More than three-quarters of the nearly $8.4-million that college administrators, faculty members, and other educators had donated to presidential candidates as of the end of January has gone to Democrats, according to the latest campaign-finance figures released by the Center for Responsive Politics.
Barack Obama still tops the list of presidential candidates receiving donations from the education “industry,” in which the center counts donations made by individuals who work at colleges and universities as well as some public schools. Mr. Obama received just over $2.8-million, according to the center, more than one-third of the total.
Mr. Obama, a Democratic senator from Illinois, has received 38 percent more in donations from academe than Hillary Rodham Clinton, a Democratic senator from New York, who ranked second on the list with just over $2-million.
Mitt Romney, a former governor of Massachusetts and the top Republican on the list, ranked third over all. He received close to $659,000 from college employees and other educators. John McCain, the Republican senator from Arizona who was leading Mr. Romney in national polls going into Super Tuesday voting today, received less than half of that. His donations from educators totaled close to $296,000.
Over all, Democrats received 75.3 percent of the total donations from individuals in academe, and Republicans received 24.7 percent, according to the center.
