Are Resources the Answer? How gender, race/ethnicity, and financial resources shape political giving.

Kira Sanbonmatsu
Final Analysis: Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 graphic

We recently published our Final Analysis: Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 report, concluding CAWP’s research on fundraising and donating for the 2024 election cycle. One of the key findings from CAWP’s 2024 Women, Money, & Politics Watch project is that women from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups are especially underrepresented as campaign contributors to congressional elections. 

We found that Black women constituted 1% of all money contributed to 2024 congressional candidates. Likewise, Asian American women’s contributions only constituted 1% of all money contributed; and Latinas contributed just 1% of all money contributed. Our analysis was based on donations made during calendar year 2024 to all major party congressional candidates in the running as of July 15, 2024 using data from OpenSecrets and Catalist. 

These donation disparities are related to the underrepresentation of Black women, Latinas, and Asian American women in elective office, since we find gender and race/ethnic affinity effects in giving patterns to candidates. 

One might assume that women of color are underrepresented as donors because of income and wealth inequalities. But in a new analysis about the giving patterns of Asian American women and Latinas, I find that financial resources provide only a partial explanation.  

I analyzed how financial resources affect political giving for Asian American women and Latinas. These two panethnic groups are fast-growing populations who are more likely to be foreign-born than other racial/ethnic groups. Data for my study came from the landmark 2020 Collaborative Multiracial Politics Survey (CMPS). 

In a multivariate statistical analysis, I found that factors such as income and homeownership play a limited role in explaining the political contributions of Asian American women and Latinas. In fact, only income mattered to political giving, and for Latinas only.

In contrast, for both Asian American women and Latinas, I found that charitable giving was more likely to be a function of economic factors, including income, than political giving. And, notably, both groups of women were more likely to report giving to charities than to politics. Among Asian American women, 12% gave to candidates or campaigns in my analysis of the 2020 CMPS data compared with 39% who gave to charities; for Latinas, 12% gave politically and 29% charitably. 

Combined with CAWP’s research on donor demographics, I offer several implications for political practitioners including activists and candidates. 

First, more women from historically underrepresented groups can give–even with current economic inequalities. Asian American women and Latinas who are motivated to give to charities could be encouraged to give to political candidates that align with their values. 

Second, and particularly for Latinas compared with Asian American women, resource limitations are real. Improving economic opportunities for women—and particularly women with lower assets and incomes—could make it easier to wield political voice via campaign contributions. 

Third, candidates and fundraisers may be foregoing dollars if they aren’t seeking donations from Asian American women and Latinas. Women’s charitable giving rates indicate that more political giving is possible. 

Donor gaps are partially a challenge of social norms, as I argued in a recent study. Because campaign donations are a form of political voice, political giving is a valuable component of democracy. 

Kira Sanbonmatsu

Kira Sanbonmatsu

Kira Sanbonmatsu is Professor of Political Science at Rutgers University and Senior Scholar at the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) at the Eagleton Institute of Politics. Her research interests include gender, race/ethnicity, parties, public opinion, state politics, and money and politics. She leads CAWP’s Women, Money, and Politics project. Her most recent book, coauthored with Kelly Dittmar and Susan J. Carroll, is A Seat at the Table: Congresswomen's Perspectives on Why Their Presence Matters (Oxford University Press, 2018). She is also the coauthor (with Susan J. Carroll) of More Women Can Run: Gender and Pathways to the State Legislatures (Oxford University Press, 2013). Sanbonmatsu coauthored the CAWP reports Representation Matters: Women in the U.S. Congress (2017) and Poised to Run: Women's Pathways to the State Legislatures (2009). She is the author of Where Women Run: Gender and Party in the American States (University of Michigan Press, 2006) and Democrats, Republicans, and the Politics of Women's Place (University of Michigan Press, 2002). Her articles have appeared in such journals as Political Research Quarterly and Politics, Groups, and Identities. She co-edits the CAWP Series in Gender and American Politics at the University of Michigan Press with Susan J. Carroll. Sanbonmatsu received her B.A. from the University of Massachusetts-Amherst and her Ph.D. from Harvard University.

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