Harris nabs 91% of local donations for president
Tiburon and Belvedere residents donated some $618,905 to U.S. Senate and presidential candidates ahead of the Nov. 5 election, with a lion’s share of that money — some 91% — going to Vice President Kamala Harris.
Between March 1 and Oct. 28, residents with a 94920 ZIP code address donated $560,774 to Harris’ campaign, which includes donations made to President Joe Biden’s campaign before he dropped out in July, according to publicly available data from the Federal Election Commission. By comparison, Republican former President Donald Trump garnered some $27,092 from peninsula residents in the same period.
Polls for the Nov. 5 general election closed after The Ark’s press deadline, though Harris and Trump were locked in a tight race in the leadup to Election Day, with Harris leading Trump by more than 1 percentage point in the popular vote in an Oct. 30 Economist/YouGov poll but Trump winning the Electoral College and the presidency in RealClear Politics’ polling predictions and simulations from ABC News’ 538.
Overall, in the current election cycle, from Jan. 1, 2023, to Oct. 28, 2024, Harris’ campaign received total donations of $679,243 from local residents, which includes totals from Biden’s campaign. Trump’s donation total from residents in the same period is just shy of $36,291.
Some 19 residents gave $6,600 to Harris — or the maximum of $3,300 each to primary- and general-election campaigns — between March 1 and Oct. 28. Three donated more than the maximum; those excess donations either will be refunded, said Myles Martin, a public-affairs specialist at the Federal Election Commission, or redesignated to a future campaign. Excess donations can also go to a campaign’s separate account for handling potential recounts, which carries a $3,300 donation maximum, Martin said.
Some 37 residents donated at least $3,300 to Harris during that time, and 115 residents donated at least $1,000.
Contributions to the Harris campaign from local public officials include $4,300 from Tiburon Planning Commissioner Jeff Tsai; $3,500 from Belvedere Planning Commissioner and incoming Councilmember Kevin Burke; $1,400 from Belvedere resident Richard Snyder, who sits on the Sanitary District No. 5 of Marin board of directors; $1,000 each from Tiburon Mayor Alice Fredericks and outgoing Belvedere Councilmember Nancy Kemnitzer; $600 from Larry Russell of Tiburon, who sits on the Marin Municipal Water District board of directors; $500 from Belvedere Vice Mayor Jane Cooper; and $250 from Tiburon Parks, Open Space and Trails Commissioner Tim Burr.
Meanwhile, the largest peninsula resident donation to Trump’s campaign was $8,942, with $3,300 of that designated toward the separate recount fund. Five residents donated at least $1,000.
In addition to contributions made to Trump’s and Harris’ campaigns, residents donated $5,854 to independent candidate Robert F. Kennedy Jr., an environmental attorney who generated controversy for a number of disproven health-related conspiracy theories. Kennedy Jr. suspended his campaign in August and has since endorsed Trump, who apparently promised Kennedy “control of the public-health agencies.”
Additional donations included $465 to Democratic candidate Marianne Williamson, a self-help author and spiritual adviser who announced in July she would not seek the top office amid Biden withdrawing from the race, and $145 to former South Carolina governor and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley, who dropped out in March following dismal Super Tuesday results. Haley endorsed Trump’s campaign in July during the Republican National Convention.
The only local public official to donate to any of those campaigns was Tiburon Heritage and Arts Commissioner Azita de Mujica, who gave $20 to Haley.
Locals contributed less to the U.S. Senate race, which saw U.S. Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Burbank, facing off against Republican challenger and retired baseball player Steve Garvey after Democratic U.S. Sen. Laphonza Butler, who was appointed to an interim seat after the death of Dianne Feinstein, chose not to run for a full term. Schiff and Garvey appeared on the ballot twice, once to finish off Butler’s interim term through Jan. 3 and another time for the full six-year term that starts that day.
No peninsula residents contributed the maximum of $9,900 — $3,300 each for the primary, special and general elections — to either candidate during the latest period.
Schiff, the former chair of the House Intelligence Committee, garnered $21,388 between March 1 and Oct. 28, for a total of $103,707 since Jan. 1, 2023. The only local public official who donated to Schiff this period was Russell, who gave $130.
Garvey, whose chances of winning were slim in the Democratic stronghold, raised $3,188 on the Tiburon Peninsula in the latest eight-month period, for a total of $4,288 between Jan. 1, 2023, and Oct. 28, 2024.
About 55% of registered voters on the peninsula are Democrats, while about 17% are Republicans. About 22% are registered with no party preference.
Overall, about 62% of Marin’s 170,653 registered voters are Democrats, about 13% are Republican and some 19% have no party preference.
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