Men Outgiving Women in Election 2024

The Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP), a unit of the Eagleton Institute of Politics at Rutgers University, today unveils early findings from our Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 project. This resource analyzes gender and campaign finance from both the recipient and donor perspectives, with additional examinations for race/ethnicity, party affiliation, and level of office. Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 will update throughout this year’s elections as data becomes available and is analyzed. This release comprises the first findings from this project.

Initial findings from the donor perspective, analyzing data from election 2024 donations made during calendar year 2023, include examinations of individual donations to congressional candidates in ten key focus states for the project: Arizona, Colorado, Florida, Georgia, Massachusetts, Michigan, New Mexico, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington. CAWP researchers find that:

• In eight of our ten focus states (AZ, FL, GA, MI, NM, OH, PA, WA), the total amount of men’s contributions exceeded women’s contributions; men usually provided about 60% of all money contributed to the state’s congressional candidates.
• In the two remaining states (CO, MA), women provided about half of the total money contributed.
• However, in all of our ten focus states, women comprised about half if not a majority of unique contributors to congressional candidates.
• Women are better represented as contributors to Democratic than Republican congressional candidates in all ten focus states.
• Within both parties, men are better represented than women as contributors who gave $1,000 or more to congressional candidates in all ten focus states.
• Women outnumber men as contributors who gave $200 or less to Democratic congressional candidates in all ten focus states.
• Women donors from historically marginalized racial/ethnic groups are especially underrepresented as donors to congressional candidates in our ten focus states.
  • In only one of our ten focus states (GA) did contributions from Black women donors constitute over 2% of all money contributed to a state’s congressional candidates. In the other nine focus states, Black women’s contributions comprised 1% or less of all money contributed to congressional candidates.
  • In three states (AZ, FL, and NM), Latina donors accounted for 2% to 3% of all money contributed to the state’s congressional candidates. In the remaining seven focus states, Latina women’s contributions comprised 1% or less of the money contributed to congressional candidates.
  • Asian American women’s contributions comprised 2% of all money contributed to congressional candidates in one state (MI). In the remaining nine focus states, their contributions comprised 1% or less of all money contributed to congressional candidates.
  • In all ten focus states, white women were better represented as contributors than other racial/ethnic groups of women.

Users can interact with the data visualizations for each state at the Donor Gaps: Demographics Analysis page. Images are downloadable and shareable. The donor demographic data are from Catalist and campaign finance data are from OpenSecrets.

Additionally, our Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 resource focusing on fundraising recipients has recently been updated to include campaign finance from OpenSecrets through the April 15th filing deadline for congressional candidates in our 10 key states. This resource is available at “The State View: A Deep Dive into Ten States.” The next phase in Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024, expected to be released in mid-May, will introduce fundraising data for state candidates in several of our 10 key states.

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 Ventures, 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.