Lawyers and law firms were overwhelmingly in favour of Hillary Clinton compared to President-Elect Donald Trump, at least in terms of letting their money do the talking.
According to data compiled by the Centre for Responsive Politics, lawyers and law firms donated US$36.42 million (about $47.48 million) to the Clinton campaign, far more than the US$942,400 (about $1.23 million) they donated to the Trump campaign.
The non-partisan non-profit organisation compiled the data from numbers released by the Federal Election Commission on 28 October which cover only the 2016 election cycle.
The data represent all political action committee contributions as well as contributions from individuals giving more than $200 based on their occupation and/or their employer.
According to the data, four other Republican presidential hopefuls got more money from lawyers or law firms than Trump.
US$4.36 (about $5.68 million) was contributed by the legal fraternity to Jeb Bush while Marco Rubio, Ted Cruz and John Kasich all got contributions of US$2.1 million, US$1.6 and US$979,684 (about $2.73 million, $2.08 million and $1.28 million) respectively.
Meanwhile, Democrat Bernie Sanders has a slim lead over Rubio in the tally with contributions from lawyers and law firms also totalling nearly US$2.2 million.
According to the
data, Clinton raised US$687.2 million (about $895.9 million) including from direct fundraising and contributions from outside groups. Trump raised $306.9 million (a hair above $400 million).
Taking the large picture into account, lawyers contributed roughly 5% of Clinton’s war chest, dwarfing the .3% they contributed of Trump’s funds.
Despite polling below Clinton in the days right before the US presidential election, Trump won the presidency with 279 electoral votes compared to Clinton’s 228. In terms of popular votes, 59.81 million Americans voted for Clinton while 59.61 million voted for Trump.
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