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Bronx Lagging Far Behind Manhattan in Presidential Campaign Donations

By Eddie Small | March 9, 2016 4:56pm
 The Bronx is far behind Manhattan in terms of donations to the 2016 presidential race, with 18 individual zip codes in Manhattan donating more than all zip codes combined in The Bronx.
The Bronx is far behind Manhattan in terms of donations to the 2016 presidential race, with 18 individual zip codes in Manhattan donating more than all zip codes combined in The Bronx.
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THE BRONX — The Bronx may have Manhattan beat when it comes to winning baseball championships and inventing genres of music, but the borough lags far behind its neighbor to the south when it comes to making presidential campaign donations.

The entire Bronx has so far donated just under $330,000 in connection to the 2016 campaign, much less than not just Manhattan overall but several individual zip codes within the borough, according to a map put together by the data scientists at Renthop.

A total of 18 zip codes in Manhattan had outspent all zip codes combined in The Bronx as of Feb. 20, with the largest campaign contributions mainly concentrated in neighborhoods like the Upper West Side, the Upper East Side and Chelsea.

While Bronx neighborhoods like Kingsbridge and Riverdale have each contributed more than $100,000 to the campaign so far — the most out of any areas in the borough by a wide margin — those numbers are still less than one-tenth of what the top neighborhoods in Manhattan have contributed, where seven zip codes have so far donated more than $1 million to the campaign.

The Bronx has strongly favored giving to the Democratic candidates so far, with most donors giving to Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders in every zip code except 10460, where donors in neighborhoods like Parkchester and West Farms have split equally between giving to Clinton and Ted Cruz.

Income disparity could partially explain the dramatic differences in political donations between the two boroughs, according to Christina Greer, an associate professor of political science at Fordham University.

The median household income in The Bronx as of 2014 was just $34,284, while it was $71,656 in Manhattan, according to data from the U.S. Census.

Greer maintained though that communities in Manhattan were also simply more accustomed to making political donations than communities in The Bronx.

"I think that there are a lot of zip codes in Manhattan that truly realize that not only can money put the person you want in office, money can also keep the person you don’t want out of office," she said.

The low numbers in The Bronx could also reflect a general lack of enthusiasm in the borough for this year's crop of presidential contenders, she added.

"A lot of people don't feel like the candidates are speaking to them or their issues," she said. "So yeah, I would love to see more people donate, but they need to be donating to people who they feel like are responsive to their wants and needs."