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Dear friend of OpenSecrets,
More than one million women have donated to 2020 presidential candidates to date, and following the surge of fundraising participation by women in the wake of President Donald Trump's election, suburbanites appear to be leading the charge. According to OpenSecrets' recently released report, suburban women, who hold significant power in electoral battleground states, will be a key demographic for next year’s election cycle. Here’s what we uncovered:
- For every itemized dollar going to a presidential candidate, 43 cents was given by a woman. Women have donated $131 million to the 2020 elections compared to donations totaling $173 million by men.
- Combining both large-dollar and small-dollar donations, Bernie Sanders has raised the most from women in suburban or suburban-like districts — $15 million — with the largest number of suburban women donors.
- Since Trump’s inauguration, more than 7,000 women in suburban districts have given large-dollar contributions to his campaign totaling more than $8 million, the highest of all candidates.
Historically, men have made the vast majority of campaign contributions to candidates, and have also been in the majority of candidates running for office. But, data shows this trend is turning and there has been a surge in political activity by women, both as donors and as candidates. Women are becoming more politically engaged, and at an earlier point than ever before.
CRP has studied donor demographic trends for decades, and before the 2018 midterm painstakingly set out to create the first candidate verified gender, race and campaign-finance database to expand our work on gender. Original reports like these are not easily produced. This year CRP will be adding new identifiers including veteran, immigrant, LGBTQ and religious status to provide the most robust candidate demographic data we can for our partners in the media and at nonprofit organizations working on the issues you care about — and of course, for CRP's own original reporting.
Through our participation in NewsMatch you can help us meet our goal of raising $10,000 during our Gender, Race and Money-in-Politics campaign since NewsMatch will double your contribution, dollar for dollar, up to $1,000, and match new monthly donations at their full-year value.
Your support will make a difference and help CRP continue the work ahead in this critical area.
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