Clinton, Rubio lead money race in Pa., NJ
WASHINGTON - In the year of the outsider, the big money from the Philadelphia region is standing with the establishment.
WASHINGTON - In the year of the outsider, the big money from the Philadelphia region is standing with the establishment.
Hillary Clinton and Marco Rubio, the presidential picks of most Democratic and Republican insiders, lead the local race for campaign money by far.
Through Jan. 31, Clinton had collected $1.7 million from donors in Philadelphia and seven surrounding counties in Pennsylvania and South Jersey - more than the next four contenders combined, according to this newspaper's analysis of campaign finance reports.
Rubio, vying to be the alternative to front-runner Donald Trump in a crowded GOP race, raised slightly more than $500,000 locally.
The reports offer a window into how local donors seek to influence a race as it nears a critical stage.
The five remaining Republican candidates squared off Thursday night in their last debate before Tuesday's multistate primary, when Trump hopes to consolidate his lead. Clinton is aiming to strengthen her grip on the Democratic nomination with a win Saturday over Bernie Sanders in South Carolina.
Voters in Pennsylvania and New Jersey are months from casting primary ballots, but as the race has ramped up elsewhere, so has the money flowing from local supporters.
Clinton, a former secretary of state, is far and away the biggest beneficiary. Nearly half of her fund-raising total landed between October and January.
"It's not just about this election, it's many years of creating relationships in Philadelphia, and just the amount of time that both Clintons have spent in Philadelphia," said Philadelphia lawyer Alan Kessler, a longtime Clinton backer and former vice chair of finance for the Democratic National Committee.
Rubio, meanwhile, has been aided by some of Pennsylvania's top Republicans, including House Speaker Mike Turzai (R., Allegheny) and Bob Asher, a longtime Montgomery County fund-raiser and the Pennsylvania GOP's national committeeman. The Florida senator also picked up an endorsement from Sen. Pat Toomey (R., Pa.) this month.
More than 80 percent of Rubio's local donations have come from the Philadelphia suburbs, the records show.
But he's also popular on the other end of the state: Rubio racked up $200,000 at a Valentine's Day fund-raiser in Pittsburgh, money that will show up in his next report, according to Chris Bravacos, his campaign chairman in Pennsylvania.
"Marco got started early and got a good team around him," said Manuel Stamatakis, a longtime GOP fund-raiser and chief executive of a benefits consulting firm based in Wayne. Stamatakis led Jeb Bush's finance efforts in the Keystone State until the former Florida governor dropped out of the race this month.
The local figures, however, are not the whole picture.
The mandatory finance reports don't require campaigns to identify the location of donors who give $200 or less per election, so it's not clear how many small donors - the kind who have bolstered Sanders and Republicans Ted Cruz and Ben Carson - hail from the region.
The reports also don't reflect contributions to independent super PACs backing each candidate. Those groups are not restricted by the $5,400 limit placed on individual donors.
Still, a review of the super PAC filings through Jan. 31 shows relatively few big donors from the region.
And, of course, money doesn't account for everything.
Trump, who is largely self-financing his campaign, has raised comparatively small sums across the region and the country. But a Franklin and Marshall College Poll of registered voters released Thursday placed him at the front of the GOP pack, with 22 percent support.
Before dropping out this month, Gov. Christie had raised the fourth most, based on strong support in South Jersey. But just miles from his home turf, in the Pennsylvania suburbs, Clinton, Rubio, Carson, and Sanders all outpaced Christie, and Cruz and Bush came close.
Ideologically, Christie would fit in well with moderate Republicans in Southeastern Pennsylvania, said David Barrett, a Villanova University political scientist. But it's hard to raise money from the back of the polling pack.
"He just didn't look like a winner," Barrett said, "and people like to give to winners."
Carson, still in the race but near the bottom of most polls, has raised the fifth most in the region, followed by Bush, Cruz, and Ohio Gov. John Kasich.
Cruz won the Iowa caucuses, but his brand of conservatism is unlikely to sell well in this region, Barrett said.
Kasich, meanwhile, is an ideological fit with the region, but seems a long shot, he said. And the numbers reflect that: Other than Trump, Kasich has raised the least in this area among the major remaining candidates.
But he's trying to change that.
A few days after Bush dropped out, Stamatakis said, he got a call from Kasich seeking his support.
The onetime Bush donor hasn't made any new commitments yet.
@JonathanTamari