Most Cuomo Donations Are from Small Donors. (But Almost All of His Money Is from Large Ones.)

In releasing its latest financial disclosure, the Cuomo campaign boasted that his reelection bid is making inroads with small donors. In contrast with earlier cycles, a campaign statement said, 57 percent of the latest donations were for less than $250.

That's a large proportion — but not of Cuomo's bottom line.

The total value of those small contributions is $63,700, or about 1 percent of the $5.85 million Cuomo took in during the last six months.  

Most of his haul came from wealthy individuals, unions and limited liability corporations.

Cuomo for years has been calling on the legislature to "close the LLC loophole" and ban contributions from the often untraceable limited liability corporations — as most states and the federal government do. But in the latest round of fundraising, LLCs gave Cuomo $1.1 million.

And even among those who did make small contributions, the numbers were misleading. The Cuomo campaign was speaking of individual donations, not individual donors. One contributor, a Long Island resident named Christopher Kim, made 69 donations worth a total of $77, making him single-handedly responsible for about one-tenth of the small donations. Kim resides at the same address as Julia Yang, whose LinkedIn profile says she is Cuomo's "Creative Director."

“We appreciate his enthusiasm," campaign spokeswoman Abbey Collins said of Kim's donations. "Going forward, we’ll put measures in place to count contributions like this differently.”

Cuomo currently has $31 million on hand, close to 50 times more than his Democratic primary rival, Cynthia Nixon.

But his cash margin will soon be getting a little skinnier.

He's giving away $534,000 contributed to several donors who have been convicted of government corruption in recent months in federal court. 

“Two years ago [when these donors were first indicted], the campaign removed these donations and segregated them into a separate account," Collins said. "The money is currently in the process of being donated and will be dispersed in the coming days to groups who do important work on behalf of vital causes: immigrant legal defense, women's reproductive health rights, and Puerto Rico recovery efforts.” 

In the latest cycle, the Cuomo campaign spent about $5 million, mostly on staff, consultants and advertising.