If any
one religion is Western, it’s Mormonism – there are more members of
the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in the West than in
any other part of the nation. That helps explain why Massachusetts
Republican Mitt Romney, the only Mormon presidential candidate, has
raised more money in the West than any other candidate.
The West could be one of the bloodiest battlegrounds of the 2008
election, and the region has provided some surprises in the early
fund-raising game (View
detailed map of fundraising in the West 104kb
.pdf). Romney’s overwhelming success has
battered one-time front-runner John McCain, a Westerner. Even
Rudolf Giuliani, a New Yorker, is right on McCain’s heels in the
Western money race. Hillary Clinton leads all her rivals in
national fund raising, but Barack Obama leads the Democrats in the
West, thanks mostly to success in California, Colorado and
Washington.
New Mexico’s Democratic Governor Bill
Richardson raked in the dough in his home state and has done well
in the Southwest, but still trails far behind his rivals
nationally. Coloradan Tom Tancredo and Californian Duncan Hunter,
meanwhile, lag far behind in dollars raised, even in their home
states.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Pony up.
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