Skip to content
Search

Latest Stories

Top Stories

Women make fewer political donations and risk being ignored by elected officials

The Capitol on a background of U.S. currency
mj0007/iStock/Getty Images Plus
Sanbonmatsu is a professor of political science and senior scholar at Rutgers University's Center for American Women and Politics. Gothreau is a research associate at the CAWP, which is housed within the Eagleton Institute of Politics.

Candidates ignore female voters at their peril: Women have outvoted men since 1980. Census data shows that nearly 10 million more women than men cast ballots in the 2020 elections.

But when it comes to another form of political participation — giving money to candidates — it's men who take the lead. We found that men gave more money than women to candidates in statewide elections for executive offices such as attorney general and secretary of state, between 2001 and 2020.

We found that men contribute more financially overall in statewide races, creating a large gender gap in political voice. This disparity exists in primary and general elections, across both political parties, and is seen in the most recent election cycle from 2017 to 2021.

Political contributions do not guarantee victory or political influence. However, helping candidates win through campaign contributions is a way to influence their policies once they're in office. Indeed, some political science research finds that elected officials are more responsive to their donors than to other Americans.

So while candidates may court women's votes on the campaign trail, they may be less interested in women's priorities once elected.

Party differences

State officeholders attract less public attention than the president and members of Congress, but we studied these races because the work of these officeholders has profound effects on people's lives.

Secretaries of state, for example, administer state voting laws and elections, an increasingly high-profile and controversial role. State attorneys general make sure state laws are enforced. And they often work together to collectively challenge federal policies from Obamacare to immigration. A state's elections are consequential both inside and beyond its boundaries.

Our study, done in collaboration with OpenSecrets, a nonpartisan research organization that tracks money in politics, found that from 2001 to 2020, female donors gave just 23 percent of general election contributions in statewide races for offices such as attorney general and secretary of state. Men donated 77 percent.

These results echo our companion report on gubernatorial elections. Other scholars who estimate both the race and gender of donors find that women of color represent the smallest percentage of donors.

The gender gap is not symmetric across the two major political parties. Women are a larger percentage of contributors to Democrats than Republicans in statewide races for offices such as attorney general and secretary of state, as is the case in congressional and gubernatorial races.

In some of the primary contests we examined, women are at parity with men as a proportion of contributors to Democrats. But overall, women constitute fewer than half of donors and provide less than half of the money raised by Democratic statewide candidates.

Implications for female candidates

We find that winners usually raise more money than their opponents, confirming that money matters.

The underrepresentation of female donors may contribute to the underrepresentation of women among statewide elected officials. Because women disproportionately give to female statewide executive candidates, the low percentage of women among donors disproportionately harms female candidates: More female donors means more resources for female candidates.

Resources are especially scarce for candidates who are women of color. There is a dearth of women of color in statewide executive positions, despite the election of Vice President Kamala Harris and record-setting numbers of women of color serving in Congress and state legislatures. No Black woman or Native American woman has ever won the office of governor in any state. Our research finds that women of color are raising less than white female candidates and that they are much less likely to seek statewide office.

The current number of female governors — eight — is one less than the historic high, first achieved in 2004. Without any major-party women among gubernatorial nominees in the two states with elections in 2021, no women will be elected governor this year.

Both of our reports show that female statewide executive candidates are less likely to finance their own campaigns and that women raise more money from small contributions than men. These differences likely mean that fundraising is more difficult for statewide executive candidates who are women.

According to several female statewide candidates and political practitioners we interviewed, men are more likely than women to have personal relationships with wealthy donors and access to networks of contributors; and donors and other political gatekeepers may believe, falsely, that women — particularly women of color — won't be successful candidates, making fundraising harder for them.

Research shows that women have closed many long-standing political participation gaps such as volunteering in campaigns and contacting public officials. Gains in women's educational and labor force opportunities have expanded women's personal resources in terms of income and civic skills, facilitating women's political giving. And women's organizations and networks such as EMILY's List, View PAC and Higher Heights have mobilized women to donate on a regular basis. Recent elections, including those in 2018, saw an increase in female donors

With the persistence of inequalities in earnings due to gender and race, and challenges wrought by the COVID-19 pandemic, the future of women's giving is unclear. But as the 2022 election unfolds, observers can watch for whether women give – and not just whether women run.

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Click here to read the original article.

The Conversation

Read More

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

The B-2 "Spirit" Stealth Bomber flys over the 136th Rose Parade Presented By Honda on Jan. 1, 2025, in Pasadena, California. (Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Jerod Harris/Getty Images/TNS)

Is Bombing Iran Deja Vu All Over Again?

After a short and successful war with Iraq, President George H.W. Bush claimed in 1991 that “the ghosts of Vietnam have been laid to rest beneath the sands of the Arabian desert.” Bush was referring to what was commonly called the “Vietnam syndrome.” The idea was that the Vietnam War had so scarred the American psyche that we forever lost confidence in American power.

The elder President Bush was partially right. The first Iraq war was certainly popular. And his successor, President Clinton, used American power — in the former Yugoslavia and elsewhere — with the general approval of the media and the public.

Keep ReadingShow less
Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are
a close up of a typewriter with the word conspiracy on it

Conspiratorial Thinking Isn’t Growing–Its Consequences Are

The Comet Ping Pong Pizzagate shooting, the plot to kidnap Governor Gretchen Whitmer, and a man’s livestreamed beheading of his father last year were all fueled by conspiracy theories. But while the headlines suggest that conspiratorial thinking is on the rise, this is not the case. Research points to no increase in conspiratorial thinking. Still, to a more dangerous reality: the conspiracies taking hold and being amplified by political ideologues are increasingly correlated with violence against particular groups. Fortunately, promising new research points to actions we can take to reduce conspiratorial thinking in communities across the US.

Some journalists claim that this is “a golden age of conspiracy theories,” and the public agrees. As of 2022, 59% of Americans think that people are more likely to believe in conspiracy theories today than 25 years ago, and 73% of Americans think conspiracy theories are “out of control.” Most blame this perceived increase on the role of social media and the internet.

Keep ReadingShow less
Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job
woman wearing academic cap and dress selective focus photography
Photo by MD Duran on Unsplash

Why a College Degree No Longer Guarantees a Good Job

A college education used to be considered, along with homeownership, one of the key pillars of the American Dream. Is that still the case? Recent experiences of college graduates seeking employment raise questions about whether a university diploma remains the best pathway to pursuing happiness, as it once was.

Consider the case of recent grad Lohanny Santo, whose TikTok video went viral with over 3.6 million “likes” as she broke down in tears and vented her frustration over her inability to find even a minimum wage job. That was despite her dual degrees from Pace University and her ability to speak three languages. John York, a 24-year-old with a master’s degree in math from New York University, writes that “it feels like I am screaming into the void with each application I am filling out.”

Keep ReadingShow less