Document Type
Article
Abstract
Women politicians have traditionally faced greater challenges when running for office than their male counterparts. These include less encouragement from political gatekeepers, fundraising obstacles, and voter skepticism about their abilities—particularly among men. Nevertheless, women have made substantial advances in the electoral arena, including increasing their numbers in Congress. Some of these gains can be attributed to changing voter attitudes, the mobilization of female campaign contributors, and recent female politicians learning from the successes of their predecessors. Studies have documented the similarities and differences in how men and women candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives raise money, staff campaign organizations, and communicate with and mobilize voters. Nevertheless, there has been little research on one of the most important decisions these candidates make: how to spend campaign funds, and whether these decisions result in women and men spending their funds differently. In our previous research, which provided a detailed examination of campaign expenditures by U.S. House candidates from 2012-2020, we found that budgeting decisions varied only slightly between men and women candidates, and did not do so in a statistically significant way.
In this follow-up study, we update our dataset to include expenditures from candidates for the 2022 and 2024 House elections, as well as candidate characteristics and other contextual factors, to determine whether these budgeting decisions are consistent in elections that again resulted in large numbers of women representing districts in the U.S. House. We draw additional insights into the effects of gender, incumbency, partisanship, and district attributes from case studies of three hotly contested races featuring both men and women candidates. We find there is little evidence of a gender gap in campaign budgeting, and that most differences can be attributed to incumbency, population density, and the cost and efficiencies of local media markets.
Recommended Citation
Paul S. Herrnson, Charles Hunt, Jaclyn Kettler, Is There a Gender Gap in Campaign Spending Strategies?, 16 ConLawNOW, 135 (2025)