The authors revisit the gender gap in campaign finance and find an advantage for women candidates in earning donations from individual donors due to the activities of female donor networks and the changing congressional donor pool. Women supported by these networks, especially Democratic women, receive a boost in campaign fund-raising compared to their male counterparts, whereas women not supported by these networks receive significantly less. The ideological leanings of congressional donors also advantage Democratic women. Substantial partisan gender differences in this area of campaign finance persist, and this fund-raising gap may contribute to the growing partisan gender gap in Congress.
Alexander, Deborah, and Kristi Andersen .1993. Gender as a factor in the attribution of leadership traits. Political Research Quarterly46 (3): 527-45.
2.
Berg, Larry L., Larry L. Eastoland, and Sherry B. Jaffe .1981. Characteristics of large campaign contributors. Social Science Quarterly62:409-23.
3.
Bonneau, Chris W.2007. Campaign fund-raising in state supreme court elections . Social Science Quarterly88:68-85.
4.
Brady, Henry E., Kay Schlozman, and Sidney Verba.1999. Prospecting for participants: Rational expectations and the recruitment of political activists. American Political Science Review93:253-68.
5.
Brambor, Thomas, William Clark, and Matt Golder.2006. Understanding interaction models: Improving empirical analyses. Political Analysis14:63-82.
6.
Brown, Clifford W., Lynda W. Powell, and Clyde Wilcox.1995. Serious money: Fund-raising and contributing in presidential nomination campaigns. New York: Cambridge University Press.
7.
Burrell, Barbara.1985. Women’s and men’s campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives, 1972-1982: A finance gap?American Politics Quarterly13 (3): 251-72.
8.
---. 1994. A woman’s place is in the House. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.
9.
---. 2005. Campaign financing: Women’s experience in the modern era. In Women and elective office: Past, present, and future , ed. Sue Thomas and Clyde Wilcox, 26-40. New York: Oxford University Press.
10.
---. 2006a. Looking for gender in women’s campaigns for national office in 2004 and beyond: In what ways is gender still a factor?Politics and Gender2 (3): 354-62.
11.
---. 2006b. Political parties and women’s organizations: Resource bases for women candidates? In Gender and elections: Shaping the future of American politics, ed. Susan J. Carroll and Richard L. Fox.New York: Cambridge University Press.
12.
Bystrom, Dianne G., and Jerry L. Miller .1999. Gendered communication styles and strategies in campaign 1996: The videostyles of women and men candidates . In The electronic election: Perspectives on the 1996 campaign communication, ed. Lynda Lee Kaid and Dianne G. Bystrom.Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
13.
Center for American Women and Politics.2008 . Women’s PACs and donor networks: A contact list. http://www.cawp.rutgers.edu/education_training/resources_for_candidate_campaign/documents/pacs.pdf.
14.
Cho, Wendy K.2003. Contagion effects and ethnic contribution networks. American Journal of Political Science47:368-87.
15.
Conover, Pamela Johnston, and Stanley Feldman .1985. The role of inference in the perception of political candidates. In Political cognition , ed. Richard Lau and David Sears.Hillsdale, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum.
16.
Dabelko, Kirsten la Cour, and Paul S. Herrnson .1997. Women’s and men’s campaigns for the U.S. House of Representatives. Political Research Quarterly50 (1): 121-35.
17.
Deitz, Janna L.2007. Candidate characteristics and policy relevant signals in PAC decision making. Paper presented at the annual meeting of the Midwest Political Science Association Meeting, Chicago, April 12-15.
18.
Dolan, Kathleen.2004. The impact of candidate sex on evaluations of candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. Social Science Quarterly85:206-17.
19.
Elder, Laurel.2008. Whither Republican women: The growing partisan gap among women in Congress. Forum6 (1): article 13.
20.
Fiber, Pamela, and Richard Fox .2005. A tougher road for women? Assessing the role of gender in congressional elections. In Gender and American politics, 2d ed., ed. Sue Tolleson-Rinehart and Jyl Josephson, 64-81. Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe.
21.
Francia, Peter L.2001. Early fund-raising by nonincumbent female congressional candidates: The importance of women’s PACs. Women and Politics23 (1): 7-20.
22.
Francia, Peter L., John C. Green, Paul S. Herrnson, Lynda W. Powell, and Clyde Wilcox.2003. The financiers of congressional elections . New York: Columbia University Press.
23.
Gaddie, Ronald Keith, and Charles S. Bullock III.2000. Elections to open seats in the U.S. House: Where the action is. New York: Rowman and Littlefield.
24.
