When making contributions to Federal candidates for office (House, Senate, President), donors are asked to list their occupation as well as their employer. This allows committees to meet their own compliance burden to report such information to the FEC.
Our research of Schedule A Itemized Contributions by Individuals (more on entity-types later) to Federal candidates that were filed electronically in 2020 reveals that one of the top-ranked occupations for donation in this space is retirement.
We tabulated by ZIP code in every area where giving was found for both Democrats and Republicans and we found $522,029,538.87 in donations filed under Schedule A documents from people who described their occupation with just one word: “RETIRED.”
That’s half a billion dollars filed in 2020 as contributed to Democratic or Republican candidates for House, Senate, and President–by retirees. What’s more: this donation has a partisan tilt that actually might not surprise you at all. 60.82% of this source of cash went to Republican candidate committees, whereas 39.18% went to Democrats, an edge of roughly $110,000.00.
Schedule A-Itemized Contributions by Individuals Whose Occupation is: “RETIRED”
In the map presented in detail here, we are displaying ZIP codes with bipartisan giving, and shading each area based on which party’s candidates received the most cash in that area. The opacity in each area relates directly to the share of cash: if Republicans raised 51% of the cash in an area, you will see a 51% opaque red. If Democrats raised 80% of the cash in an area, you will a 80% opaque blue. Where you see no shading, it means that we did not find giving to both parties. We leave these areas out as a way to provide greater contrast on contested turf, generally.
Doing this kind of thing can be interesting, especially when it is time to wade into a purple state and you want to build up a highly specific and local understanding of where to bring the fight.
Schedule A-Itemized Contributions by Individuals Whose Occupation is: “RETIRED”
While retirees may not comprise a special interest group, knowing where they are and what they care about may be a helpful part of building a turnout model, designing targeting for a voter universe, or extending your voter contact apparatus. Also, “Retired” is just one occupation we’re going to look at.
Schedule A-Itemized Contributions by Individuals Whose Occupation is: “RETIRED”
The interactive map screenshotted here is available at national scale for you to play with in DataMapper by Competitive Advantage Research but with this caveat: it is very big in two ways. There is a large data file downloaded and it consumes a lot of memory (RAM) when loaded into your browser, but if you have a decent enough computer and connection, you’ll do fine if you click for this map here.
If you have something you’d like to map, or anything you’d like to know out of our special data warehouse of FEC-regulated committees, get in touch.
Schedule A-Itemized Contributions by Individuals Whose Occupation is: “RETIRED”