Small Donors in US Politics: Myth and Reality
Abstract:
This book project aims to explain the place of small donors in US politics. In recent federal elections, small donors have become a major source of campaign funds. There has been, however, very little written about small donors because federal laws do not require disclosure of sums less than $200. We take advantage of several new data sources to address two central questions. Who are small donors? And who benefits from them? Contrary to conventional wisdom, our study demonstrates that small donors are not ordinary Americans with respect to their politics – they are as intensely partisan and ideologically extreme as large donors. Moreover, the beneficiaries of small donors tend to be extreme candidates, especially in the Republican Party. We also illustrate that members of Congress who rely on small donations are no better at legislating – and in some instances worse – than those who rely on PACs and wealthy donors.
Raymond J. La Raja is professor of political science at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst. He is co-founder and Co-Director of the UMass Poll. His research focuses on political parties, elections and political reform. He is co-author of Race, Class and Representation in Local Politics (Cambridge U. Press 2020) and Campaign Finance and Political Polarization: When Purists Prevail (U. Michigan Press 2015), which was the Winner of the Virginia Gray Best Book Award. La Raja is co-founding editor of The Forum, a journal of applied research in contemporary American politics. He is a contributor to several studies by the Brookings Institution in Washington DC. and has been a President of the Political Organizations and Parties section of the American Political Science Association.
