On the 20th of every month, the FEC releases campaign finance reports for federal candidates. If you have ever gotten an email from a candidate talking about "FEC deadlines", this is what they are talking about. There is no real "deadline", though, just a reporting boundary. It's importance to the campaigns is more that if you can get enough people and money through the door just before the cutoff, you look better and can use it for the next round of fundraising and media tomfoolery.

One of the reports details the individual contributions, and I like looking at this data set because it counts actual people. Unfortunately, it is also skewed by the amount donated and the willingness of people below the reporting threshold to name themselves, but I think it gives a picture of the electorate that is not skewed by the known biases of polling. Both samples have their problems, but hopefully more data is better than less.

The big thing that stands out this month is just how much money the Clinton campaign is rolling in:

The total individual donations over the election cycle (both primaries and general) are now well over $300M and climbing. The average donation is now over $1000, which dwarfs the second place Gary Johnson(!) average of $563. Jill (and Bernie) hover around an average of $400 but Trump averages under $200 per donor. This gives the lie to the idea that the GOP is the party of money: the richest donors are supporting the Democratic party, with the Libertarians in second - and the GOP candidate is dead last.

Yet Trump has almost as many donors as Clinton, so the polls appear to match this data pretty well. All that money and she still struggles. Indeed, money can't buy love.

The third party picture shows continued significant growth, but not the needed exponential growth:

Stein's donor pool grew by 50% in August, which is not bad, but Johnson's donor pool grew by almost 140% in the same period.

Donor loyalty is still at 98%, but the third party switching is still evident among the remaining 2%. Johnson picks up mostly from the Republican field, and Stein picks up overwhelmingly from Sanders:

In fact, Clinton's support among former Sanders donors slipped a bit towards Stein:

Compared to last month, Stein has gained 2% and Clinton has lost 1% in this sample of over 4000 donors.

We have been talking a lot recently about the conditions needed to create a viable third party, and this data is somewhat encouraging on that front. The two national third party candidates are pulling in a fair fraction of the electorate using a donor base that is about 1% of that of the duopoly parties, so small amounts can get magnified early on. At the other end of the money spectrum we can also see that money isn't everything, and may distract from other important issues like candidate appeal and issues.

This "sweet spot" strikes me as being similar to the oft-cited statistic that annual income only improve significantly happiness up to about $75K. Past that, other concerns like meaningful work and social connections become more important. Striking this balance is important in politics as well as in life.