Women MIA As Donors To Political Campaigns (Except Hillary’s)

“You’ve heard of the Golden Rule, haven’t you?” says Jafar, disguised as an old prisoner, in Disney’s Aladdin. “Whoever has the gold makes the rules.”

We’ve discussed before how important the trading of money for influence can be in politics. Why then are women not taking advantage of the opportunity to throw gold at the issues they care about? Why don’t they donate to political candidates in an attempt to gain leverage the way men do?

An article in Mother Jones makes an ostensibly narrower point — Trumpettes are missing in action! — but also underlines that politicians in general, especially Republicans, have fewer female supporters.

though there are more women in the United States than men, women are greatly underrepresented in the donor class. In 2012, 44.1 percent of the $200-plus donors for President Barack Obama were women; a mere 28.3 percent of Mitt Romney’s contributors were women.

This year, several GOP candidates are doing better than Romney did on this front. Jeb Bush has raised more than 32 percent of his money from women. Of Ben Carson’s fundraising from $200-and-above donors, 38.8 percent came from women. (Carson raises a lot of money from under-$200 donors, and records are not kept for these contributors.) Other GOP candidates, including Ted Cruz, Marco Rubio, and the lone female candidate, Carly Fiorina, have each collected at least 31 percent of their $200-plus hauls from women. Rand Paul, whose overall fundraising has been anemic, has picked up merely 22.1 percent from female donors.

Trump, though, is the worst. Just 18.4 percent of his $200-plus donations have come from women.

To add to this flurry of numbers, 60% of the donors to Hillary Clinton’s campaign as of this summer were women. But the difference can’t purely be a gender loyalty thing, since more women have given to Ben Carson’s campaign, percentage-wise, than to Carly “Redefining Feminism To Be Less Whiny” Fiorina’s.

This is a missed opportunity, y’all. If women want politicians to care about us, we have it make it worth their while. Otherwise the Jafars of the world get to set, and dominate, the conversation.

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