Where was Money Spent?

Map of Expenditures to the 2009 NJ Governor Election by Zip Code

The majority of expenditures were in New Jersey, unsurprisingly, but there were many expenditures out of state and not every part of the state got the same attention. The candidates would prefer to spend money on rallies, advertisements, and the like in areas that are likely to be contested, leaving some parts of the state receiving no spending at all. A candidate might also visit an event that someone else is officially hosting, which would not have been reported in this dataset since the candidates themselves spent little if any money in that area. The large out of state expenditures could be for campaign consultants, which would explain the large expenditures in the DC area where many campaign consultants are based, or to visit high contributing out of state donors, which would explain the large amounts of money spent in states like Alabama and Tennessee.

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A Wordle showing the which cities did the candidates spend the most money in.
A Wordle showing the which cities did the candidates spend the most money in. The larger the name the more money was spent there.

A Wordle of Cities Money was Spent In

While only New Jersey residents are eligible to vote for the Governor of New Jersey, the Wordle also shows that the candidates spent a significant amount of money outside of the State. While candidates did spend a significant amount of Money in Roseland, Newark, and Trenton, three New Jersey municipalities, it also shows them spending a large amount of money in New York, NY; Mountain View, CA; and Washington, DC. However, many of these locations are also places where one industry that a campaign needs to interact with are based. For example, many of the expenditures from Mountain View, CA are all computer equipment. Many of the expenditures from New York are various media and advertising companies. Since much of NJ is in the NY ad market it is only logical to go to a NY ad firm. This does not mean that the candidates never visited high value donors out of state. Those expensive trips that might have a low frequency of expenditures would not show up on the Wordle as strongly as a high frequency low value expenditure.

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