The math behind the 57 percent figure released by Cuomo’s campaign is dependent on contributions rather than contributors. | Drew Angerer/Getty Images Small donors are still a minor part of Cuomo fundraising

ALBANY — Under pressure from challengers painting him as a captive of moneyed interests, Gov. Andrew Cuomo's campaign has been touting recent growth in his typically-anemic small donor base, saying Monday night that 57 percent of his latest contributions were for $250 or less.

But a close look at his campaign finance filing, posted online late Tuesday morning, show that small donations still played a negligible role in Cuomo's overall fundraising efforts. All told, donations from individuals for $250 or less accounted for $63,700 — just 1.09 percent of the $5.85 million in contributions that Cuomo received.


Cynthia Nixon, for her part, has raised about 47 percent of her money in the forms of checks worth $250 or less. As was the case with an earlier filing released by her campaign, one posted on Tuesday morning shows that she relied heavily on donors who do not live in New York state.

Nixon has made Cuomo's lack of small donors a potent part of her insurgent bid to unseat the two-term governor. And Cuomo hosted an event last week where tickets could be bought for as little as $10. He's recently been asking people to donate $5 and enter a raffle to win Billy Joel tickets.

In the current filing period, the $63,700 Cuomo raised from small donors was dwarfed by $1.1 million that he took in from limited liability companies.

And the math behind the 57 percent figure released by Cuomo’s campaign is dependent on contributions rather than contributors — one person, a Long Island City resident named Christopher Kim, made 69 contributions and was thus counted 69 times. And even then, 57 percent is only accurate if one rounds up from 56.37 percent, rather than rounding down, as most math textbooks would recommend.

Still, the 1.09 percent amounts to a massive surge for the governor. In the comparable stretch of time four years ago, he raised only 0.12 percent of his money from people giving $250 or less.

His top donors included several familiar contributors: The Durst Organization gave $55,000, the Northeast Regional Council of Carpenters donated $70,500, and Cablevision gave $80,000. Grocer Daniel Wegman contributed $30,100, and both Joel and his wife gave $26,992, which came in the form of in-kind contributions for a recent fundraiser.