Sumner Shortcuts

Sumner County Republicans have outdone their Democrat counterparts in the fundraising department this election cycle, beating them by nearly $12,000.

That’s not terribly surprising.  From what I understand, this has long been a Republican county.  But are they able to raise so much more money because there are more Republicans than Democrats in Sumner County?  Or is it because they just do a better job of fundraising?

Here’s an interesting-yet-staggering fact:

Overall, Sumner County Republican incumbents raised $84,342 from 269 donors to Sumner Democrats’ $72,277.84 from 164 contributions.

Take another look there.  Check out the total number of contributors.  What I glean from this–and I’m no math major–is that a total of 433 people in Sumner County are funding all the campaigns.  To the tune of $361.71 per person.

I guess that’s about right, but I sort of expected that the average campaign donation would be closer to $50 or $100.  Maybe a few rich people threw off the curve.

Fascinating stuff, though.  We all see the yard signs that have lined the streets for months now, but how many of us knew that there was so much money behind these local campaigns?  Kind of staggering when you think about how little the average Sumner citizen knows about any of our local races.