The Donor Gap
Raising Women's
Political Voices
Data fueled in part by:
donorscandidatesopportunitiesacknowledgmentsdata appendix
donors
Women’s voices are underrepresented in American politics because they are underrepresented as donors.
Who is giving?

Total Contributions from Women Donors, 2019-2022

Proportion of Total Contributions from Women Donors in 2019-2022 General Elections (All Candidates)

Men give a disproportionate amount of all money contributed.
And more men than women give to candidates in state elections.
For example, women's total giving lagged men's in key 2022 abortion battlegrounds, reducing their political influence.

Total Contributions by State, 2022

Proportion of Total Contributions from Women in 2022 General Elections (All Statewide Executive and State Legislative Offices)

Gender inequalities in political voice extend across the country yet women exercise more voice in some states than others.
Who are women supporting?

Total Contributions by Candidate Party, 2019-2022

Proportion of Total Contributions from Women Donors to Democratic and Republican Candidates General Elections (All Candidates)

Note: While the text values on the chart are rounded for better readability, the data points themselves utilize exact values to ensure the accuracy of the displayed plot.
Women are more likely to give to Democrats than Republicans.
Women are especially likely to give to Democratic women.
Within both parties, women give disproportionately to women.
donorscandidatesopportunitiesacknowledgmentsdata appendix
candidates
Donors help women run and win. With more support more women candidates could run.
Women candidates are worth the investment. Formidable fundraisers, they raise similar amounts as men in similar races.

Primary and Top Fundraising Candidates, 2019-2022

Proportion of Primary and Top Fundraising Candidates who were Women (State House/Assembly mixed-gender, nonincumbent primaries)

REPUBLICAN PRIMARIES
Women
Men
DEMOCRATIC PRIMARIES
Women
Men
Women lead the money race at similar rates to men in mixed-gender state legislative primaries...
...and regardless of racial/ethnic background, women state legislative incumbents usually fare the same—if not better—than men in terms of whether they faced a monetarily competitive opponent.
2023 Governors
Republican Men
Republican Woman
66%
34%
Race/ethnicity, political party, and incumbency shape women’s fundraising opportunities — and lack of opportunities.
Democratic women greatly outnumber Republican women as candidates and officeholders at all levels of office. For example, Democratic women compose 66% of women state legislators and Republican women 34%.
Only 4 of 26 Republican governors are women...
...and less than one-fifth of other Republican statewide executive officeholders such as Attorney General, Secretary of State, and Treasurer are women.

Contributions $200 or less, 2019-2022

Average Proportion of Total Contributions $200 or Less in Woman v. Woman State Legislative General Elections (Open-seat elections)

Yet even Democratic women face fundraising challenges. In open-seat state legislative races, regardless of the gender of the opponent, they are usually more reliant on small contributions…
...and are usually less likely to fund their own campaigns.
Incumbents usually raise more than their opponents.
But men incumbents outnumber women at all levels of office.
Only 8 of the 28 governors running for reelection in 2022 were women.
7 of whom are white and 1 of whom is Latina.
In 2022 mixed-gender primaries without incumbents, white women running for governor fared better financially than women from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups...
...and women from historically underrepresented racial/ethnic groups were less likely to enter winnable races than white women.
Zero Black, Middle Eastern/North African, or Native American/Alaska Native/Native Hawaiian women have ever won the office of governor.
donorscandidatesopportunitiesacknowledgmentsdata appendix
opportunities
Women’s giving has risen, but more giving could help women achieve more opportunities for equal political power and influence.
Increasing women’s giving can expand resources for women candidates, creating a more representative government.
Voters can’t cast ballots for candidates who lack the resources to run. Here’s how to give...
acknowledgments
resources
data appendix
methodology
donorscandidatesopportunitiesacknowledgmentsdata appendix
acknowledgments

CAWP would like to thank Pivotal Ventures, an investment and incubation company founded by Melinda French Gates, for their support of this report.

This report is the result of the hard work of the CAWP and OpenSecrets teams. It would not have been possible without the invaluable assistance of CAWP Research Associate Shikshya Adhikari. Many thanks are also owed to the talented team at Graphicacy for data visualization design and engineering.

Resources
Center for American Women and PoliticsCAWP Women, Money, and Politics SeriesElection WatchCAWP Post-election Reports
donorscandidatesopportunitiesacknowledgmentsdata appendix
data appendix
Women are Underrepresented as Political Donors (2003-2022)

Total Contributions from Women Donors, 2019-2022

Proportion of Women Donors in 2019-2022 General Elections (All Candidates)

0%
25%
50%
75%
100%

Total Contributions by Candidate Type, 2019-2022

Proportion of Total Contributions from Women Donors by Candidate Type General Elections (Woman v. Man Contests)

Republican Men
Republican Women
Democratic Men
Democratic Women
Gubernatorial
Other Statewide
State Senate
State House/Assembly
Note: While the text values on the chart are rounded for better readability, the data points themselves utilize exact values to ensure the accuracy of the displayed plot.
Women Candidates are Formidable Fundraisers (2003-2022)

Primary and Top Fundraising Candidates, 2019-2022

Proportion of Primary and Top Fundraising Candidates who were Women (State House/Assembly mixed-gender, nonincumbent primaries)

Monetary Competition by Race/Ethnicity, 2019-2022

Proportion of Incumbent Candidates Facing a Monetarily Competitive Opponent State Legislative General Elections

Methodology

This report is made possible through a collaboration between the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) and OpenSecrets. OpenSecrets provided campaign donations data and initial data on candidates (gender verified by CAWP). Data on women candidates’ race/ethnicity is from CAWP. For state legislative primaries, in which CAWP did not maintain gender records for losing primary candidates, candidate gender was estimated with the “predictrace” R package and researched online. OpenSecrets data for the 2022 elections was current as of April 2023. CAWP data for 2023 women officeholders was current as of August 2023.

This report analyzes contributions from individual donors to major-party candidates in regular elections for statewide executive and state legislative offices. States with top-two (and top-four) primary systems are excluded. Primary election analyses exclude contests with incumbents. Analyses of other statewide elections exclude candidates for Lieutenant Governor. For analyses of gubernatorial and other statewide primary elections, contests that did not include a serious opponent who garnered at least 5% of the vote are excluded (vote totals are from Ballotpedia and the CQ Voting and Elections Collection (CQ Press, Washington, DC)). Donor gender is estimated with donor first names and comes from OpenSecrets’ database that includes estimates of donor gender based on Gender-API https://gender-api.com/ as well as our use of the Gender-API database. Donor gender calculations exclude self-financed contributions.

Analyses in the candidate section of the report, the woman v. man general election contest donor analysis, and the primary election donor analysis is limited to single-member district elections. In the state legislative analysis of incumbents, women candidates could appear in more than one category if they identify with more than one race/ethnic group. Subgroups with fewer than five candidates are not depicted. A “monetarily competitive” opponent raised 50% or more of what the incumbent raised.

For more details about the methodology, please visit the other reports in this series: https://cawp.rutgers.edu/research/cawp-women-money-and-politics-series

Abortion battleground states were identified by The Washington Post (Kitchener, Caroline, Kati Perry, and Kevin Schaul. 2022. “Here’s how abortion access fared in the midterm elections in nine states.” The Washington Post. November 7.) https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/interactive/2022/abortion-rights-election/

Suggested citation:

Sanbonmatsu, Kira. 2023. The Donor Gap: Raising Women’s Political Voices. A CAWP Women, Money, and Politics report. Center for American Women and Politics, Eagleton Institute of Politics, Rutgers University, New Brunswick, NJ.