Can’t Buy Them Love: How Party Culture among Donors Contributes to the Party Gap in Women’s Representation

Why do Democratic women seek and hold office more frequently than Republican women? We use an original survey of donors to party campaign committees and women’s political action committees to answer this question. We theorize that the intense policy demanders in each party have built party cultures with substantively different orientations toward women’s political involvement. These cultures shape party elites’ behavior and influence responsiveness to a newly defined policy-demander group—women’s representation policy demanders (WRPDs)—whose primary goal is to increase women’s political representation. We reveal that Democratic elites’ political activity and financial contributions are significantly more motivated by WRPD concerns than are Republicans. We also show that WRPDs like EMILY’s List and Susan B. Anthony List are far more integrated into Democratic than Republican party coalitions. Thus, we reveal both the continued existence of distinct party cultures and the consequences of this distinction for women’s representation.