Feb. 25, 2020 By Allie Griffin
The world’s borough is not just diverse in its ethnic makeup — it has great diversity in politics as well, a new study shows.
Out of the 3,155 Queens residents who contributed money to a presidential candidate’s campaign last year, nearly a third — 31 percent — gave money to Bernie Sanders, and almost another third — 27.5 percent — donated to President Donald Trump’s campaign — two politicians on the farthest ends of the political spectrum.
Sanders received campaign money from 984 unique donors from Queens residents last year, while Trump followed closely behind with 867 unique donors, according to a RentHop study released last week.
Residents contributed to other candidates too — but not in the same quantity.
A large gap separates the next candidates in terms of the number of Queens residents writing out checks. Andrew Yang, who dropped out of the presidential race on Feb. 11, had 434 unique donors and Elizabeth Warren had 393, the study reports.
Next in Queens, Peter Buttigieg and Joe Biden had 232 and 155 unique donors, respectively.
New York City as a whole also was feeling the Bern’ — with 6,971 unique donors from the city contributing to his campaign in 2019. Sanders topped the list of candidates supported by the 26,465 New Yorkers who made campaign contributions last year.
Sanders garnered a lot of supporters in Northwest Queens too, especially in Long Island City and Astoria.
In Long Island City (the zip codes 11101 and 11109), 67 residents donated to Sanders’ campaign, 51 donated to Buttigieg’s, 44 donated to Warren’s, 40 donated to Yang’s, 19 donated to Trump’s and 14 donated to Biden’s, according to the study.
Sanders got $29,420– the most–in campaign funds from residents of zip code 11101; however President Trump raised the most money — $6,243 — from the small area covered by the zip code 11109.
In Astoria — among its four zip codes — 194 residents donated to Sanders’ campaign, 103 donated to Warren’s, 57 to Trump’s, 53 to Buttigieg’s, 34 to Yang’s and 12 to Biden’s, according to the study.
Ridgewood and Glendale–which share the 11385 zip code–had the greatest number of Bernie backers among singular Queens zip codes. According to the study, 112 residents contributed a total of $25,248 to Sanders’ campaign last year. The next politician with the highest number of unique donors was President Trump, with just 29. Warren and Yang tied for third, with 13 donors each; followed by Buttigieg with 7, Tulsi Gabbard with 4 and Biden with 3.
Sunnyside, Woodside and Jackson Heights were among other Queens neighborhoods where Sanders fared best.
In Sunnyside, 44 residents donated to Sanders’ campaign, 20 donated to Warren’s, 13 donated to Trump’s, 10 donated to Yang’s, 7 donated to Buttigieg’s, 4 donated to Amy Klobuchar’s and 3 donated to Biden’s, according to the study.
In Jackson Heights, 77 residents donated to Sanders’ campaign, 32 donated to Warren’s, 23 donated to Buttigieg’s, 23 donated to Trump’s, 14 to Yang’s and 7 to Biden’s, according to the study.
Meanwhile Northeast Queens leaned towards Trump and Yang in both the number of unique donors and amount of money raised for each.
Residents of Flushing, which has a large Asian American population, both wanted to “Keep America Great” and join the “Yang Gang” last year. The greatest number of residents from the 11354, 11355 and 11358 zip codes donated to President Trump’s campaign, followed closely by Yang’s. According to the study, 76 unique donors contributed to Trump and 70 to Yang.
President Trump was also popular among Forest Hills, Rego Park, Maspeth and Middle Village residents. In each neighborhood, however, Sanders had the second-most number of unique donors.
Forest Hills had one of the larger numbers of unique donors who contributed to the president’s campaign among Queens neighborhoods. According to the study, 65 residents funded his campaign with a total of $34,737. However, the area still had a higher number of unique donors to Democratic candidates than Republican ones — 58 unique donors contributed to Sanders, 42 to Yang, 37 to Warren, 21 to Biden, 21 to Buttigieg and 10 to Tulsi Gabbard.
The RentHop interactive map and timeline below break down campaign contributions to each candidate, according to New York City zip codes.