By Ovunc Kutlu and Gulbin Yildirim
NEW YORK (AA) – Hillary Clinton, the presidential front-runner from the Democratic Party, leads all other candidates in donations in the race, according to Federal Election Commission (FEC) data.
With less than six months left before the Nov. 8 elections, Clinton has so far received $256.5 million in donations, most of which has come from the financial world.
A total of $23.5 million of that sum has come from Wall Street institutions, according to the nonprofit, nonpartisan research group, Center for Responsive Politics.
The group also said that billionaire George Soros is a major Clinton donor. His asset management company has donated more than $7 million to the Priorities USA Action, a super PAC, or Political Action Committee, that supports the elections of certain Democratic Party candidates and, Clinton leads presidential candidate in support from the education, health, law and media sectors.
Super PACs are groups that are allowed to raise and spend unlimited funds in support or against candidates.
The other Democratic candidate left in the race, Bernie Sanders, trails Clinton in donations with $182.8 million, FEC figures show.
The 74-year-old senator from Vermont, who criticizes Clinton for being close to Wall Street and blames the financial sector as a source of rising income inequality, has collected the least amount of donations from the financial industry among candidates.
Most of Sanders’ donations have come from tech giants, such as Apple, IBM, Microsoft, and Google’s parent company Alphabet.
The only remaining Republican candidate, Donald Trump, lags behind Clinton and Sanders with just $51.1 million in donations.
When the real estate billionaire announced his candidacy for the White House last year, he said that he would self-finance his campaign and not accept donations from special interest groups.
While 75 percent of his campaign finances have been from his personal earnings, 25 percent has come from individual donations.
