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Contents
The Public Mind

    Type to search. Planned chapters match by title only.

    Volume 3: The political map

    Part XIV

    The money map

    Campaign donors are concentrated in a few hundred college-heavy counties, and their pool sorted before the electorate did.

    2 written, 5 planned

    This part asks who gives to campaigns, where the money comes from, and whether donors look like voters. The ideology of the donor pool asks how the ideological distribution of donors and candidates changed between 1980 and 2024, and Counties where donors and voters diverge asks where the donor pool leans the opposite way from the vote. The planned chapters ask what share of Americans give and how concentrated the dollars are, how giving varies by county and occupation, whether county donor pools show the same education and income gradients as county votes, and whether extreme House candidates still lose vote share. How donors behave in the other party's territory is part of Chapter 15.4, Partisans in the other party's territory (planned), in the part on place and opinion.

    Chapters

    1. 14.1

      Who donates

      What share of Americans give to campaigns, and how concentrated are the dollars?

      PlannedIndividualsanesdime

    2. 14.2

      The geography of donations

      Where do campaign dollars come from, and do county donor pools show the same education and income gradients as county votes?

      PlannedPlacesdimecounty-demographicscounty-returns

    3. 14.3

      Occupation and donations

      How does donors' ideology vary by occupation?

      PlannedIndividualsdime

    4. 14.4

      The ideology of the donor pool

      Among reliable donors, the share near the middle of the CFscore left-right scale fell from 11.8% in 1980 to 1.2% in 2024, and donors who joined the pool account for most of the fall.

      DraftIndividualsdime

    5. 14.5

      Candidate extremity and vote share

      Do more extreme House candidates still lose vote share, and has that changed?

      PlannedOfficeholdersdime

    6. 14.6

      Stated and funded ideology

      How closely does a county's self-reported ideology match the ideology of its donors?

      PlannedPlacescesdime

    7. 14.7

      Counties where donors and voters diverge

      Across counties, donors lean left where the Democratic vote is higher (correlation −0.85, weighted by votes), and 74 of the 98 Democratic-voting counties with right-leaning donors are at least 30% Black.

      DraftPlacesdimecounty-returnscounty-demographics