by Ashley Sorensen
Hillary Clinton campaigning in Las Vegas this week. She's been a big hit with female donors. (Credit: Erik Kabik Photography/ MediaPunch/IPX)
The 2016 presidential election has been filled with historic moments for politically involved women, including donors. For years, women have contributed less money than men to federal candidates, parties and other political committees at the over-$200 giving level, but the gender giving gap appears to have improved for at least one major candidate in 2016.
Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton has received a record number of contributions from women and even Donald Trump is staying almost even with his immediate predecessors for the GOP nomination, Mitt Romney and John McCain, when it comes to female donors.
Clinton has received more in contributions from women - about $97.5 million so far - than any other candidate at this point in the election, and also has collected the largest percentage of donations ever from women for a presidential candidate.
Still, some things haven't changed much. Despite Clinton's great success with female donors, the top 100 list of largest donors in 2016 -- those who give large sums to super PACs and other committees that can accept large checks -- is still heavily dominated by men.
During the 1990 election cycle, women accounted for 21 of the top 100 individual donors. In 2012 - 22 years later -- that number fell to 11. It increased to 22 in 2014, but remains at 19 three-fourths of the way through the 2016 cycle. In fact, no women - zero - have made the top 10 individual donor list for the past two election cycles and women are still overwhelmingly underrepresented among the top 20 donors.
In fact, women account for just 14.4 percent of the nearly $401 million provided by the top 100 individual donors in 2016.
Even in 2014, when 22 females were present on the top 100 individuals chart, they still gave just 9.92 percent of the total amount contributed by the top 100 individuals. In the past five election cycles, women have given on average 13.2 percent of the money provided by the top 100 donors.
- Marlene Ricketts is the top woman donor so far in the 2016 cycle with nearly $7 million given to conservative groups or GOP candidates. She's given almost $10.5 million since 1990. Her husband, Joe, has also contributed to Republicans with donations ringing in at just over $1 million in this year's contests. Generally the primary earner in a couple donates more than his or her spouse, but that's not the case here. Joe is the founder of TD Ameritrade, one of the largest online brokerages in the world, and Marlene frequently states "homemaker" as her occupation when making contributions. Together the Ricketts are ranked 15 among all individual donors this cycle and gave heavily to the anti-Trump Our Principles PAC, though they have supported other conservative presidential candidates this cycle. Marlene currently lives in Nebraska, where her son, Pete Ricketts, is the governor.
- Laure Woods has so far given more than $6.2 million to Democrats and liberal committees this cycle, and about $8.2 million overall since 1990. She serves on the board of the liberal group EMILY's List, and is the founder of the Laurel Foundation. She has a scientific background and worked as a clinical researcher for the pharmaceutical companies Genelabs Technologies and Matrix Pharmaceutical. On the campaign finance front, she is known for heavily funding Progressive Women of Silicon Valley, an organization supporting Hillary Clinton.
- Cheryl Saban is an author and wife of Haim Saban. The Sabans rank 8 together among the overall top 100 donors. Cheryl alone has given $72.5 million since 1990. This cycle so far, she has donated almost $5.6 million and Haim, $6.7 million, often to the same candidates or groups. Haim is associated with the Saban Capital Group, known for founding the Saban Center for Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, and is CEO of Saban Entertainment. Cheryl sits on the Clinton Foundation board. The Sabans are somewhat controversial financial supporters of Clinton due to their stance on the U.S. relationship with Israel.
- Diane Hendricks, chairman of ABC Supply and founder of the Hendricks Holding Company, has donated $5.4 million to conservative federal candidates, parties and other groups so far this cycle. Diane founded ABC supply with her late husband, Ken, in 1982. She's been a steady donor, giving $72.7 million since 1990. The Wisconsin native gave $5 million in 2015 to Unintimidated PAC, supporting Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's presidential bid, but now she serves as vice chair of a joint fundraising committee for the Republican nominee, Trump Victory Committee.
- Jo Ann Wilks has so far donated $5 million this election cycle to conservatives. Her husband, Farris, also gave $5.1 million, and they rank 12 together on the overall top 100 donors chart. The Wilks have strongly supported Ted Cruz and other politicians linked to the religious right through their creation of the Thirteen Foundation. Her total donations come to a bit under $5.2 million and almost all of the money has gone to Reigniting the Promise, a super PAC created to elect to Ted Cruz. Jo Ann cites that she is affiliated with the Wilks Brothers on her FEC filings; her husband sold the fracking equipment company he owned with his brother for billions of dollars five years ago.
In contrast, the employers of all of the top 100 male megadonors for the past five cycles are not the same as those of their spouses. Furthermore, almost all female megadonors' spouses are also donors, but the reverse is true far less often.
Another difference: The deepest-pocketed female contributors lean farther left then their male counterparts. The top 100 female megadonors gave $8.1 million to Democrats and liberal committees and $16.3 million to conservative candidates and causes in the 2016 cycle. In contrast, men gave $11.6 million to liberals and $24.4 million to conservatives. While both genders have given more to conservatives this cycle, the gap in donations to the two sides of the aisle was more pronounced for men than for women. That's somewhat reflective of the fact that in the electorate generally, women are more likely than men to be Democrats.
This ideological trend has been visible for years. The top 100 men have given a larger share of their donations to conservatives than women have in four of the past five cycles. Moreover, never in that time frame did the top 100 male megadonors give more to Democrats than Republicans, whereas female megadonors did so 60 percent of the time.
The occupational biographies of women and men have not significantly changed over the past five cycles, indicating that women's professional choices are unrelated to their presence on the top 100 donor list.
In addition, when a larger percentage of money from the top 100 female or male donors goes to Democrats over Republicans, the number of women on the top 100 donor list is unaffected.
So why hasn't there been much of an uptick in the numbers of female megadonors since 1991? Possibly because one impact of Supreme Court cases such as McCutcheon v. FEC and Citizens United v. FEC has been to raise the cost of elections, allowing much larger donations into the system; that may make it more difficult for women to match male megadonors' high giving levels than at other points in history.
The Washington Post recently found that women make up 37 of the top 150 donors to super PACs in the 2016 cycle, which is an increase since 2012. But female megadonors still have a long way to go in order to decrease the gender giving gap.
Megadonors matter in 2016, but we have yet to see significant evidence of progress in cracking this particular glass ceiling and seeing the names of more women among the highest rollers in politics.