By Fernando Díaz
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In Chicago, Sen. Barack Obama received a vast majority of campaign contributions from the city’s predominantly white and mixed ZIP codes, shows a Chicago Reporter analysis of the latest Federal Elections Commission data.
Obama received $10.5 million from 38,201 individual itemized contributions that could be traced to Chicago ZIP codes. Contributions from 14 ZIP codes where white people made up more than two-thirds of the population, at $4.9 million, amounted to 46.6 percent of the donations, while 22 mixed ZIP codes donated $3.6 million, or 34.2 percent of the total.
By contrast, 14 black ZIP codes donated $1.8 million, or 17 percent of the total, while five Latino ZIP codes contributed nearly $273,000, or less than 3 percent.
Obama received contributions from white ZIP codes at a rate of $9.58 per resident. The figure is 4.1 times more than the rate of $2.31 per resident from ZIP codes whose population was more than two-thirds African American. The difference is even more stark when compared to the rate of 57 cents per resident generated from Latino ZIP codes. In mixed ZIP codes, contributions came in at a rate of $3.21 per resident.
More than 60 percent of $1.8 million in donations from black ZIP codes can be traced to 60615 and 60637—in Obama’s South Side Hyde Park community area—where more than $1.1 million was contributed.
The amount from these two black ZIP codes is less than the $1.78 million, $1.22 million and $1.18 million contributed, respectively, from the top three ZIP codes—the mostly white 60614 and 60611, and the racially mixed 60610. Contributions from these three ZIP codes, found in the Lincoln Park and Near North Side community areas, made up nearly 40 percent of Chicago donations to Obama.
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