The current Democratic control of Congress and the White House is the product of millions of hours of hard work performed by hundreds of organizations who registered voters, got them to the polls and put out messages that persuaded a critical mass of Americans to reject Trumpism. It’s also the product of billions of dollars—the cost of the 2020 federal election cycle, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, will be somewhere north of $13.8 billion, nearly twice the cost of 2012, previously the most expensive election ever. Some of that money is tricky, if not impossible, to track, as it comes from 501(c)(4) nonprofits that don’t disclose their donors, and is often routed through PACs. But we know in general whose money fueled Democratic victories, and therefore, who Democrats will owe for the next two years.
Most donors don’t give money with the expectation of a quid pro quo from their politicians. Trade groups and other organizations may be seeking access to legislators or support for legislation, but individual givers are often moved by personal beliefs and some mixture of inspiration and outrage. Still, it’s useful to look at the sources of Democratic funds because they paint a portrait of the donor class and what their concerns might be; more importantly, looking at where the money comes from can show us how the donor class is different from voters more generally. Here are the top sources of Democratic money by industry, according to the latest Center for Responsive Politics data.
Education
Donations are broken down by the occupation of the donor. So while donors from the education sector gave $260 million to Democrats in the 2020 cycle, that does not represent this sector backing candidates and PACs; rather, it reflects a lot of people who work for universities giving money.
Educators donated more to Democrats than any other group, largely ignoring Republicans, with only $26 million of $290 million in donations going to conservative-leaning groups. And though higher education has been stereotyped as a liberal stronghold for decades, giving from this sector has exploded in the past cycle. In 2008, educators gave $59 million to Democrats; in 2016, they gave $77 million; in 2020, it shot up to $260 million. This giving is driven in part by the University of California, whose employees donated $20 million, nearly all of it to Democrats, which is a testament to the size of California’s UC system. Other big state systems like the University of Texas and the University of Washington were also major sources of funds, as were blue-chip universities like Harvard, Stanford, Yale and MIT.
These numbers attest to the liberal leanings of college instructors and other employees, as well as their increasing focus on electoral politics. As American politics continues to break down along educational lines, those trends will likely continue, and educators (including adjuncts, post-grads and grad students) will be a key part of the Democratic base for years to come. Their prominence in the party likely explains why progressives have been pushing in the past year for the wholesale cancellation of student debt, and why “free college” has become a left-wing rallying cry. Most voters are not crippled by student loans, but those in the education system are likely either to have mountains of debt, or know people who are buried under such mountains.
Lawyers
The legal profession has been a Democratic cash cow for decades, and though the industry gave a record $239 million to Democratic-aligned candidates and PACs in the 2020 cycle (compared to $51 million to Republicans), lawyers have given large amounts every cycle, including $193 million in 2008 and $152 million in 2016. This is just another indication that highly educated professional types tend to lean left—though lawyers are more likely than university employees to be directly involved in politics by getting judgeships, scoring appointments in government agencies or by running for office themselves. Many law firms are directly connected to politicians who are former employees or partners, and Big Law has been a major source of talent for the Biden transition team. And while educators often backed left-wing movement candidates—they gave a combined $27 million to Sens. Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren—lawyers leaned more heavily to President Joe Biden, giving only $6 million to Sanders and Warren. (Both groups gave far more to Biden than any other candidate.)
Legal trade groups, most prominently the American Association for Justice, an organization for plaintiffs’ attorneys, also have bread-and-butter reasons to back Democrats beyond a general tendency of lawyers to lean left. These groups have long opposed tort reform, a Republican-led effort to limit the liability of corporations and others likely to be the targets of lawsuits, because such reforms would limit firms’ ability to collect fees. For similar reasons, attorneys are part of a broad coalition opposing COVID-related liability protections that have been a big GOP priority for months.
Securities and investments
This industry has more of an even split in its giving, with $174 million going to Democrats in 2020 and $106 million going to Republicans. What this reveals, mostly, is that extremely rich people who have founded hedge funds and other financial companies give huge quantities of money to their chosen causes. The asset giant Blackstone’s $51 million in donations to candidates and PACs is largely right-leaning because its CEO, Stephen Schwarzman, is a major GOP donor. Similarly, almost the entirety of the $25 million the Paloma Fund gave to political causes in the last cycle went to Democrats because founder Donald Sussman has been a big Democratic donor since the Clinton years.
That the industry has a Democratic tint right now is likely a reflection of finance people not being 100% comfortable with Donald Trump, even though Biden is more likely than the former president to regulate their industry. In 2012, when former Bain Capital maven Mitt Romney was running against relative Wall Street enemy Barack Obama, the sector heavily backed the Republican, and securities and investment donors gave more to Republicans than Democrats as recently as 2016. That suggests that rich people could return to donating to the GOP provided it becomes a little less cartoonishly fascist.
Real estate
Realtors and developers poured so much money into the 2020 cycle that even though Republicans outraised Democrats from industry sources $150 million to $120 million, it was one of the top sources of Democratic money. There was real political ambivalence in the real estate community during this cycle, with some moguls backing Trump and some going with Biden. (Several developers have been heavy hitters in the Democratic donor community for years.) This reflects the fact that a Biden administration will probably be a mixed bag for real estate investors—the new president has pledged to eliminate some tax benefits for property owners (and tax the rich at a higher overall rate), but also wipe away the $10,000 cap on state and local tax (SALT) deductions, which would primarily benefit wealthy people who live in high-tax blue states. Giving to Biden could both be a way to signal support and hope that his administration keeps the industry in mind when considering changes to the tax code.
Medical professionals
Historically, doctors don’t favor one party over another in large numbers; donations were more or less evenly split between Democrats and Republicans until the 2018 cycle, when the industry suddenly got blue, donating $56 million to left-leaning groups and just $38 million to the right. In 2020, the tilt was even more pronounced, with Democrats out-raising Republicans among medical professionals $106 million to $62 million. What happened was Karla Jurvetson arrived on the donor scene.
The doctor and former wife of a Silicon Valley investor had always been a political person, but in the Trump era, she became heavily involved, giving millions to Democrats, particularly women candidates and groups that support them. In the 2020 cycle, she gave donations totaling over $25 million, single-handedly making the medical profession a source of Democratic dollars.
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Some of these industries reflect the changing sentiments of certain classes of professionals: Educators putting more money into elections, hedge funders growing weary of Trump. But mega-donors distort the data so much that sometimes what looks like a Democratic swing is really just a single person becoming politically active. That’s one nice thing about attracting increasing support among the highly educated: At least a few of those people are going to be extremely rich.
