Abstract
Increasing grassroots, small dollar donations has long been appealing to campaign finance reformers. Still, important questions remain. Are small donors becoming more common, especially in the Democratic Party? Are small donors really different from larger donors? And what do they tell us about the makeup and direction of the two parties? We use financial records and survey data to track small donors over time and examine their demographic and ideological characteristics. We find that, in recent cycles, the Democratic Party has attracted a growing share of money from small dollar donors, driven at least in part by technological advantages and the changing composition of their supporters. These
donors are more demographically representative of the American public but share similar levels of ideological extremism as large donors. Importantly, female and ideologically extreme
candidates are most likely to benefit from small donor funding, providing mixed evidence
regarding the efficacy of potential reforms.
