Hillary Clinton dominates Bay Area presidential campaign bankrolls

When Democratic front-runner Hillary Clinton arrives Wednesday in the Bay Area for her fifth fundraising jaunt here in six months, you couldn’t blame her for feeling like a geeky iPhone fan stepping into an Apple store.

The former U.S. secretary of state, New York senator and first lady has dominated the presidential election’s fundraising in the ultrablue Bay Area — pulling down 60 percent of the $9.63 million that the region has anted up through Sept. 30 — while a huge Republican field has diluted and split the GOP’s local money base.

Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson each topped GOP fundraising in two of the Bay Area’s six metropolitan statistical areas. Former Hewlett-Packard CEO Carly Fiorina came in third behind Bush and Rubio regionwide. And Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal received only pocket change despite the fact that the Bay Area has one of the nation’s largest Indian-American populations.

The $5.8 million raised by Clinton here is almost nine times as much as Bush, the region’s top-grossing Republican, according to Federal Election Commission data crunched by the Center for Responsive Politics.

Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders, the self-proclaimed socialist senator from Vermont, has raised $1.12 million here — more than each of the Republican candidates, but still only about a fifth of what Clinton raised.

The figures don’t include contributions to super PACs, which need not disclose their funding again until January.

Clinton is following in the footsteps of President Barack Obama, whom the Bay Area has always lavished with contributions, said Rick Hasen, an elections expert at the UC Irvine School of Law.

“It’s the same reason Willie Sutton robbed banks,” he said. “You go where the money is.”

With deep pockets, a huge population, a late primary and a Democratic registration edge that makes the general election a foregone conclusion, Hasen said, “California will function like the piggy bank it usually does in these races.”

Clinton’s money edge was stronger in some parts of the Bay Area than others. She outraised Sanders in the core metropolitan statistical areas of Oakland (which includes all of Alameda and Contra Costa counties), San Francisco (including all of San Mateo and Marin counties) and San Jose (including all of Santa Clara County). But Sanders raised more than she did in the peripheral metro areas of Santa Rosa, Vallejo-Fairfield-Napa and Santa Cruz-Watsonville.

Republican fundraising mirrored the fractured field. Bush was the top GOP fundraiser in San Francisco and Vallejo-Fairfield-Napa; Carson was on top in Oakland and Santa Cruz-Watsonville; and Rubio led in fundraising in San Jose and Santa Rosa.

Fiorina, a former Los Altos Hills resident, came in third in the Bay Area among the Republican candidates behind Bush and Rubio.

Political experts say Clinton has long-standing ties in the Bay Area and has been able to come here frequently without political risk because her lead over Sanders is substantial in national polls.

“It’s not like she has to spend her time exclusively in early primary states,” said Bill Whalen, a top aide to former Gov. Pete Wilson and now a Hoover Institution research fellow. “She can come out West and raise money. This is a luxury not all Republican candidates have.”

Dan Schnur, a longtime GOP strategist who directs the University of Southern California’s Unruh Institute of Politics, noted that Clinton “seems to be doing best in those communities where it’s much more expensive to live.”

“The core of Bernie Sanders’ campaign is a populist message about income inequality, so it’s not surprising that the people who live in less economically comfortable circumstances are going to be drawn to his message,” Schnur said. He added that inequality “concerns most Democratic primary voters, but if you live in Atherton or downtown San Francisco, it’s much more theoretical.”

On the Republican side, the fact that Bush, Rubio, Fiorina and Carson are splitting the Bay Area’s booty reflects what’s happening nationwide, Schnur said.

“There’s no natural front-runner here any more than elsewhere,” he said. “Republicans have been a very hierarchical party for many, many years, and they’ve never dealt with a fragmented field like this one before. It’s a new experience for them.”

With Vice President Joe Biden deciding not to run, even more of the Bay Area’s establishment Democrats will now rush to fill Clinton’s coffers, Whalen said. But local GOP donors are still seeking “the electable Republican. … There are options here that the Democrats don’t have, options of where to park your money.”

Whalen and Schnur both said San Francisco’s older, finance-and-professional GOP money base probably helped put Bush on top in that part of the Bay Area. He raised $454,000 there, about 70 percent of his total Bay Area take.

“An older-school Republican who already has given money to two presidential candidates named Bush probably started out more inclined to give to a third,” while Rubio’s age and attitude seem geared toward a younger generation of Republicans that might dovetail more neatly with the more heavily tech-oriented GOP money base in the San Jose area, Schnur said.

The Bay Area donated only about $1,250 to Jindal’s campaign.

When he declared candidacy in June, Jindal — the son of Indian immigrants — said he was “done with” describing Americans by their origin or ethnicity. “We are not Indian-Americans, African-Americans, Irish-Americans, rich Americans or poor Americans. We are all Americans.”

Many Indian-Americans, even Democrats, who had admired Jindal’s career path — the second one of their own elected to Congress, and the first elected governor — were left cold by that, said Yogi Chugh, a Democratic activist and former Fremont planning commissioner who co-hosts the “Voice of Indo-Americans, Jai Ho” weekly radio show on San Jose’s KLOK 1170 AM.

“They looked at Bobby as someone who had broken the mold, but he lost the ability to connect with those who believed in him,” Chugh said.

That’s not because Indian-Americans aren’t proud to be Americans but because like many newer immigrants, they value the diversity that is this nation’s hallmark.

“He came across initially as a man of substance,” Chugh said. “But now I think people have a hard time figuring out what Bobby stands for.”

Josh Richman covers politics. Follow him at Twitter.com/Josh_Richman. Read the Political Blotter at IBAbuzz.com/politics.