In this post I’m going to look at the numbers as reported to OCPF. I recognize that these are direct contributions and the bulk of the money may be in the form of indirect contributions (and therefor not part of this analysis). However, I think these numbers provide a look at the grassroots efforts of each campaign. So with that said, let’s look at the numbers.
The second half of May didn’t bring good news to either the Avellone or Kayyem campaigns as far as direct contributions are concerned. You can see from the chart below that Avellone remained in the basement and Kayyem made a strong bid to join him there. Coakley continued her pattern by having a strong second half of the month (I’m a relative noob when it comes to politics, so if anyone wants to lend insight as to why the Coakley campaign has this pattern then I’m all ears). The momentum Berwick appeared to gain in the first half of May carried through the second half. Grossman, well, he has yet to return to his peak numbers of late March and early April.
(note: this chart will look slightly different from the chart on OCPF since I have removed candidate self-contributions/loans)
If we look at simply the number of contributions over this same time period then the story doesn’t change much.
Avellone might hope that his campaign is starting to see some life, but it appears to be too little too late. Kayyem and Grossman were following the same general pattern up until this past two weeks and it has to be disappointing for the Kayyem campaign to see this last place finish for the number of contributions over the past two weeks.
One more chart regarding donations – average contribution amount:
So that blip up in the second chart for Avellone I mentioned in the prior chart, while the number of donations went up, the average amount of each donation as seen in this chart has to be disappointing.
This chart has to be good news for Coakley since back in figure 2 we showed that not only is she consistently bringing in more donations – figure 3 shows she can keep going back to those donors for additional contributions. One caveat – I did not combine individual donors. So it could be that she already has been tapping prior donors which could explain some of the lower contribution amounts and nullify my statement about being able to tap them in the future.
One final caveat – I’m still getting familiar with the OCPF numbers (and I’m just a student), so there could very well be things I haven’t accounted for (for instance, I still am unsure when numbers are reported, so while I have numbers for each candidate through the end of May I don’t know if these numbers can continue to change).
The final chart of the day: Official page likes on Facebook:
Again this could be an indication of a ground game. But we have to keep in mind that each page hasn’t been around the same amount of time. Coakley’s page has been around since 2008. Grossman’s since 2010, Kayyem’s June 2012, Avellone’s Jan 2013, and Berwick’s March 2013. Remind me to start tracking this early on next time around so we can see trends over time. Kayyem would appear to have a good grasp on the facebook crowd but it would be interesting to know whether her “likes” has stalled over the past month just like her contributions.
To wrap this up – looking at just these charts one would think that Coakley and Berwick have the momentum heading into the convention. Grossman has a solid backing but maybe not the enthusiasm of the Coakley and Berwick campaigns. Kayyem appears to have peaked too early and is in a current free-fall. Avellone never got started.
This is my first post, so try not to be too harsh. đŸ™‚
–Kevin
Interesting post, but the charts you reference don’t show up.
I’m seeing the charts, so I’m not sure what is up. These are images linked from Google Docs (published chart), so if anyone has a similar experience with this issue then please let me know. Sorry about this.
Well… I’m not sure what the issue is. I saved the images locally and uploaded them to the media folder – I can see them there and they look correct. But embedding them in my post just results in the broken link image and if I click on it I get a permissions error. So everyone can just trust me that the images are brilliant. sigh.., I’ll keep playing with it.
if you open the image, under File there should be an option to Publish to Web, that should make it visible. I believe that you also need to share.
to view the files you’ve uploaded. If you change the sharing/privacy settings, maybe it would solve it.
That did it. Images now show up. I’ve learned something today, so I can go back to bed now right?
I always see her ads in my FB feed. My guess is that she paid for a lot of these and they aren’t reflective of organic support. It’s not hard to bump up likes on a business/org page for $.25-.50 per like. She also paid a lot for Twitter ads judging from my twitter feed.
It definitely seems to put cold water on the idea that it is a Grossman vs Coakley race and that Berwick is acting as a spoiler. Grossman is in third place for FB likes, direct contributors, and Berwick is neck and neck with him in the money race. I think there is room for both of them to prove if they are the viable Coakley alternative. What is becoming painfully clear though is she is the frontrunner and has a built in lead that has not be dented thus far during the campaign. Hopefully, this position is her ceiling and the place Berwick and Grossman occupy are their floors.