Political donations, 1980-2012: Puritan vs. other names

What happens when we search opensecrets.org for distinctive surnames? Note: there won't be much precision in these numbers. This is simply a demonstration of the sort of thing that's possible.

I'm only looking at donations that feature "repub" or "democ" in the name of the recipient. This saves time but excludes most or all donations to specific candidates. To do this properly, I suggest: (1) look at all donations (which will require sorting donations to specific candidates into republican/democrat or conservative/liberal); (2) aggregate donations to the level of individual donors, so we're comparing the number of individuals on each side, rather than the number of donations; (3) increase the number of "Puritan" and other names looked at; (4) also break down comparisons by region (or even by state, if statistics allow).

Where genealogical information is available, donors with Puritan surnames can also be divided into bins based on their actual degree of New England ancestry to see if any trends hold.

The Puritan name list includes the names used by Weyl (which came from Huntington) and some other names mentioned by Huntington here. "Lyman" has been adopted by Jews (e.g., Democratic donor "Princeton Nathan Lyman" writes about having lunch with anti-apartheid activist Joe Slovo: "That day we talked a little about our roots, as we were both products of Lithuanian Jewish parents. Slovo had been born in Lithuania and came to South Africa as a child. He would credit his Jewish roots for some of his social conscience, but he was never religious."), so I prefer to exclude it. For the same reason, I excluded "Cole" from the English list and "Ross" from the Scottish list. The remaining name lists are based on Weyl ("The Geography of American Achievement"), except for the list of the ten most common Irish surnames, which I added.


repub democ repub/democ 
 recordsdollarsrecordsdollarsrecordsdollars
PURITAN (excluding lyman)7035950982412065232.922.88
ENGLISH CLERICAL38643673871119612871263.232.85
SCOTTISH40573665089147112910212.762.84
ENGLISH39332983327110610563993.562.82
IRISH49035291109166020366202.952.6
PURITAN (including lyman)7556195663182429622.372.55
IRISH (top 10)65356888658210332498803.112.12
GERMAN38323094483104415105553.672.05
“NEW” CHINESE1830817037579698292320972.621.85
KOREAN11249983772765835434.071.71
ITALIAN4152672951111721943.741.55
WELSH148511722395277792382.821.5
FRENCH7259907952747243052.651.37
INDIAN7556494593805994441.991.08
“OLD” CHINESE1969153335370215988412.80.96
JEWISH447673741276904153321690.650.48
AFRO-AMERICAN4989210612243890.80.4

 repub democ repub/democ 
 recordsdollarsrecordsdollarsrecordsdollars
angell506385531194501.613.28
conant68370061670354.255.26
mather653653535159671.862.29
seymour93576061895365.176.04
taft101131157571038111.771.26
huntington587295845210501.293.47
coolidge2422750524154.89.42
hooker7859564131541563.86
cleveland14810866719113947.799.54
trumbull1850002450911.11
PURITAN (weyl and huntington)7035950982412065232.922.88
       
angell506385531194501.613.28
conant68370061670354.255.26
mather653653535159671.862.29
seymour93576061895365.176.04
taft101131157571038111.771.26
huntington587295845210501.293.47
coolidge2422750524154.89.42
hooker7859564131541563.86
cleveland14810866719113947.799.54
trumbull1850002450911.11
lyman522446877364390.680.67
PURITAN (weyl and huntington)7556195663182429622.372.55
       
clark2591228220288210511022.942.17
clarke37523965284627024.463.82
palmer89811520172301733223.96.65
ENGLISH CLERICAL (weyl)38643673871119612871263.232.85
       
bradford166224310111876591.52.56
chapman5983864811822541603.291.52
curtis362276509167793182.173.49
fowler4493510321531275802.932.75
heath28018529463443254.444.18
higgins30121661800  
hensley1215618300  
pearson3612304281141185963.171.94
savage246134716811332063.041.01
spencer621589967123739585.057.98
whitaker27823488000  
york150969091121375971.340.7
ENGLISH (weyl)39332983327110610563993.562.82
       
