This image is not art, but a powerful piece of computing illustrating how donors are placing their money in a very crowded Montgomery County MD Democratic primary election June 26.
There are 1.2 million records in the entire Maryland campaign finance database since 2016. Over 175,000 are for Montgomery County (download here). Finding the complex relationships between donors and candidates by examining individual reports is impossible. But visualization compiles donors and candidates into one view, as if we could stack reports on top of one another and look down through to read them all. It is the only way to see the slate of candidates Republican/Developer donors in Montgomery County want elected in its Democratic primary,
The Donor Universe
The following network visualizations are based on all donors who gave at least $100 dollars between January 2016 and May 2018 to two or more candidates from the pool of 6 county executive and 41 council Democratic candidates, plus Republican governor Larry Hogan. Hogan is included as a marker of Republican sympathies in a Democratic county.
In these visualizations:
- Each donation is represented by a line.
- Donors are dots at one end and candidates are circles at the other.
- Dots are positioned between the candidates donors give to.
- The more donors have in common with other donors, the closer those dots are plotted
- The more donors candidates share, the closer their circles are plotted.
- The bigger the circle, the more donations received.
Donors giving to a cluster of candidates can also be found with more analysis. While we see a flat picture on screen, the computer builds a multi-dimensional crystal with many points and edges that we can turn and look at in different ways. We can remove the less-connected and identify donors who gave to multiple candidates and draw a more clear network picture.
Location, Location, Location
Here is a map of donors connected 5 or more ways.
Mapping donors with 5 or more connections
The donations cleave into bands with Hogan and Blair together at the bottom, closely associated with Berliner as well, to make up a Republican/Developer pole. Up top there is Elrich, along with Wilhelm, Meitiv and Grimes for a progressive pole.
County executive candidate David Blair, much closer to the Republican Hogan and long-time developer favorite Roger Berliner, has a stronger association with Republicans/Developer donors than progressive Marc Elrich, who is on the opposite side of the donation network.
The Usual Republican/Developer Suspects
And for the finale, the map of donors with six or more connections--with key donor names now included.
Donors with 6 or more connections
The progressive pole changes, with Tom Hucker standing opposite of Hogan and Blair.
Key donors that the visualization identifies as the “usual suspects” who indicate where fellow traveler donors place their money are:
Aris Mardirossian • Erin Girard • Steven Robins • Leigh Henry • William Kominers • Jeffrey Abramson • Larry Walker • Peter Henry • Gary Abramson • Robert Brewer • James Soltesz • Theodore Lerner • Robert Buchanan
Take a look at a spreadsheet of their donations from the publicly-available campaign finance database.
The heavily interconnected betting as seen clearly in this core set of donors is on Blair, Krasnow, Berliner, Friedson, Katz, Albornoz, Balcombe, Glass and Reimer.
Takaways
Blair is a friend of Republicans and Developers
Blair is very interconnected with Republican/Developer donors. Even as he loans himself money to obscure the picture, the people who have given him more that $100 are very connected to the Republican/Developer universe. Blair has practically no connection to progressive Montgomery County Democrats, if you look at campaign donations.
A covert Republican/Developer Council Slate
Those of us who have been around remember the overt developer-funded “End Gridlock” slate. But looking at who took from these core donors this cycle shows the Republican/Developer hand in a different way. Today, the slate is different, with some candidates taking public money and others foregoing it
There is a covert Republican/Developer slate for council: Friedson D1,Katz D3, Albornoz, Balcombe, Glass, and Reimer At-Large. The most generous view is that these candidates are simply a consensus of the Republican/Developer community. However, an ongoing coordinated effort to elect them is very possible.
A Conjecture on Berliner Defection
You have David Blair, Rose Krasnow and Roger Berliner, all executive candidates, appearing in the core donor spreadsheet. From the donation dates, Berliner got his last contribution from this group on 2018-03-08. Krasnow continued to receive money after that date. Blair picked up a contribution after this date as well.
Perhaps there is some disenchantment with Berliner and donors moved to hedge bets. Maybe to support a woman candidate to feign progressive values and siphon votes away from Elrich and assist Blair. Who knows? But there is a shift away from Berliner in giving in the core group.
This piece is based on work posted by @NetwarSystem on Twitter.
