Politics & Government

Money, Politics and Georgetown

Where do Georgetowners put their money when it comes to local politics? And does money translate into votes?

If Georgetown voting preferences had been an indicator for the outcome of yesterday's special election for the At-Large seat on the District Council, Republican a win last night. Instead, Vincent Orange, who received less than 10 percent of Georgetown votes, .

Prior to the election, we wrote about Orange's in his run for the At-Large seat. It was initially surprising since Orange had received a large share of votes and some Georgetown money in his fall race against Kwame Brown for the Council Chair position.

Initial campaign finance reports pointed to local support for Republican Patrick Mara for the At-Large seat, assuming political contributions could be equated with intention to vote for the candidate. At the time we asked if Georgetown money means Georgetown votes. Now that results are in, it appears that indeed money and votes go hand in hand.

Find out what's happening in Georgetownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

Individual Georgetown donors gave a total of $14,860 to candidates on the ballot for the At-Large Council seat in 2011.

Candidate Total Contributions Contributions as Percent of 20007 Giving Vote Percentage Precinct 5
Vote Percentage Precinct 6
Biddle $6,140* 41.3 17.8 12.6 Lopez $70 0.05 2.96 2.9 Mara $7,650 51.5 61.7 61.2 Orange $100 0.07 7.2 8.9 Weaver $650* 4.3 8.9 12.4 Other $400 2.7 1.4 2

Candidates could be ranked in order of percentage of votes and total donations and would be in the exact same order.

Find out what's happening in Georgetownwith free, real-time updates from Patch.

In this case Patrick Mara received a higher percentage at the polls than his percentage of total contributions among all candidates. But Sekou Biddle did worse in actual voting than he did in his fundraising efforts.

Comparing contributions to individual candidates with actual voting percentages demonstrates that total donations is a decent gauge for percent of vote earned. On election day.

The lesson? Money maters in Georgetown politics.

*Number presented here is the amount from individual donors, excluding businesses because including large checks from businesses skews the perceived monetary support from residents. With businesses the total for Biddle is $10,540 and for Weaver is $1,150.


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