Campaign donation records show that Washington University employees financially support Barack Obama while the Board of Trustees back Mitt Romney.

University employees have donated more than $15,000 to presidential campaigns in the last year-almost half to the Obama campaign. Members of the Board of Trustees have contributed more than $54,000 with Romney receiving the most from among the Republican candidates and Hillary Clinton receiving the most of the Democratic candidates.

The donations from members of the University community are a part of $372,517,276 that has been donated nationwide and more than $2.7 million in the state of Missouri.

Campaign donation information is publicly available from the Federal Election Commission (FEC) and is regularly released online.

As a result of the FEC’s efforts to make campaign financial records more easily accessible, viewing how much money a specific person has contributed to the various presidential campaigns is no more difficult than checking e-mail.

Federal law provides that individuals can donate up to $2,300 per candidate per election cycle; additional money may be donated to the national committee for each political party-for example, the Democratic National Committee or the Republican National Committee.

Student Life made use of data made available directly from the FEC and aggregated data from the New York Times Web site.

The FEC data showed 22 faculty members making donations since the official start of the election cycle earlier this year. There were also 22 donors recorded amongst the 55 members of the board of trustees.

University employees have contributed nearly $8,000 to Obama’s campaign.

While this amount seems insignificant, due to strict campaign finance laws that limit individual donations, financial support for Obama is by far the strongest amongst the candidates. The biggest fundraiser after Obama is John McCain, who has received around $3,500.

“I believe Barack Obama has the character, intelligence, judgment and leadership skills to move this country in a positive direction again after the foreign and domestic disasters of the current administration, and to make our country once again respected throughout the world,” said Claude Bernard, a professor of physics who is among the largest contributors to the Obama campaign.

Nationally, Obama has the second highest level of fundraising, raising $79.4 million. He trails Clinton by almost $10 million.

In terms of campaign donations, however, Board of Trustees members are significantly less fond of Obama. According to the records, the Board has donated the least to Obama, $3,500, but has contributed almost $17,000 to Romney. Even so, trustees donate to Democrats and Republicans alike.

President and co-Vice President of the Board of Trustees were both among the contributors to the Mitt Romney campaign, however the declined to comment on their reasons for supporting the Massachusetts governor.

Nationally, Romney has raised the most of any Republican candidate, weighing in at $61.6 million.

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