Both campaigns have recently pointed fingers at the other guys’ campaign contributors. Baker says he wants “to keep Chad’s corporate donors from buying this election.” He says his campaign is “scaring the pants off Chad Smith’s inner circle of executives and rich big wigs.”
Well, we can’t verify how scared they are, where their pants are, or the size of their wigs. And, as we have noted before, corporate donors are illegal, so we’re assuming if these folks truly were “corporate donors,” Baker would have reported it to the Election Commission and they would have dealt with it.
But, what we can do is simple math.
Over the two reporting periods so far, Baker has had 137 people donate to his campaign, and they have given a combined total $129,328.28. That works out to just over $944 a donor on average.
Over the same two reporting periods, Smith has raised $185,715.86 from 226 donors. That comes to an average contribution of under $822 per donor.
Baker has also loaned his campaign nearly $70,000, which could buy a nice size wig, if one were so inclined, but that is not factored into his average per donor give.
Overall, Baker has had nearly $200,000 to spend so far on his campaign, nearly $90,000 coming from himself and his family. With those resources, he has raised more than Smith.
Smith’s donor list does have a lot of people listed as executives. Some are recognizable as Cherokee Nation employees or people who work for Cherokee Nation’s businesses or boards, so Baker is right about people in Smith’s inner circle giving to Smith’s campaign.
But let’s be real. Neither campaign is being financed by poor people on social security. And yes, it’s possible someone is trying to ‘buy the election.’ But, we’ll leave it up to you to figure out who.
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