Even Including Small-Dollar Amounts, Men are Outgiving Women; Women Candidates Receive Smaller Average Donations

Men are outgiving women in 2024 political donations, according to new analysis from the Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University. As CAWP has previously reported, men are giving the majority of funds contributed to congressional candidates, but this new analysis brings in additional data from party-wide digital fundraising platforms ActBlue (for Democrats) and WinRed (for Republicans). In addition to gender disparities in campaign finance, there are also partisan disparities among women in political fundraising; women contribute a smaller share of funding to Republican candidates than Democratic candidates, and Republican women candidates for U.S. House raise money at significantly lower average dollar amounts than their Democratic counterparts.

CAWP Senior Scholar Kira Sanbonmatsu, the lead researcher of the Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 project, said: “Our analysis shows that within both parties, men’s total contributions to congressional candidates exceeds women’s. This means that women’s political voices aren’t being heard to the same extent in this election. The gender gap in donations has political consequences.”

This new analysis combines itemized donations to candidates through June 30, 2024 along with WinRed donation filings through June 30, 2024 and ActBlue donation filings through July 31, 2024. The WinRed and ActBlue additional filings include data on small contributions that were not included in the candidates’ itemized filings with the Federal Election Commission (FEC). All data are from OpenSecrets. Findings include:

• Women’s political giving to congressional candidates is more likely to take the form of smaller contributions compared with men’s political giving. But our analysis reveals that even when taking small-dollar donations into account, men’s political giving exceeds women’s in 2024 congressional races.
• Women have contributed 44% of all money contributed to Democratic congressional candidates; men have contributed 56% of all money contributed to Democratic congressional candidates.
• Women have contributed 30% of all money contributed to Republican congressional candidates; men have contributed 70% of all money contributed to Republican congressional candidates.
• Women are 59% of unique contributors giving $200 or less to Democratic congressional candidates and 42% of unique contributors giving $200 or less to Republican congressional candidates.
• Women are only 38% of unique contributors giving $1,000 or more to Democratic candidates; women are only 26% of unique contributors giving $1,000 or more to Republican congressional candidates.
• The average donation to Democratic congressional candidates by women is $46; the average donation to Democratic congressional candidates by men is $78. The average donation to Republican congressional candidates by women is $43; the average donation to Republican congressional candidates by men is $100.
• The average donation to women congressional candidates is usually lower than the average donation to men congressional candidates. However, the average donation given to Democratic women running for the U.S. Senate is slightly higher than the average given to Democratic men running for the U.S. Senate.
• The average donation for U.S. House candidates is:
  • $88 average to Democratic men candidates
  • $70 average to Democratic women candidates
  • $77 average to Republican men candidates
  • $50 average to Republican women candidates
• The average donation for U.S. Senate candidates is:
  • $44 average to Democratic men candidates
  • $52 average to Democratic women candidates
  • $83 average to Republican men candidates
  • $57 average to Republican women candidates

This analysis is based on contributions to major party candidates still running as of July 15, 2024. Candidate gender is from CAWP. Donor gender is estimated using the Catalist voter file. The Catalist models for estimating voter demographics are proprietary. They are based on information from the voter file, the U.S. Census, and other sources; 93% of all contributions were matched with the Catalist voter file. We are publishing this supplemental analysis as a standalone analysis from CAWP’s 2024 Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 website because comparable data are not available for state candidates.

Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 is part of the CAWP Women, Money, and Politics series, undertaken in collaboration with OpenSecrets; previous reports in the series can be found here. This research is made possible thanks to the generosity and commitment of Pivotal, a Melinda French Gates company. Follow Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 as it develops at the project landing page and find all CAWP data about women in election 2024 at Election Watch.

Data visualizations for itemized donations only (without the supplemental WinRed/ActBlue data) are available here.