Best State That Money Can Buy

Scaling down the travel part of my work has provided me with weeks at home instead of days or hours. This leaves me with time to play/learn more about some tools I’ve only been tinkering with in the past. In addition to that, it’s given me time to pay more attention to some topics that I’ve ignored for way to long – politics. I’ve especially become interested in the politics of my state, North Carolina, as has much of the rest of the country and parts of the world. I’ve already written a bit about it here (Will Public Education in North Carolina Rest In Peace?) and here (In Defense of Liberal Arts – Sort’a).

Click here to download the large PDF version.  The spreadsheet can be seen here.

As many of you know, my daughter has been contributing semi-regular blog posts here, featuring selected infographics and some data visualizations.  It’s of particular interest to me and one of the few topics I continue to present on in conferences – and with the benefit of time, I’m learning more about working with vector graphics.  

Making an infographic is fairly easy.  Making one that effectively conveys a message is hard.  As an IT guy at a local CityCamp said, “Don’t try this on your own.”  Well that’s the kind of challenge that inspires me, not to mention the message that our state has been hijacked by corporate concerns, masquerading as social knee-jerk issues.

For this project I dug into the North Carolina election results for 2012, the year that it happened.  I created a spreadsheet that tied the election results (North Carolina Board State of Elections) in with the costs of the campaigns (Follow the Money) for our governor and General Assembly elections.  It revealed some pretty interesting facts about who elected who, how much it cost and who paid for it.  See full size infographic here.

Of note:

  • All fifty seats of the North Carolina Senate were up for election. Democratic candidates received 1,854,358 or 47.22% of the votes cast. Republicans received 2,072,984 or 52.78% of the votes cast. Yet, Democrats won only 17 seats compared to 33 seats to Republicans. I’d like to know what math we teach in schools that reconciles that.
  • Even though Republicans won 76 seats to only 42 seats going to the Democrats, 48% (1,842,541) of the state’s votes were cast blue while only 52% (1,998,155) cast red.  Again, an interesting Algebra project.
  • Democratic Senate campaigns spent $3,257,182 (25% of total spending) while Republican campaigns spent $9,602,925 (75% of total spending).  In the House, Democratic campaigns spent $6,021,281 (34% of total spending) compared to $11,762,624 (66% of total spending).  There seems to be a closer correlation between dollars and who governs than votes.  How did this happen?
  • What surprised me was the money spent on campaigns compared to the number of votes.  In the state Senate races, each vote cast for a Democratic candidate cost $1.76 in campaign spending.  Republicans spent $4.63 for each vote cast for their candidates.
  • For the House races, Democrats owe somebody $3.27 a vote while Republicans own somebody $5.89 per vote.
  • I’ve listed the top contributors to both parties, not including candidate and party committees.  These are organizations that contributed more than $100,000 dollars.  The red bar shows the portion going to Republican candidates and the blue indicates investments in Democrats.  As you can see, most contributed to both parties, though most gave most of their money to Republicans.
  • Looking at specific campaigns, it was a shock to me how much money some of our democratically elected representatives paid for their campaigns.  Pat McCrory paid $5.00 ($12,202,756) for each of his 2,440,707 votes.  Walter Dalton, the Democratic candidate paid $2.09 ($4,044,750) for each of his 1,931,580 votes.
  • The obscenity is in some of the General Assembly campaigns.  Thomas Tillis (Rep), the Speaker of the House, paid $59,15 for each of his 27,971 votes. Phil Berger (Rep), the Senate’s president pro tem, paid $38.59 for each of his 58,276 votes. Tim Moffitt (Rep) spent $23.61 for each of his 21,291 votes and John Szoka (Rep) paid $21.87 for each of his 16,208 votes. To be sure, the Republicans were not the only ones spending obscene amounts of money for their votes. William H. Battermann (Dem) spent $61.30 per vote, getting only 38% of the vote. Rick Glazier (Dem) won, spending $14.47 for each of his 17,266 votes. Jane Whilden (Dem) spent $13.84 per vote, trying to defeat Tim Moffitt (Rep).

My question is, “How are they earning that money?”

Downloads: Infographic (http://goo.gl/He1ICB) • Spreadsheet: (http://goo.gl/60MqZw)

3 thoughts on “Best State That Money Can Buy”

  1. Your latest creative use of technology was called to my attention by a former state tech director who now resides in S C. Some interesting and thought-provoking questions regarding politics in NC! Glad to know that you have “slowed down” your traveling schedule. Regards to the family….
    “Mrs. B.”

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *