legal firm with headquarters in Manhattan, "in the heart of the Financial District".  The company has more than 550 lawyers in the New York office alone.  From the information available on its website, the firm appears to specialize in corporate and financial law.

3.) Akin, Gump et al is an international law firm located in Washington, D.C. with offices throughout the United States and other nations around the world.  It is the largest lobbying firm by revenue in the United States.

If we compare Ms. Clinton's fundraising efforts thus far in the 2016 Presidential cycle, she is leaving her competition in the dust with the exception of Bernie Sanders who is actually doing quite well, particularly from small individual contributors who have donated 69 percent of the candidates individual contributions:

Lincoln Chafee - raised $39,743  spent - $63,757

Martin O'Malley - raised $2,006,905  spent - $692,769

Bernie Sanders - raised $16,426,081  spent - $4,764,556

Jim Webb - no totals available - Super PAC - $20,577

Joe Biden - no totals available - Super PAC - $85,880

I have included the undeclared Joe Biden in this list for completeness sake.

If money buys the Oval Office, other than Mr. Sanders, it looks like the rest of the Democratic field has its work cut out for it if they hope to catch up to Ms. Clinton's fundraising juggernaut.