Gender, Race, and Intersectionality in the Political Donations of America’s Corporate Elite

Women and racial minorities have made significant inroads into senior managerial and, especially, board of director positions over the past half-century. Despite this, there is little research on gender and racial differences in the political behavior of corporate elites. In this study, we investigate whether and how gender, race, and their intersection shape the political donation strategies of elite actors. Relying on a novel longitudinal corporate elites’ political donation database, we provide the first systematic elite-level analysis of political donations to U.S. Congressional campaigns during the 1980-2014 election cycles. Overall, we find that, compared to men, women elites are less likely to donate, but are more Democrat-leaning and give to more ideologically extreme candidates. We also find evidence of intersectionality between gender and race in political donations among corporate elites. While elites of color favor the Democratic Party overall, our results suggest minority men concentrate their donations on more centrist candidates relative to women. Notably, white men are the only reliably Republican constituency within this elite group. Our results portend potentially far-reaching consequences for the party system as the composition of the American corporate elite grows more racially and gender diverse.