Map Shows Which States Make The Biggest Political Donations

A new map reveals which states have donated the most money during the 2024 election cycle and to which political party.

Using data gathered by Open Secrets, a non-profit that tracks campaign finance and lobbying, Newsweek mapped the results, coloring each state by the party they donate more money to, with a deeper color showing a higher proportion of donations to that party. Additionally, each state has a point representing the size of their donations overall.

So far in the 2024 election cycle, the U.S. has collectively made more than $5 billion in political donations. However, 67 percent of that money comes from just eleven states, which each donated amounts in the hundreds of millions.

According to Open Secrets, “totals include PAC and individual contributions to federal candidates, PACs, parties and outside spending groups. Percentages are based only on contributions to candidates and parties.”

The state with the largest donation figures was California, which has spent $818 million. Sixty-three percent of that money has gone to Democratic politicians, while just 28 percent went to Republicans.

However, that’s still around $200 million dollars, which is larger than the amount Republicans received from Idaho, South Dakota, Nebraska, Kansas, Oklahoma, and Arkansas combined, even though they are all states that heavily favor Republicans.

The state with the smallest donation total this cycle was Vermont, which donated just over $6 million. Vermont was also the state with the strongest lean towards Democrats, with 76 percent of the money going to the party. The amount donated in Vermont was around 136 times smaller than the amount from California.

The state with the heaviest lean towards Republicans was South Dakota, which favored the GOP by 78 percent. In total, 28 states donated more to Republicans than Democrats.

However, this does not mean that Democrats received fewer donations in the last two years, as the areas that did prefer Democrats, notably California, New York, and the District of Columbia, were among the largest donors overall.

While most states donated according to how they voted, there were some outliers. Arizona and Nevada, which both went blue in 2020 and are key swing states again this year, favored donating to Republicans.

More bizarrely, Montana, which has voted for a Republican in every presidential election since 1992, and is widely considered to be a stronghold for the party, favored Democratic political donations. The discrepancy could be explained by the fact that Democratic Sen. Jon Tester is in a close race against his Republican opponent, the outcome of which could decide which party controls the Senate in 2025.

If the Electoral College were to vote down the same lines as each state’s preferred donations in November, former President Donald Trump would win the election with 287 electoral votes.

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