The rise of money in U.S. politics has been widely discussed in the wake of two controversial decisions by the Supreme Court: Citizen’s United and McCutcheon v. FEC. However, the discussion has largely been framed along class lines — with the voices of the poor and middle class drowned out by the explosion of donations and political activity by wealthy elites. While this is true, there is also an important racial element to the rise of big money in politics. For example, a recent report by Demos found that the dominance of money in politics has slowed racial and economic progress (PDF) in the United States. Political donations are deeply racialized, with more than 90 percent of contributions above $200 made to presidential campaigns and super PACs in 2012 coming from majority-white neighborhoods. A recent analysis by the Brookings Institution found that all of the most politically active U.S. billionaires, with possible exception of eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, who is of Persian-American origin, are white. Similarly, the top 10 Republican and top 10 Democratic donors in 2012 appear to be white, according to Demos. There are scarcely any comprehensive data about the race of donors. A preliminary report on donors in New York City’s 2009 municipal elections conducted by Public Campaign found that the lowest-tier contributions came from more diverse neighborhoods than the top-tier donations. Contributors from predominantly African-American neighborhoods accounted for 30 percent of donations of $10 or less but only 5 percent of donations over $2,500, according to the report. For whites, the trend is reversed, with people from white neighborhoods accounting for 78 percent of donations over $2,500 and 38 percent of donations of $10 or less. The lowest-tier contributors were from neighborhoods where people of color make up 73 percent of the population, while those donating more than $2,500 lived in districts where people of color make up only 26 percent. Small donors lived in neighborhoods with a 17.14 percent poverty rate and a median income of $53,790, while the top donors came from communities with a 5.14 percent poverty rate and a median income of $111,170.



2009 New York City Elections,

Race and ethncity by donor level







Sources: Public Campaign 2009 New York City elections and Census demographic data.

Campaign contributions facilitate access, influence legislative agendas and, of course, help get those agendas passed. The widening gap in the level of donations means that people of color will not be represented as well as whites. In their seminal work on political equality in the United States, John Griffin and Brian Newman found that “whites get what they want more often than do Latinos or African-Americans.” This lack of representation is not simply due to class differences. “This is true even beyond the effects of income differences between the groups and even when minorities make up a substantial proportion of a constituency,” according to Griffin and Newman. In his book “Uneasy Alliances: Race and Party Competition in America” Paul Frymer found that Democrats ignore the preferences of African-American voters, a “captured minority,” in order to win over white voters. Since blacks have chosen not to defect to the Republican Party, they struggle for representation by the Democrats. “All too often the Democratic Party has taken the black vote for granted, and all too often the Republican Party has written it off,” Jack Kemp, then a Republican nominee for vice president, said during a campaign stop in Harlem in 1999. In a study comparing voter preferences on government spending levels to presidential budget proposals from 1974 to 2010, Griffin and Newman found that “presidential requests are much more responsive to the budget preferences of whites and the wealthy.” They found that the gap for African-Americans is smaller when a Democrat is in office than when a Republican is. This has important effects on legislation, as whites and people of color differ strongly on many issues, particularly those related to class. As the chart below shows, the differences on preferences about redistribution between whites and people of color (14 points) are stronger than the differences along class lines (10 points). A 2012 Washington Post/ABC News poll found that differences on whether the government should spend money on jobs versus reducing deficit are similarly strong along race lines (23 points) compared with class (11 points). On issues relating to race, recent polls show huge racial gaps on the perceptions of major American institutions.



Views on reducing the wealth gap



Do you think the federal government should or should not pursue politices that try to reduce the gap between wealthy and less-well-off Americans? Source: Post/ABC Poll: December monthly, 2013.