Researchers from Rutgers’ Center for American Women and Politics (CAWP) and the Office of Advanced Research Computing (OARC) have teamed up to analyze patterns in gender and campaign finance across state and congressional elections to provide a window into who has a voice in politics. The Women, Money, & Politics Watch 2024 report, led by CAWP senior scholar Kira Sanbonmatsu, shines a spotlight on the under-representation of women as donors to political candidates and helps to fulfill CAWP’s mission to study and promote women’s political participation.
“One of the early findings in our research project shows that women are providing less in total contributions to congressional candidates compared to men,” said Sanbonmatsu. “When men out-give women in campaign contributions, this means that women’s voices are less likely to be heard in American politics.” With the help of OARC’s Amarel supercomputer, the research process has been more efficient and computationally faster than previous efforts. Sanbonmatsu has been working alongside CAWP research associate Shikshya Adhikari and OARC senior scientist Travis Williams on the project. To read the full story.