Wall Street Donations are the Highest for Marco Rubio, Review Finds

By Cheri Cheng - 22 Feb '16 13:50PM

Republican candidate Marco Rubio's campaign for presidency has received the highest amount of funds from Wall Street than any other candidate from either party, a new Reuters review found.

According to the review, money coming from supporters who work at banks and investment firms, which include Bank of America Corp, Deutsche Bank and Goldman Sachs Group, Inc., has totaled more than $4 million since Rubio, the senator from Florida, started his campaign last year. The analysis found that the average donation per person was more than $200.

The candidate who came in second was Florida Governor Jeb Bush with $2.45 million in Wall Street donations. Since Bush announced the end of his presidential campaign after only getting 7.8 percent of the votes in the South Carolina primary, future donations could be headed toward Rubio's campaign. Reuters reported that some Bush supporters said they were ready to back Rubio financially.

Democratic candidate Hillary Clinton was third with $723,361. Republican frontrunner Donald Trump, who is self-funding his run for presidency, did not make it in the top 10 of the list. Trump received $1,566 from bank employees with the majority of that money coming from merchandise sales as opposed to donations.

Although donations from Wall Street are not necessarily positive, especially since many people blame banks for the recession, having extra funds could be helpful in a tight race.

"The idea of raising cash from Wall Street is a tricky one," University of Iowa professor Tim Hagle explained. "Even on the Republican side, there's a certain mistrust among the base for that sector. [But] the advantages of having the additional funding at this critical time seem to be worth the extra criticism that might come his way as a result."

Rubio and Ted Cruz, the senator from Texas, are currently neck-in-neck for second. In the most recent South Carolina primary, Rubio barely edged out on top of Cruz with 22.5 percent. Cruz received 22.3 percent of the votes.