An up close look at 2006 campaigns shows a similar pattern. Clean Elections candidates Goldwater and Napolitano raised proportionately more $5 qualifying contributions from zip codes with the highest Hispanic population than did U.S. Senate candidates. Munsil collected proportionately more from these zip codes than U.S. Senate candidate Kyl, but less than Pederson.


Looking at the 2002 candidates up close shows a more startling pattern. Clean Elections candidate Alfredo Gutierrez, himself a Latino, raised 2.7 times more contributions, proportionately, from zip codes with high Hispanic population than any other candidate, Clean Elections or privately funded. Clean Elections candidates Janet Napolitano and Richard Mahoney raised more proportionately from these zip codes than did privately funded candidate Matt Salmon.

American Indians comprise a smaller percentage of Arizona’s population—less than five percent (4.55)—than Latinos.[11] However, unlike other racial and ethnic groups in the state, this population is highly concentrated in specific zip codes. Indeed, more than ten percent of Arizona’s zip codes have populations that are more than 90 percent American Indian.

Collectively, Clean Elections candidates were somewhat more likely to raise proportionately more of their contributions from zip codes with high percentages of American Indians as compared to privately funded candidates. The difference is more extreme in the zip codes with low levels of American Indians than it is in zip codes with high levels of American Indians. Here, privately funded candidates raised nearly three times more, proportionately, from the zip codes without many American Indians than did Clean Elections candidates.


We did not include analysis of contributions for African Americans because of the nature of their population patterns in Arizona, which is small and spread out. This makes an analysis by zip code uninformative. African Americans, or non-Hispanic blacks, made up less than three percent of the Arizona population in 2000. There are also very few zip codes with a population that is predominantly African American. Of all the zip codes in Arizona, about 62 percent have a percentage of African Americans of less than one percent, and 99 percent have a percentage less than 17 percent. The zip code with the highest percentage of African Americans is about 49 percent. There were no contributions from that zip code to any of the campaigns examined.