Gertzog, Irwin.2002. Women’s changing pathways to the U.S. House of Representatives: Widows, elites, and strategic politicians. In Women transforming Congress, ed. Cindy Simon Rosenthal.Norman: University of Oklahoma Press.
25.
Gimpel, James G., Frances E. Lee, and Shanna Pearson-Merkowitz .2008. The check is in the mail: Interdistrict funding flows in congressional elections. American Journal of Political Science52 (2): 373-94.
26.
Green, Joanne Connor.2003. The Times…are they a-changing? An examination of the impact of the value of campaign resources for women and men candidates for the US House of Representatives. Women and Politics25(4):1-29.
27.
Green, John C., Paul S. Herrnson, Lynda Powell, and Clyde Wilcox.1999. Women big donors mobilized in congressional elections. http://www.bsos.umd.edu/gvt/herrnson/women.html.
28.
Grenzke, Janet M.1989. Candidate attributes and PAC contributions. Western Political Quarterly42:245-64.
29.
Herrick, Rebekah.1996. Is there a gender gap in the value of campaign resources ? American Politics Research24(1):68-80.
30.
Herrnson, Paul.2004. Congressional elections: Campaigning at home and in Washington . 4th ed. Washington, DC: CQ Press.
31.
Hogan, Robert E.2007. The effects of candidate gender on campaign spending in state legislative elections. Social Science Quarterly88:1092-1105.
32.
Huddy, Leonie, and Nayda Terkildsen .1993. Gender stereotypes and the perception of male and female candidates. American Journal of Political Science37 (1): 119-47.
33.
Jacobson, Gary C.1980. Money in congressional elections. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.
34.
---. 1987. The marginals never vanished: Incumbency and competition in elections to the U.S. House of Representatives, 1952-82. American Journal of Political Science31 (1): 126-41.
35.
---. 2004. The politics of congressional elections. 6th ed. New York: Addison Wesley Longman.
36.
Jones, Ruth, and Warren Miller.1985. Financing campaigns: Macro level innovation and micro level response. Western Politics Quarterly38:187-210.
37.
Kahn, Kim Fridkin.1996. The political consequences of being a woman: How stereotypes influence the conduct and consequences of political campaigns. New York: Columbia University Press.
38.
King, David, and Richard E. Matland .2003. Sex and the Grand Old Party: An experimental investigation of the effect of candidate sex and support for a Republican candidate. American Politics Research31 (6): 595-612.
39.
Koch, Jeffrey.2000. Do citizens apply gender stereotypes to infer candidates’ ideological orientations? Journal of Politics62 (2): 414-29.
40.
Lawless, Jennifer L., and Richard L. Fox .2005. It takes a candidate: Why women don’t run for office. New York: Cambridge University Press.
41.
McDermott, Monika L.1997. Voting cues in low-information elections: Candidate gender as a social information variable in contemporary United States elections. American Journal of Political Science41 (1): 270-83.
42.
Nelson, Candice J.1994. Women’s PACs in the year of the woman. In The year of the woman: Myths and realities, ed. Elizabeth Adell Cook, Sue Thomas, and Clyde Wilcox.Boulder, CO : Westview.
43.
Rahn, Wendy.1993. The role of partisan stereotypes in information processing about political candidates. American Journal of Political Science37 (2): 472-96.
44.
Rosenthal, Cindy Simon, and Ronald M. Peters Jr.2008. Who is Nancy Pelosi?PS: Political Science & Politics41 (1): 57-62.
45.
Rosenwasser, Shirley M., and Jean Seale.1988. Attitudes toward a hypothetical male or female presidential candidate. Political Psychology9:591-98.
46.
Rozell, Mark J.1999. WISH List: Pro-choice women in the Republican Congress . In After the revolution: PACs, lobbies, and the Republican Congress, ed. Robert Biersack, Paul S. Herrnson, and Clyde Wilcox.Boston: Allyn & Bacon .
47.
Uhlaner, Carole Jean, and Kay Lehman Schlozman .1986. Candidate gender and congressional campaign receipts. Journal of Politics48:30-50.
48.
Verba, Sidney, Kay Lehman Schlozman, and Henry E. Brady .1995. Voice and equality. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
49.
Wilhite, Allen, and John Theilmann.1986. Women, blacks and PAC discrimination . Social Science Quarterly67: 283-98.
50.
Witt, Linda, Karen M. Paget, and Glenna Matthews .1994. Running as a woman: Gender and power in American politics. New York: Maxwell Macmillan.
Supplementary Material
Please find the following supplemental material available below.
For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.
For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.
