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This data comes from the Federal Election Commission and includes individual contributions, refunds to individuals and transfers made from authorized committees. To see the full list of variables and other info about this particular dataset, click this link.

Summary

For this analysis, my goal was to investigate the flow of money in the 2016 presidential election. First, I discovered that Hillary Clinton received the most money in the campagin compared to all of the candidates, with Berney Sanders, Ted Cruz, and Donald Trump coming in behind her.

I then wanted to explore which candidates received high dollar and low dollar donations and made scatter plots that showed the distribution of donations for each candidate. Hillary Clinton received a great number of the high dollar donations, while Sanders, Cruz, and Trump received a high amount of low dollar donations. According to an article by the Wall Street Journal, these types of contributions are important for candidates, as they show signs of a "grassroots enthusiasm".

After seeing the types of donations each candidate was receiving, I looked at who these donations were coming from. All of Clinton's donations that were over $1 million came from the Hillary Victory Fund. This source of money for the Cinton campaign turned out to be controversial as it was being accused of operating illegaly and money laundering. Nevertheless, the fund enabled Clinton to have the most money compared to all of the other candidates. Another notable donor was ActBlue. This organization is a nonprofit that builds fundraising technology for the left. They donated to Sanders over 15 thousand times in the 2016 campaign and did not donate to any other candidate in this data set. According to opensecrets.org, ActBlue spent $645.3 million for the 2016 election.

Finally, I used the data to explore which cities and occupations are donating to each candidate. Overall, donors who were retired gave the most money, and New York was the top city. Hillary Clinton led in all of these categories, but Cruz and Trump had significant donations from cities in Texas.

Sources

• The Money Behind the Candidates - Wall Street Journal
• Hillary Victory Fund - Wikipedia
• Democratic Party fundraising effort helps Clinton find new donors, too - The Washington Post
• ActBlue
• ActBlue Spending Summary - OpenSecrets