The Gender Gap in Political Donations

Despite out-voting men, women are much less likely to make campaign contributions. A recent analysis from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at Rutgers University found that men out-donated women 2 to 1 in all state legislative contests in 2020.

“Greater awareness of the problem is part of the solution,” said Kira Sanbonmatsu, a professor at Rutgers who co-authored the report using data from OpenSecrets. 

Sanbonmatsu attributed the lack of contributions from American women partly to the gender pay gap. Research has shown that women employed full-time earn 82 cents for every dollar paid to a man who works full time and year round. 

“What this shows us is that the gender gap in pay has political consequences,” said Sanbonmatsu. “Another part of the problem has to do with gender norms around money. We hear this from the candidate’s side.”

Simply put, parts of American society are still uneasy with a female candidate soliciting money for a campaign. “Women have to be asked to give as well,” Sanbonmatsu added. “Sometimes it’s just, when people are thinking about who can give, think about women as well.”

She noted that some groups have had success cultivating female “giving circles” that support candidates. Still, the candidate matters: Female donors are more likely to give to women seeking office, whether Democrat or Republican. 

“Thirty-three percent of money donated to Democratic men candidates for state senate and 39 percent of money donated to state representative candidates in woman v. man races was contributed by women donors. In contrast, about half of the money contributed to Democratic women state legislative candidates competing against Republican men came from women donors,” according to the report. 

Contributions from women constituted about 35 of Republican women’s receipts from individual donors in state legislative races against Democratic men. While overall on the Republican side, women provided only 22 percent of the total contributions to male GOP state senate candidates and 26 percent of the total contributions to Republican men state representative candidates in woman v. man races. 

In general, women were more likely to contribute to Democratic than Republican candidates, according to the report. But Sanbonmatsu noted that with more and more female candidates running on both sides, the gender donation imbalance could shift: “We could also set new records for women’s giving here if they are tapped to give.”