In a special report released today, the Center for Responsive Politics' Sarah Bryner and Doug Weber detail trends in contributions to women candidates, and from women donors. Some takeaways from the report, "Sex, Money and Politics": As candidates, female Democrats rely most heavily (and male Republicans, the least) on the support of female contributors. That's been the case since 1990. Of the top 100 contributors in 2012, 11 were women; that's down from the 21 who fell into that elite group of donors in 1990. As politics has become more polarized, so too have the patterns of donations from women. They donate more consistently to congressional Democrats. But women who have outside employment (as compared to homemakers) have moved to the left, while those who self-identify as homemakers have moved to the right. The increase in female House candidates and winners since 1990 is largely attributable to Democratic women. The number of Republican women House candidates and winners has stayed static -- it has even declined since a 2008 high. Even though women overall are more evenly represented in Congress than ever before, the "donor gap" between men and women is still real, and remarkably steady.
Sex, Money and Power: New Report on Women as Donors and Candidates - OpenSecrets Blog
