2020 election: Women are mostly donating to women presidential candidates, with Marianne Williamson leading the pack
The next presidential election is less than a year away and pollsters are coming up with all kinds of facts and figures to assess the mood prevailing in the country. The question of gender is also a key one in this election, especially with women becoming a big part of the population that votes.
But despite their large numbers, are women playing as big a role in donating to presidential candidates? According to donor studies, that is not the case. Women generally account for a minority of donations and the run-up to the 2020 election is no different.
According to a recent study from the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP), a think tank that keeps a track on money in elections, male voters have so far accounted for around 57 percent of donations to the presidential candidates.
Women contribute 43 cents out of every dollar to candidates
“For every itemized dollar going to a presidential candidate, about 57 cents came from a man and 43 cents from a woman. Men have donated $173 million to the 2020 elections and women have donated $131 million, numbers that will continue to dramatically rise as caucuses, conventions and primaries draw near,” the report said.
This is despite a heartening fact that women are becoming politically engaged more than ever. More than a million women have donated to 2020 presidential candidates so far, many times more than the numbers in 2016. The election of Donald Trump, a figure accused of not treating women with respect, is considered one major factor why women are taking more interest in having a say in the next presidential election.
But the problem, as per the study, is that women are not a monolithic fund-raising or voting bloc, and there are some key differences in fund-raising patterns from women in different pockets nationally. Suburban women are, for example, a key demographic for 2020.
"One way we think about this is thinking about the activation of women — in what way do they channel their political enthusiasm or engagement?" Kelly Dittmar, assistant research professor at the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers University, said. “And it hasn't been money. That hasn't been a primary route for them to do so,” she added, according to the National Public Radio (NPR).
Not too many Democratic candidates in the fray have received donations from women this year and of the ones who are still getting, most are women. Of the five candidates who are getting around half or more of their donations from women, as per the CRP, four are women -- Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, Elizabeth Warren and Marianne Williamson, while Julian Castro is the only male.
Of them, Williamson, Castro, Harris and Warren have received more than half of their countable donations from women. These findings are based on the data available as of September 30 and include donations of $200 or over.
Williamson and Castro didn’t feature in the last Democratic debate that took place in Atlanta on November 20.
Campaign donations have seen less women historically
Historically, women have remained underrepresented in donations in presidential campaigns. As per the CRP, there have been only three instances since 1989 where presidential candidates from the major parties got more than half of their countable donations from women: Dennis Kucinich in 2004 and Hillary Clinton in 2008 and 2016. Those figures exclude data of ActBlue, an online Democratic fundraising service, and that makes comparisons with the 2020 candidates' data imperfect, NPR reported.
Although the women candidates are getting a good monetary support, as the study showed (Tulsi Gabbard is not among the fortunates as less than a quarter of her total fundings come from women). Williamson is at the top with 70 percent of her money coming from women donors.
Another striking finding is that even Trump’s donations received from women have gone up, even if smaller than the Democrats.
While 28 percent of Trump’s donations in 2016 campaign came from women, it has increased to 35 percent in the current bid despite the fact that he has only 35 percent approval rate with the women, compared to 48 percent of men.