My community never ceases to amaze me.
Donald Trump won only 42% of the vote in Colorado in 2020, but here in my home town of Pagosa Springs, he won 57% of the vote.
Not quite as impressive as in Kiowa County, where Trump got 88% of the vote. But still respectable. Speaking for myself, I’ve never won 57% of any vote, ever. Not even in my own family.
So I was a bit surprised when I saw a map from The Washington Post, showing the financial contributions made to the Presidential candidates this year, illustrated by zip code.
Our town doesn’t change much, year after year. Yes, a few more retired folks move here annually, from Texas or California (mostly, Texas) but I expected our town to overwhelmingly send their money to Donald Trump. Not that he needs money, as rich as he is, but if Elon Musk can send him money, then I would argue that his supporters in Archuleta County should be doing the same.
But here’s how the map looked, zoomed in:
Is this the same Pagosa Springs community I know and love? Sending $80,000 of our hard-earned pay to the Kamala Harris campaign? When we could be sending money to Trump?
Okay, so maybe Kamala needs the money more than Trump does. After all, she had to work at McDonald’s in Oakland when she was a teenager (reportedly)… while Trump was driving around New York in a sports car.
And yes, it looks like the donations include money contributed to Joe Biden’s campaign, before he admitted to being too old to win another election. (I think Joe Biden also worked at McDonald’s. But then, so has Donald Trump.)
Still, this is embarrassing. There’s a reason why Pagosa voted so overwhelmingly for DJT in 2020. Because that’s who we are. Republicans who hate socialism and the Green New Deal. And abortions. And gun control. And immigrants. And wearing COVID masks. And inflation.
So many things we hate, I can’t count them all.
But The Washington Post shows us being bluer than Bayfield. Let that sink in. “Bluer than Bayfield”. (Could be a great song title.)
Of course, we’re not bluer than Durango. Hardly anyone is bluer than Durango.
That’s really embarrassing… a community of presumably intelligent people, just 60 miles away, that has such a distorted view of politics.
But that’s not the worst of it.
If you calculate how much the average contributor gave to “Biden/Harris” in Durango, it comes to about $183 per donor.
Over here in Zip Code 81147 — where a lot of people can’t even afford a run-down mobile home — the average donor contributed $190.
No wonder people here can’t afford a place to live; they’re giving all their money away to Democratic candidates.
And what do we get for all those political contributions?
Garage.
I’m seriously thinking that political candidates should be required to pay 10% of their fundraising profits to county landfill operations.
The Washington Post had another illustration comparing the political contributions, nationwide. They reported that Kamala has raised over $1 billion since she kicked her boss to the curb and climbed into the Democrat driver’s seat. Seems, from this graph, that she has been significantly out-raising DJT in spite of the way she laughs. More money, and also more contributors.
Looks like the high point of Trump’s fundraising took place right about the time he was getting convicted of 34 felonies.
We were feeling sorry for him, apparently.
Joe Biden’s peak fundraising took place right after his disastrous debate performance.
Because we were feeling sorry for him. With good reason.
Kamala’s hit her donation peak just as Joe dropped out and handed his losing campaign off to her.
Apparently, we felt sorry for her.
Which is crazy. How can you feel sorry for someone who has raised over $1 billion in campaign donations since July? From people she’s never even met.
I bet even Donald Trump has never raised $1 billion in three months. But he would probably tell us that he has.