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mphill.bsky.social
@mphill.bsky.social
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owasow.bsky.social
The wealthy dominate political donations. My co-authored research found the top 0.1% contribute at rates 10-15x higher than bottom 90%. They’re not just more likely to donate, they give exponentially more per capita. The wealth gradient in politics is real. cup.org/4cfm0Az
Figure 1 from the paper shows the Association between Percentile Wealth Bins (x-Axis) and: (a) Contribution Rate, (b) per Capita Contribution Amount. Figure 1 presents two plots. Panel (a) displays the percentage of donors in each wealth rank that contributed to each of the six campaigns (i.e., Democratic and Republican nominees in 2012, 2016, and 2020).Footnote 17 Panel (b) displays the per capita dollars from each wealth bin, by campaign (including those who donate nothing). As Figure 1 shows, the association between wealth and contributions is approximately exponential. The wealthiest are much more likely to contribute, and the wealth gradient is even steeper in dollars because the top 0.1% contribute very large sums. This is one of the most robust findings in the campaign finance literature, but the figure demonstrates it with considerably more precision. By measuring wealth independently of contribution size, we avoid misattributing smaller contributions to non-wealthy donors and underestimating wealthy dollars. Most relevant to our analysis, Figure 1 compares the wealth gradients for Trump versus other candidates. In 2016, compared to other candidates, Trump’s wealth gradient is far flatter, because Trump elicited far fewer wealthy contributors and per capita dollars. For example, among the top 0.1%, Trump’s donors and per capita dollars represent about one third of Romney’s. While Trump did worse than all other candidates among nearly all wealth groups, that deficit was larger among the wealthy. In short, in 2016, wealthy donations to Trump are low compared to other presidential candidates. In 2020, Trump’s performance among the wealthy improved considerably over 2016 (Figure 1). Consider donation rates (Panel a). Among the wealthiest 0.1%, for example, Trump roughly doubled his rate, though he still significantly lagged Biden and Romney. He did even better in per capita dollars (Panel b) than in rates. Open access link to paper: http://cup.org/4cfm0Az
February 12, 2026 at 4:17 AM
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owasow.bsky.social
“The number of billionaires grew, of course, roughly doubling between 2010 and 2024. But their political spending grew by more than 150 times.” www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/o...
Opinion | Affordability and the ‘Epstein Class’ Will Define American Politics
www.nytimes.com
February 12, 2026 at 2:52 AM