How a reclusive computer programmer became a GOP money powerhouse

Yeah. They are trying to be clickbait-y and ignore the substance that actually exists. [e.g. The influence of patron-style donations]

Wall Street is very different. IT is considered to be barely a step up from the people who clear out the garbage pails, even if you are a Java programmer that is making $175k a year (which is considered nothing). There are many signs of this. One is that in IT, a managing director might have hundreds of IT personnel working for him (on Wall Street, titles like partner, managing director etc. have some importance). In an important, major profit center division or group, it seems like every other person is a managing director.

Hedge funds like RenTec, DE Shaw, Two Sigma, PDT should not have to exist. Investment banks should have been able to spin out groups that do what they do and keep those tens of billions under management. The Wall Street culture and corporate politicsmis such that this can't happen, so these quant/ML hedge funds pop up and get tens of billions of dollars to manage. Which then pay their top quants hundreds of millions to billions of dollars. This can not happen in investment banks. Investment banks have seen these tens and, collectively hundreds, of billions go out the door, but they are big bureaucracies with office politics and inertia, they're taking steps to try to reclaim some of it, but the genie has already left the bottle to some extent.

"Across the country, Democratic House districts have an average per capita income of $27,893. That's about $1,000 higher than the average income in Republican districts. The difference is relatively small because Democrats also represent a lot of poor districts, putting the average in the middle."

That income level is not considered "rich". As for presidential races: "In the election, Romney carried only one income group: people making $100,000 or more, according to exit polls."

You may also want to look at the money Republicans have raised for the presidential race including super PACs. Republicans have a much larger war chest due to large contributions from many very rich people.