The North End / Waterfront is not just home to Mitt Romney’s national election headquarters, but recent data indicates that residents are also supporting the Republican presidential candidate with their wallets.
Using data through March 2012 from the Federal Elections Commission, Matt M. Casey at Charlestown Patch supplies the following analysis:
The former governor built a lead in the North End waterfront [zip code 02109], raising about $8,000 more than Obama’s $32,000. Nearby, Romney shellacked (to use the president’s term) Obama in the North End itself [zip code 02113]. Romney’s nearly $20,000 more than tripled Obama’s $6,500.
Besides 02113 and 02109, there is also part of the North End included in the 02110 zip code toward Downtown where Obama beats Romney $82,014 to $56,800. In Boston, Obama is ahead by about $500,000 in fund raising.
I know this wasn’t your reporting Matt, but the research is incomplete and misleading. The elephant (ha!) in the room is being overlooked. Mitt Romney employs about 700 people in our neighborhood. If you do a 10-second query of the FEC data just under the search term “Romney” in the employer field, you pull up over $10,000 in donations for area code 02113. If the reporter took the time to do a thorough search, he’d find even more Romney staff. This data is difficult to use for drawing any hard conclusions since it’s entered pretty inconsistently — donors can use multiple addresses for making donations, many don’t list an employer, etc. The fact that Romney’s employees are making contributions to his campaign should be a surprise to no one, but it doesn’t say anything about the political leanings of the North End/Waterfront.
I think it’s a fair point that the physical location of Romney headquarters in the North End could be having an impact on the local fundraising data (hence, the photo). Of course, staffers that are living here are still residents. And money contributions don’t necessarily equate to number of votes. The last voter registration data I saw showed the North End / Waterfront clearly Democratic, but less so than the rest of Boston. (45% registered Democrats, 13% Republican and 41% other (vs. 56%, 7%, 37% for Boston, respectively).
Have any of you actually walked by this building, I do every day and its a disgrace. Broken signs, exposed wired, half painted walls, over flowing dumpsters and don’t even get me started on the pier behind it.
How is this guy going to fix America when his national headquarters is falling apart. All those staffers don’t live in the north end, I see them walking from North Station everyday or parked in the lot with their BMV and Lexus SUVs.