These findings from research by a Syracuse University professor and a Georgetown University professor, based on data about donations to primary and general election candidates for the U.S. House in 2010 and 2012, were reported in the Washington Post:
Right now, just 26 of the 104 women in Congress — 25 percent — are Republicans.
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Scholars have pointed to the fact that since the feminist movement the Democratic Party has come to be seen as the party of women’s rights. Women’s groups associated with the party — from NOW to Emily’s List — prioritize electing women. Other scholars point to the political pipeline, where more of the women in the jobs that lead to a run for office are Democrats. Democratic women in state legislative office, a common steppingstone to Congress, are also a better ideological fit for their party’s congressional delegation than are Republican women, who are more likely to be moderates.
But our recent research suggests another reason: money.
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In both parties, donors tend to prefer candidates who fit clearly with their party’s dominant ideology — liberals for Democrats and conservatives for Republicans. That’s one reason it’s hard for moderates in either party to get elected.
Beyond ideology, gender matters to Democratic donors. We find that female Democratic donors are particularly likely to give to Democratic women running for office. Male Democratic donors are more likely to give to male candidates. Since the vast majority of donors are men, this could make it challenging for Democratic women to raise money.
But Democratic women benefit from the fact that, as a group, female Democratic donors are especially committed to supporting women. One consequence is that female Democratic donors are willing to give to female candidates regardless of whether they are incumbents or challengers. Even at the presidential level, Hillary Clinton, the first female major-party nominee, was also the first presidential candidate to raise more of her individual donations from women. In 2016, 52 percent of Clinton’s individual donors were women, compared with 44 percent of Barack Obama’s individual donors in 2012.
Some may find this research dismaying, believing that it would be better for both male and female Democrats to not let gender affect who they donate to. But research shows that that gender-neutral approach to donating (which Republican donors employ) would just further reduce the number of women candidates, since most of the donors, especially those with more money, are men. To increase the number of women Democratic candidates, female Democratic donors should continue their tendency to donate at a much higher rate and in much greater amounts to female candidates, while male Democratic donors should stop favoring male candidates over female candidates. To increase the number of women Democratic candidates even further, male and female Democratic donors alike should donate more to female candidates more than to male candidates. But would that be a good strategy? Or would it lead to enabling some less electable female candidates to win primaries, only to have more trouble winning the general election than their more qualified male primary opponents would have had? Another strategy might be for male and female Democratic donors to disregard gender and focus purely on electability when choosing which candidates to donate to in Democratic primaries, but then to switch to overwhelmingly favoring female candidates in the general election. But this would require a level of rational calculation and strategizing that seems antithetical to the personal and emotional impulses that motivate donors of all genders.
This research may validate some of the claims made about the role that gender played in the Hillary vs. Bernie primary fight. But the question I’m more interested in is: How can we use this info to strategize about funding and electing more and better Democratic candidates at all levels in the future?
Update: I’m adding my own opinion about the ideal solutions, in response to J Sidekick’s question in the comments.
Of course, the best solution would be to greatly increase the proportion of elected offices with Democrats in them, implement major campaign finance reforms that publicly fund all campaigns and severely limit the amount that any individual or group can donate to a candidate so that the influence of all donors (and thus of their gender biases and other biases) is greatly reduced, while also having men and women reach parity in incomes and wealth, and then have male and female donors just make donation choices based on electability and ideology of the candidate rather than on the basis of gender. This would probably give us a government that close to half female, and also one in which the “best” candidates rise to the top regardless of their gender. But it would require our society to be a utopia that no society in the world has ever yet achieved. I think it’s achievable within a few centuries (if we survive till then), but we need a realistic solution for right now.
My ideal strategy for the elections that happen before we get to utopia would be for male and female Democratic donors to disregard gender and focus purely on electability when choosing which candidates to donate to in Democratic primaries, but then to switch to donating a larger proportion of their money to female candidates in the general election, as that would lead to us having more female candidates without reducing electability. But this would require a level of rational calculation and strategizing that seems antithetical to the personal and emotional impulses that motivate donors of all genders, so it doesn’t seem very feasible. My next favorite strategy would be for female Democratic donors to continue doing what they’ve done in the past (donate at a much higher rate and in much greater amounts to female candidates), while male Democratic donors change their approach and stop favoring male candidates over female candidates. But this would require male donors to prioritize electing more women, in contrast to male donors’ previous preferences, so it may also not be very feasible (though it would be more feasible than my ideal solution). The status quo may be OK as the best compromise between getting more female candidates, satisfying donors’ personal and emotional motivations, and making sure the most electable Democrat gets to the general election, but that means that women will continue to be greatly underrepresented in government, since most donors are male, and male donors can donate more money, since on average men have a lot more disposable income and wealth than women.