andrew5143676942141709692.42.15
bruce24013618070302353.434.5
campbell163716476784574319953.583.81
mckee20927292788529052.385.16
mcmillan172155766126629671.372.47
cunningham4302164922111275842.041.7
wallace8558683523054143662.82.1
SCOTTISH (weyl)40573665089147112910212.762.84
       
schmidt7303999101773689914.121.08
braun287234523102846822.812.77
hoffman106510505293595287622.971.99
schultz547351239107830605.114.23
wagner7657317682083549853.682.06
weber43832651491900754.813.62
GERMAN (weyl)38323094483104415105553.672.05
       
boucher752369834402012.210.59
boudreaux17107601375701.311.42
dubois502921843217451.161.34
duvall78389101083907.84.64
gagnon3515700647005.833.34
girard103314225734666721.410.67
landry13427898840486323.355.74
lanier192224642142446513.719.18
leblanc41546544110193010.54
FRENCH (weyl)7259907952747243052.651.37
       
patel1651386211411419221.170.98
rao8356053421316141.980.43
rau380287901851130744.472.55
shah1271668841122128341.130.78
INDIAN (weyl)7556494593805994441.991.08
       
kim11249983772765835434.071.71
KOREAN (weyl)11249983772765835434.071.71
       
washington4989210612243890.80.4
AFRO-AMERICAN (weyl)4989210612243890.80.4
       
chan1121101715235210327063.180.98
chang249198749782264173.190.88
chin1335838660630282.220.93
fong1169001526546654.461.65
wong2771385981462020331.90.69
yee733045340199921.831.52
“OLD” CHINESE NAMES (weyl)1969153335370215988412.80.96
       
chen5514443361361379404.053.22
cheng615139921115502.94.45
choi643166119227003.371.39
chu6174798032122686232.911.79
chung957149020442004.751.62
ho1102710477165456460508852.421.73
hong69512501489954.935.7
lin255727636167398752933.463.16
wang2534715061264487902.011.05
win2268162716685510299362.651.58
wu4682793231812224952.591.26
yu278288864951106902.932.61
“NEW” CHINESE NAMES (weyl)1830817037579698292320972.621.85
       
bowen 3012074751141310272.641.58
dewey79555611695604.945.81
edmonds2049890925430808.162.3
floyd24330866647264535.1711.67
glenn202147951751372132.691.08
lloyd2252242331741408111.291.59
meredith8255492472715761.740.2
prather543648725120682.163.02
pritchard95374654745023.755.03
WELSH (weyl)148511722395277792382.821.5
       
caruso11035150891865012.2218.85
rizzo3915365133409430.45
rossi1437666931671704.611.14
esposito562286317215603.291.06
giordano675175030156602.233.3
carbone35381523735011.675.19
corona1858216623530.93
gentile4145415592258.24.92
marchese620105106501.20.19
santini10925012501037
ITALIAN (weyl)4152672951111721943.741.55
       
berman1283472823196542720.40.53
bernstein2433591403615017460.670.72
cohen449709873450169306210.42
epstein1363817962483772860.551.01
friedman29569525854710509290.540.66
gold11431355560175439984720.650.34
goldberg1481812923858514170.380.21
goldstein1581911842013347910.790.57
greenberg2044007532957215220.690.56
kaplan19619524258917720860.330.11
katz23339086942811018920.540.35
levine1533431053725429760.410.63
levy4207221642873141831.462.3
rosenberg2763538072875907500.960.6
stern2947468023818267850.770.9
JEWISH (weyl)447673741276904153321690.650.48

2 comments:

TGGP said...

Surprised how high the Rep/Dem ratio was for Koreans & Italians.

n/a said...

TGGP,

Again, don't expect these to be at all precise at this point.

Also, the numbers here may be shifted in the Republican direction because many Democratic entries instead of containing "Democrat" show up under "DNC".

The only really satisfactory way to get the actual R vs. D numbers would be to look at all donations (including to individual candidates and PACs).