Small Campaign Donors

Laurent Bouton, Julia Cagé, Edgard Dewitte and Vincent Pons

No 30050, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: We assemble the first comprehensive dataset on small campaign donors in the U.S. from 2005 to 2020, leveraging the fact that small, previously unobservable contributions now largely flow through fundraising platforms required to report them. Although the number of small donors has surged, their aggregate contributions have not grown faster than large donors’. Small donors are more representative of the population but remain disproportionately white and affluent. They support similar candidates as large donors, do not target competitive races more, and are more reactive to salient events and political advertising. We conclude that they are unlikely to transform U.S. elections.

JEL-codes: D72 M37 P16 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2022-05
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cdm and nep-pol
Note: POL
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (4)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Small Campaign Donors (2022)
Working Paper: Small Campaign Donors (2021)
Working Paper: Small Campaign Donors (2021)
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