Visualization: Republican Senators Rely on PAC-Money, Democrats on Small Contributions
Which Senators rely on PAC money? Which Senators are powered by small donations? The one chart that tells it all:
Two weeks ago, we analyzed the Gender divide in political giving to United States Senators. Today, let’s take a look at the perhaps most important revelation that one can find in fundraising data: The divide between small contributions and PAC money.
Recent elections have seen fundraising records for both Democrats and Republicans. The question is: are these records fueled by scores of donations from regular voters, or are they propelled by big interest groups, so-called Political Action Committees (PACs)?
The role of PACs in politics has been a target of frequent criticism. Interest groups, like AIPAC (American-Israel PAC), Beer brewers, realtors, or even AT&T, can donate limited amounts to political candidates. Many Senators, especially from the progressive side of the aisle, have promised not to accept any PAC money for their campaigns to showcase their independence from profit-driven interest groups.
While all U.S. senators need donations to win elections, there are stark differences as to where that money comes from. OpenSecrets collected fundraising data from 2019 to 2024 and differentiated between five fundraising sources: Small individual contributions (less than $200), large individual contributions (>$200), PAC contributions, self-financing, and “Other”.
For the sake of this article, I want to visualize what percentage 1) small individual contributions and 2) PAC contributions make up in each Senator’s total fundraising haul. Below you can find the data on 97 of 100 US Senators. The chart is interactive, so you can hover over the dots to reveal names & details.
The obvious revelation is that there are Republicans and Democrats on both sides of the chart, meaning that each party has Senators who rely heavily on PAC money and Senators who rely mostly on small contributions. Some Senators rely on large individual contributions, which didn’t fit into the chart.
There is an unsurprising divide between Democrats and Republicans. The highlighted dots “Average Democrat” and “Average Republican” reveal a significant difference. The average Democratic Senator received 12.1% of their funds from PACs and 25.5% from small contributions, while the average Republican received 21.4% from PACs and 17.8% from small contributions. On average, Republicans relied more on PACs for their campaign funds, and Democrats relied more on regular, individual donors.
Looking back at our scattered visualization, which shows Democrats and Republicans being present on both sides of the chart, we should ask ourselves: What other predictor is there for a Senator’s share of PAC and small contributions?
The most apparent predictor would be national profile. Almost all Senators at the top left of the chart (high % of small contributions) are national figures. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) ran for the Democratic presidential nomination before and are icons of the progressive movement. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Lindsey Graham (R-SC), and Tim Scott (R-SC) were more or less promising candidates for the Republican nomination once. Also to be found in the upper left sections are former Senate Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), as well as Adam Schiff (D-CA), who led Trump’s first impeachment trial. The rest of the group almost entirely consists of popular Democratic swing state senators like Jon Ossoff (D-GA), Mark Kelly (D-AZ), or Ruben Gallego (D-AZ). Having a national profile or being a swing state senator, who needs every buck to get across the line, arguably puts a candidate into the viewfinder of ordinary voters donating small sums.
This “national-profile” reasoning also works for the other side of the chart. The Senators with the highest share of PAC contributions have names that are unknown to most Americans. Even I have to admit that I had never heard of Mike Rounds (R-SD, 45.8% of funds from PACs) before. These Senators can’t rely on popularity, so they are largely financed by PACs. These PACs include Leadership PACs, which are Committees from other senators that support their colleagues.
Take your time with the visualisation above, look for your Senator and patterns that I have missed. An interesting observation to end this article on: Only three Senators have a small-contributions-share of over 40% while accepting virtually no PAC-money (<1%): Bernie Sanders (0.3% PAC-funded), Elizabeth Warren (0.3%), and Jon Ossoff (0.6%).