2023 election notebook: $190K raised in 2022 by Bloomington mayoral campaigns
Wednesday at noon was the deadline for political campaign committees to file their finance paperwork—the CFA-4.
Hitting that deadline were all three declared candidates for mayor of Bloomington: Don Griffin, Susan Sandberg, and Kerry Thomson.
Raising the most was Thomson with $92,828. That’s more than three times what each of the other two candidates raised.
Griffin raised $25,987 which was just a little more than Sandberg’s $25,217.
With his mid-December fundraising launch, compared to mid-summer for Thomson and Sandberg, Griffin got the latest start of the three. They’re all competing for the nomination of Democratic Party in the May 2 primary.
There’s still time for candidates to declare a candidacy for either major party’s nomination—that deadline is Feb. 3 at noon.
Griffin’s later start came only after incumbent mayor John Hamilton announced in mid-November he would not be seeking reelection to a third term.
Added to the amounts raised by the three declared candidates for mayor, Hamilton’s roughly $45,000 brings the total amount generated by Bloomington mayoral campaigns in 2022 to about $190,000.
Here’s the breakdown for all four campaign committees, based on The B Square’s analysis of the CFA-4 paperwork.
| Candidate | Unique Itemized Donors | Sum of Itemized | MEDIAN | Sum of Unitemized | Total |
| Griffin | 34 | $25,774 | $250 | $213 | $25,987 |
| Hamilton | 83 | $45,167 | $500 | $0 | $45,167 |
| Sandberg | 40 | $18,879 | $220 | $6,338 | $25,217 |
| Thomson | 89 | $84,427 | $500 | $8,401 | $92,828 |
| Grand Total | 246 | $174,248 | $375 | $14,952 | $189,199 |
Plotting locations of donors on a map reveals that a large number of Hamilton’s donors live outside of the immediate Bloomington vicinity, in the Indianapolis area.
The same table filtered just for donors with Bloomington addresses shows that just a little more than half (55 percent) of Hamilton’s 2022 money came from people with Bloomington addresses. Measured by percentage of donors, 62 percent of Hamilton’s 2022 donors had Bloomington addresses.
| Candidate | Unique Itemized Donors | Sum of Itemized | MEDIAN | Sum of Unitemized | Total |
| Griffin | 28 | $14,349 | $250 | $213 | $14,562 |
| Hamilton | 52 | $24,963 | $363 | $0 | $24,963 |
| Sandberg | 40 | $18,879 | $220 | $6,338 | $25,217 |
| Thomson | 75 | $69,377 | $450 | $8,401 | $77,778 |
| Grand Total | 195 | $127,568 | $300 | $14,952 | $142,519 |
On the other end of the scale were Sandberg’s contributions, which all came from people who have Bloomington addresses.
About 84 percent of Thomson’s contributions came from people with Bloomington addresses—which corresponds to about 82 percent of the money.
Griffin’s percentage of donors with Bloomington addresses was relatively high (82 percent) compared to the percentage of the money from such donors (56 percent). That can be chalked up to one contribution from sister Marshella Griffin in California, who gave $10,000.
Inside Bloomington, it seems apparent that the geographic pattern of all campaign contributions trends away from neighborhoods where college students are the predominant residents, and away from lower-income areas.
When all campaign donor locations were analyzed by The B Square with the Urban Institute’s Spatial Equity Tool, renters were underrepresented among the contributors to Bloomington mayoral campaigns.
The Spatial Equity Tool also showed that low-income residents were underrepresented among donors to mayoral campaigns. That’s not a surprising surprising result, given that donors to political campaigns by definition have enough extra cash to give some of it to a candidate for office.
The Spatial Equity Tool also shows that contributors to Bloomington’s mayor campaigns in 2022 were disproportionately white, and disproportionately older than 65, compared with the general city population.
Documents
