Clinton’s claim that 94% of her donations come from small donors is misleading, and it's one of the reasons Bernie supporters don't trust her. In typical Hillary fashion, she manipulates facts to make herself more appealing to the working class.
xI'm incredibly grateful that people are giving what they can afford—94% of donations are $100 or under. -H
— Hillary Clinton (@HillaryClinton) March 18, 2016Clinton has repeatedly claimed that 90% of her donations are from small donors:
“I’m proud to have 90% of my donations froim small donors..."
CNN fact-checked her claim. Here’s the reality:
In her most recent filings released Sunday, which reflects the end of 2015, the Clinton campaign reported that 94% of the number of donations to her campaign were in increments of $100 or less.
However, as a percentage of money raised, about $9 million, or 24% of the money raised in the last quarter, were from donations of $200 or less.
This is how Hillary manipulates data to make you think she is mostly funded by small donors.
For comparison, the FEC also shows that the same small donations to Sanders were 62.8 million, or 85%, of the total amount his campaign has raised.
So, Bernie is getting 85% of his total from donors who give less than $200, and Hillary is getting 24% of her total from donors who give less than $200.
By citing small donors as a number of donors instead of as percent raised, Hillary is manipulating data to make voters think she is mostly funded by working class voters. It’s not true.
94% donors giving less than $200 account for only 24% of her donation total, which means 6% of donors giving more than $200 (aka big donors) account for 76% of her donation total.
Do you think she’s more beholden to the 94% of you who have given 24% of her donation total? Or is she more beholden to the 6% of wealthy donors who have given 76% of her fundraising total.
These numbers don't even take into account the $46 million raised by her Super PAC, with individual donations as large as $6 million.
Now that Hillary has Bernie on the ropes, she has resumed her courtship of big donors … It’s like a tour of America’s wealthiest zip codes:
Special interests are why we have trouble passing middle class reforms that have overwhelming public support, from gun control to the minimum wage to Wall Street reform to progressive taxes.
Democrats should be concerned about Hillary’s ties to big donors; especially when the likely opposition candidate is running on an anti-special interest platform.
If small donors get what they pay for, they’ll get 24% of Hillary Clinton’s support as President. We should be calling for Clinton to reinstate the Obama rule preventing the DNC accepting lobbyist contributions, for her to condemn all super PAC support and for her to be more honest about the fact that three-fourths of her donation total comes from big donors.
I wish Clinton would stop misleading voters about her ties to moneyed interests—or, better, actually distance herself from them—it only pushes progressive voters away from her, and these rhetorical contradictions are a big part of why my small donations go to Bernie Sanders.