New Map Series: Finances of County Parties in Oklahoma

As my faithful readers know well, I have a certain fascination with maps and random data. I have previously created a map series on Voter Registration, and every election season post county-by-county Election Results maps. My newest series will be an examination of county political party finances.

For the purposes of this series, I only used party committees who have filed with the Oklahoma Ethics Commission in 2013. You may search the list of non-candidate committees for yourself at this link. Some county parties have filed in the past, but have not submitted their quarterly reports in 2013, or have not filed in many years. Still more counties have not properly filed with the Ethics Commission at all.

First up, current cash-on-hand for both Oklahoma Republican and Oklahoma Democratic county parties. Ironically enough, only 17 counties for both Republicans and Democrats have what I'm calling "current" filings with the Ethics Commission (meaning they have filed either their March 31st quarterly, or the June 30th quarterly report).

Ten of these counties have both Republican and Democrat parties that are "current" (Canadian, Cleveland, Creek, Garvin, Kingfisher, Oklahoma, Osage, Payne, Pottawatamie, and Washington counties).

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All 17 county Republican parties post positive balances, with the top three slots belonging to Comanche County ($24,503.51), Stephens County ($14,852.71), and Muskogee County ($10,610.56). The total cash-on-hand among the 17 counties is $86,422.24, for an average of $5,084.

Conspicuously absent from the GOP list is Tulsa County, which has not filed a quarterly reports since 2007. I find this interesting, as the city of Tulsa is in the throes of a competitive mayoral race, and has had tough races within the county in the time since 2007.

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As with many other things, Oklahoma's Democrats trail the Republicans. Their top three come in at lower amounts: Cleveland County ($12,505.27), Payne County ($10,093.48), and Tulsa County (9,903.84). Total cash-on-hand for their active 17 counties is $53,540.16, an average of $3,150. Kingfisher County posts a negative balance of -$337.32.

Next time, we will dig further into the receipts, expenditures, and 2013 net growth.