Someone named Mark writes a blog called Verdant Labs. It is located here: http://verdantlabs.com/blog/
Mark has an interest in names, professions and politics,
among other things. Mark gathers
intriguingly obscure data and makes some awesome graphical data
presentation. He took data from the Federal Election Commission to study
the first names of political donors.
What Mark did next is brilliant – he calculated a measure a
partisanship for each name, based on the frequency with which people with that
name donated to a particular candidate or party.
So, for example, of the 67 people named Meredith who donated
to political campaigns, 55, or 82%, donated to Hillary Clinton. The remaining twelve people named Meredith
donated to other candidates. This gives
Meredith an 82% partisanship score for Hillary Clinton.
Mark excluded names for which there were fewer than 40
people with the same name (for statistical significance), then ranked the names
according to partisanship. First names
are easy to separate by gender; fewer than 2% of names are ambiguous. Certain names are also easily recognizable as
ethnic names: the most partisan name
supporting Hillary Clinton (or any candidate) is Mohammed, easily recognizable
as an Islamic man. Similarly, the names
Juan, Jose, Carlos and Luis appear in Hillary Clinton’s top 150 supporters, for
the obvious reason that candidate Clinton’s policies are expected to be more
sympathetic to immigrants than the Republican candidates’ policies.
The first striking thing is that Hillary Clinton’s
supporters are much more partisan than supporters of other candidates. Clinton’s supporters start in the range of 80%
partisan in her favor, whereas the best of the other candidates begin in the
range of 40% partisan, except for a few outliers. Clinton’s top 325 supporters have partisanship
scores higher than all but 4 supporters of all other candidates combined.
The gender gap appears here. Excluding ethnic men, all of Hillary
Clinton’s top 100 supporters are women.
By contrast, thirteen of Democrat Bernie Sander’s top 100 supporters are
women, despite Sanders’ advocacy of women’s issues. Among Republicans, fifteen of Donald Trump’s
supporters are women; seven of Ted Cruz’s top 100 supporters are women; and ten
of John Kasich’s supporters are women.
It is easier to visualize graphically. The following bar charts show the top 250
supporters for each candidate, ranked by partisanship, with gender and ethnic
origin indicated by color.
Hillary Clinton’s chart is a wall of feminine partisan
support. Although Clinton is less
favored by men, she does begin to pick up male supporters at the respectable
60% mark, and continuing with over 100 men’s names with over 40% partisanship
scores.
Democratic Party candidate Bernie Sanders predominantly shows men among his top supporters, but has fair support among women, also. Women generally support the Democratic Party over the Republican Party by a ratio of about 5 to 3.
Republican Party candidate Donald Trump shows fairly low levels of support, but has not yet started serious public fund-raising. Presumably, his future financial supporters will look a lot like the supporters of other Republican candidates.
Ted Cruz was the most serious challenger to Donald Trump in the contest for the Republican nomination. Cruz is popular among religious conservatives. Cruz's supporters show a strong male bias among his most partisan supporters, but at levels much less than Hillary Clinton's supporters.
John Kasich, the last remaining establishment candidate, also showed a strong male bias among his top supporters.
In past elections men donated to political campaigns at
twice the rate of women, donated more often to political organizations not
affiliated with a specific candidate, and gave more at higher levels. This makes the partisanship among Clinton’s
supporters even more notable.
To be fair, Donald Trump personally financed his campaign
through the primary elections, and has not yet begun serious public fund-raising. Thus, it is not surprising that Trump’s
chart shows such low levels of support.
Elections are generally won by the candidate who is most
successful at fund-raising. This is not
only because the funding provides for advertising and campaign work, but because
political donations are a good measure of the numbers and loyalty of a
candidate’s supporters. By this analysis,
Hillary Clinton is in a very strong position as we move past the primary season
and toward the general election.
References:
Unfortunately, I don’t know anything about Mark’s
methodology in gathering the data, except that it came from the Federal
Election Commission, and represents donations made since 1996. I don’t know what time frame is represented
by the data, or any constraints on interpretation.
Kelly Dittmar, Money in Politics with a Gender Lens: A collaboration between the National Council
for Research on Women, the Center for American Women and Politics at Rutgers
University’s Eagleton Institute of Politics, and the Center for Responsive
Politics, January 2014
Women are under-represented at all levels of political
donations, but especially at the higher levels. In 2012, men donated to political campaigns
at twice the rate of women, at reportable levels greater than $200. About 2/3 of a percent of adult men make
political donations at this level, compared to 1/3 of a percent of women. Men also give more at higher levels, and
give more to groups not affiliated with a specific candidate. That gender gap in the 2012 election was
narrower than in 2010, but larger than 2008.
I am puzzled by the reported total contributions by men and
women in this report. According to the
report, in 2012, men gave $2.9 billion in political donations, while women gave
$2.3 billion. If women donate at half
the rate of men, as reported, and give less, as reported, then the women’s
donations should be less than 50% of the men’s donations. I am unable to resolve this discrepancy.
Women lean Democratic Party 52% to 36%. Men are evenly divided 44% Dem – 43% Rep.
41% of women are Democrats, only 32% of men are
Democrats. 25% of women are
Republicans, while 28% of men are Republicans.
Women make up 53% of the population, and turn out to vote at
rates 10% higher than men.
41% of women identify as Democrats, some nine points higher
than the 32% of men who identify as Democrats. The 34% of men in this sample
who are independents can be contrasted with the smaller 26% of women who are
independents. There is little difference by gender in terms of identification
as Republicans -- 28% of men are Republicans, compared to 25% of women.
Surprising graphs showing party affiliation by age. Younger adults are much more likely to be
Republican than older voters, with the corresponding difference that older
voters are much more likely to be Independent.
Democrats show a more even distribution across the age spectrum, but
still show more partisanship among younger adults than older adults.
The share of political independents continues to grow, mostly
at the expense of Republicans.
Women “leaning” Democrat exceed those “leaning” Republican by
52 to 36 percent. Men are nearly equal
among those “leaning” Republican and those “leaning” Democrat, by 44 to 43
percent.
A fairly patronizing view of gender politics, implying that
women do not pay any attention to numbers or data, but only respond to a
narrative. (Nonetheless, authored by a
woman.)
