Head Tale

At the start of the #skndpldr race, there was a bit of attention when one candidate (I think it was Erin Weir?) proposed that if elected leader, he would work to ban corporate and union donations from the political process (although also declining to follow this guideline for the Sask NDP leadership race pointing out that this would only be fair if all candidates agreed to a similar restriction.)

With the release of the November fundraising totals today, I thought it might be fun to do a thought experiment to see where things would stand if the candidates had agreed to forego corporate, union and other organizational support in favour of *only* accepting donations from individuals.

(Of course, we have no way of knowing how that may have shifted their strategies or fundraising approaches but it’s still enlightening in that it shows a clear division between the two candidates who are very focused on getting funding mostly from individuals and two – including Weir – who are getting a much larger percentage of their support from organizations.)

Here’s how the candidates rank for total fundraising so far (with what I calculate their total would be if you remove all obvious corporate, organizational and union donations in brackets.)

Of course, I can’t account for any organization which gave less than $250 and I’m also whipping this off pretty quickly – just before heading out to a union meeting ironically – so there may be errors:

Ryan Meili – $58, 151.44 ($50, 745.19) which means Ryan gets about 87% of his funding from individuals.

Trent Wotherspoon – $56,202.88 ($36,614.88) which means Trent gets 65% of his funding from individuals.

Cam Broten – $40,007.89 ($36507.89) which means Cam gets 91% of his funding from individuals.

Erin Weir – $33, 623.64 ($22,728.89) which means Erin gets 68% of his funding from individuals.

If I’ve got my math right (and as an English major, I make a mostly okay mathematician), any surprises?

• Ryan’s still in the overall lead if you take out donations from institutional supporters while, all of a sudden, Trent and Cam are neck and neck in second place in terms of money raised.
• I would’ve thought Erin would’ve easily had the most support from institutional supporters given his strong union ties but Trent actually relies on institutional donors slightly more.
• I was a bit surprised to see Cam narrowly beating out Ryan in the percentage of donations from individuals – but I suspect Ryan would take that trade-off if it means he’s raised $14 000 more than Cam! ;-).

Anything else catch your eye?