In December, hundreds of volunteers signed up for Hillary Clinton at the University of California, Berkeley – more than at any other campus in the nation – when the Ready for Hillary bus rolled through town nearly two years before America chooses its next president.
Now, as she gets ready to launch her campaign for the 2016 Democratic presidential nomination, Clinton will find that the campus, as well as college campuses throughout the country, is a source of more than just eager young volunteers to knock on doors and hang posters.
It’s a surprisingly large source of cash.
People affiliated with the University of California made the 11th largest bloc of contributions to Clinton’s three previous campaigns, according to an analysis for McClatchy by the Center for Responsive Politics, which tracks money in politics. They contributed $342,173 to her two campaigns for the Senate and her 2008 bid for the Democratic presidential nomination, the analysis found.
That followed right behind more familiar sources of campaign cash, such as big banks, big law firms and big media outfits. It was ahead of the other more familiar sources of campaign cash in California: Hollywood and Silicon Valley.
Overall, people affiliated with 33 colleges across the nation are among Clinton’s top 500 donors, contributing nearly $2.6 million to her three previous campaigns.
And in California and elsewhere, that’s likely to continue as Clinton gears up and Republicans such as Jeb Bush tap their own sources for campaign millions.
“I wanted to vote on the side of history,” said Sarah Fenstermaker, who as a sociology professor at UC Santa Barbara in 2008 wrote a $250 check for Clinton. “She is a perfect choice for the first woman president, and . . . if Hillary is elected, women candidates will thereafter be viable choices for the country.”
Clinton received tens of thousands of dollars from employees at many Ivy League schools, including Harvard and Yale, and major public universities in North Carolina, Washington state and Texas as well as schools in states where she’s lived, such as New York, which she represented in the Senate, and Arkansas, where her husband served as governor. Many are part of vast systems in large population areas, such as the University of California, which has 10 campuses, a student body of nearly 240,000 and 20,000 faculty members.
When employees of K-12 schools are added, education has been Clinton’s seventh most lucrative industry for donations, bringing in more than $6 million.
Most donations were small but added up to large amounts because of the sheer number of contributors. Only those who made donations large enough to be itemized – more than $200 – were included.
“It’s no surprise at all,” said Stephen Rosenbaum, a lecturer at Berkeley Law since 1988. “Academics are pretty much liberal, left of center.” Rosenbaum said he, too, was likely to back Clinton in 2016.
“It’s like the dog barking,” said Sal Russo, a veteran Republican consultant based in Sacramento who attended Berkeley. “Everyone knows academic communities are liberal.”
Satya Atluri, a mechanical and aerospace engineering professor at UC Irvine who’s supported Democrats and Republicans, said his colleagues had criticized him when they’d learned he voted for Republican presidential hopefuls John McCain in 2008 and Mitt Romney in 2012. “On a university campus it’s hard to be anything but liberal,” he said.
Atluri backed Clinton for the Democratic nomination in 2008, sending her campaign six checks, but he switched to the Republican nominee in the general election. He said he’d support Clinton in 2016.
“Having seen many women lead their countries, I thought this country deserved a woman president,” said Atluri, who moved to the United States from India in the 1960s.
The campus support likely will fuel complaints from conservatives that colleges are slanted to the left, including in the classroom.
Tara Gamboa-Eastman, 21, a junior studying political science who helped found Berkeley’s Ready for Hillary chapter last August, said she knew some professors who supported Clinton. But she said they were careful not to talk about their views. “I feel like the professors do a really good job of presenting both arguments,” she said.
Campus support for Clinton might set up a bold contrast if Clinton is the Democratic nominee and the Republican nominee is Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker. He recently garnered headlines for proposing a major cut in funding for the University of Wisconsin system over the next two years.
Employees of the system have given $32,971 to Clinton. People affiliated with the university contributed $72,591 to Walker from 2009 through Oct. 20, 2014, according to the Wisconsin Democracy Campaign, a nonprofit organization.
Bruce Cain, a political science professor at Stanford University who taught at Berkeley for more than two decades, said college towns tended to be more liberal even in states that voted for Republicans.
“If you look across the country, even at the so-called red states, there are splotches of blue,” he said. “There’s no question about it.”
Linda Neuhauser, a professor at Berkeley’s School of Public Health, said those who valued support for universities were more likely to vote for candidates who shared that approach. That’s one of the main reasons she wrote eights checks for Clinton in 2008 totaling $2,250.
Adam Bonica, a political science professor at Stanford University, analyzed millions of campaign contributions in federal elections and found that occupations might matter more in determining political ideology than perhaps even geography and economic status. Those who were more likely to align with Democrats were in the film industry, academia, printing and publishing.
Drew Lieberman, a Democratic political consultant based in California, said that since federal officeholders such as president or members of Congress didn’t have direct control over many university issues – including state funding – employees’ contributions must be about politics. “It does say more about ideology than influence,” he said.
None of this is new at Berkeley, which celebrates its historical role in the 1960s free speech movement.
“Ever since then I don’t think that spirit has died,” said Mariah Noah, 21, a Clinton supporter and Berkeley senior studying rhetoric and public policy. “There’s always been that spirit . . . of really getting out there and really getting involved.”
CORRECTION: An earlier version gave the wrong contribution total for Clinton’s college-affiliated campaign donors and the wrong name for the University of Southern California in the accompanying list.
Greg Gordon in Washington contributed to this article.