Say what you will about Allen West as a legislator; as a fundraiser, there's no doubting that he's very, very good. Finance documents submitted to the Federal Election Commission on Tuesday complete a picture of 2011 fundraising that reveals he's raised about $5.8 million so far in the election cycle. That's more than any member of the U.S. House of Representatives other than Speaker John Boehner, according to data compiled by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Campaigns are required to disclose donor information for contributions totaling more than $200; of West's $5.8 million, just under $2.7 million is itemized as these large donations -- and a New Times geographic analysis reveals that well more than half of it isn't from Florida.
West has received at least $1,631 from every state in the republic. While he raised just over $1 million in Florida, he raked in more than a quarter million dollars in itemized donations from Texas and $213,000 from California. Below, you'll find a map of all of his donations; if it doesn't work properly in your browser or you'd like to see a bigger version, click here.
(Note: Of 2,600 individual donations from Florida, a randomly selected group of about 500 was omitted in order to efficiently display the map.)
Here are two other breakdowns of West's contributions that reflect contribution amounts rather than just location. Click on the slices of the pie to see details of the other states.
If you're bored of pie charts, here's a bubble graph that rearranges the data a little bit:
We'll keep digging through these to find out more about particular donors. One thing is certainly clear: Though West has to flee the district for a better chance of reelection, people across the country really like what they're seeing.
