A lot of Evanston residents are going to be mighty disappointed if Barack Obama isn’t our nation’s next president.
By a far larger margin than even the rest of his home state, Evanstonians have opened their wallets to the senator from Illinois.
Federal Election Commission campaign finance reports show that 79 percent of the money that Evanston residents have contributed to the top six presidential candidates this year has gone to Sen. Obama. Across Illinois he has raked in 62 percent. Nationwide he still leads the others but has just 26 percent of the total.
Sen. Obama is a little more popular south of Dempster Street than in the northern half of town. He’s drawn 83 percent of the money from zipcode 60202 and just 77 percent from 60201. Combined, the contributions here add up to $378,392.
Sen. Hillary Clinton of New York, who was born and raised in Illinois, is more popular on Evanston’s north side. She’s drawn 15 percent of the north-of-Dempster money and just 6 percent from 60202.
Evanston residents have for years been known for supporting Democrats in most political contests. Comparing the three top Democratic and Republican campaigns, so far this year the Democrats have gotten 92 percent of Evanston’s money, compared to 83 percent of the money from Illinois and 60 percent nationwide.
Sen. Obama has reported raising $5.05 per capita in Evanston, compared to just 20-cents per resident nationwide.
Of course only a minority of Evanstonians have put money on the line for any presidential candidate. The six campaigns have reported a total of 540 contributions here, with 448 of those to Sen. Obama. And that overstates the number of people contributing because some donors made multiple contributions.
If you want to know who among your neighbors supported which candidate, the Chicago Tribune has a well-done database that lets you dig into all the details. Or, you could plod through the Federal Election Commission web site.