The ZIP Codes That Rule America – Tablet Magazine
The donors to American politicians in all 50 states are concentrated in a few ZIP codes. According to Open Secrets, of the ZIP codes that delivered the most campaign funding for the Democrats in 2020, not counting dark money or soft money for liberal groups, four of the top five were in New York City (10024, 10023, 10022, 10011), followed by Chevy Chase, Maryland (20815), a suburb of Washington, D.C. Other top Democratic ZIPs this year were Silicon Valley (94301 and 94022) and Cambridge, Massachusetts (02138). New York City was also overrepresented among donors to the Republican Party, whose donor base is more geographically diverse, with a lot of money coming from Dallas, Atlanta, Las Vegas, and Palm Beach, Florida.
A former Democratic senator from the Midwest told me a few years back why he got out of politics: I got tired of the fundraising. They [the Democratic National Committee] give you a list of these rich people in New York, San Francisco, and L.A. No matter what state you re from, you have to fly out there and grovel before them. They don t know anything about your state or its people. All they care about is their pet issues.