The gender gap in Texas politics extends to campaign donations
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More than half of all state political campaign donors in Texas are women, but their contributions only account for one-fifth of total donations, per a new analysis.
Driving the news: While 51% of contributors in Texas were women, their money made up just 20% of state-level candidate donations in 2022, according to a new report on the gender "donor gap" from Rutgers' Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP).
- Women donors across the country made up 29% to 33% of the contributions to general election candidates at statewide and state legislative levels between 2019 and 2022, writes Axios' Emma Hurt.
Why it matters: While women are registered to vote at higher rates than men, they remain disproportionately absent from the halls of political power — and from the political donations that fuel those halls.
- Women lawmakers took 54 of the 181 seats at the Texas Capitol this year, 30% of the seats, according to the Texas Tribune.
- Among the nine House members representing Austin, however, seven are women, and all three state senators representing Austin are women.
What's happening: The underrepresentation of women candidates and donors are entwined, Kira Sanbonmatsu, a Rutgers political science professor and the report's lead researcher, told Axios.
- "We're not able to disentangle which comes first ... it's a mutually reinforcing relationship," she said.
- It also is inextricable from a persistent gender wealth gap, she said.
Of note: Female donors on both sides of the aisle disproportionately support women candidates, according to the report.
- However, the pattern is stronger among Democratic women. For example, women donors accounted for 49% of the money given to Democratic women statehouse candidates, compared to 36% of contributions to male candidates.
- For Republican women statehouse members, meanwhile, women donors accounted for 29% of total donations, compared to 21% of the money given to men.
Reality check: Among women candidates, another funding disparity exists along racial lines.
- In 2022 gubernatorial non-incumbent primaries, white women received more contributions than those from underrepresented racial and ethnic groups, the report points out.
- "The campaign finance space yields similar challenges for people of color regardless of gender," Sanbonmatsu told Axios.
What we're watching: There's a "need for some new strategies and new mobilization ideas" to rectify the gender gap, Sanbonmatsu said.
- That includes trying to activate new donors and untapped sources of candidate funding support.
- "Women are voting," she said. "They're interested in politics. They're engaged. They maybe haven't been recruited yet in this capacity."
Dig deeper: Political donations across the country