Working Paper: CEPR ID: DP17310
Authors: Laurent Bouton; Julia Cag; Edgard Dewitte; Vincent Pons
Abstract: We build a new dataset of all 340 million individual contributions reported to the U.S. Federal Election Commission 2005-2020 to study the characteristics and behavior of small campaign donors. The reporting requirements of fundraising platforms such as ActBlue enable us to observe contribution-level information on the vast majority of small donations, which have grown rapidly since 2005. Small donors differ from large donors in gender, ethnicity, and income, and they are more representative of the U.S. population. They act less strategically than large donors, respond more to candidates’ public prominence, and are more susceptible to TV and social media ads.
Keywords: campaign finance; campaign contributions; small donations; ActBlue; WinRed; TV advertising
JEL Codes: D72; M37; P16
Edges that are evidenced by causal inference methods are in orange, and the rest are in light blue.
| Cause | Effect |
|---|---|
| closeness of a race (J15) | contributions (D64) |
| geographical match between donor and candidate (F35) | contributions (D64) |
| alignment of gender and ethnicity (J15) | contributions (D64) |
| closeness of a race (J15) | contributions for small donors (D64) |
| campaign TV ads (M38) | contributions (D64) |
| campaign TV ads (M38) | contributions for small donors (D64) |