Via Inside Higher Ed, the Center for Responsive Politics has a new report on political contributions by academics
So far in the ’08 election cycle, people who work for institutions of higher education have given more than $7 million to federal candidates, parties and committees, according to the nonpartisan Center for Responsive Politics. Nearly 60 percent of that money has gone to presidential candidates. The industry’s favorite, Barack Obama, has raked in nearly $1.5 million in the campaign’s first six months, followed by Hillary Clinton with almost $940,000.
Seventy-six percent of the education industry’s total federal contributions for ’08 has gone to Democrats, on par with the industry’s partisanship in the last two election cycles. Perhaps more surprising than the industry’s party split is its sheer size: Education was the eighth-largest industry in terms of all federal campaign contributions in 2004 and the 13th largest in 2006, meaning that in the last two election cycles, college employees contributed more to politicians than the oil and gas industry, which ranked 16th in both cycles. For 2008, CRP ranks the education industry as No. 14, still ahead of big-givers such as oil and gas, general contractors, the computer and Internet industry, electric utilities and the pharmaceutical industry.
(I love the use of “industry” to describe academia, by the way. It implies a degree of cohesiveness and common purpose that suggests the author has never been to a faculty meeting…)
That partisan split sounds really impressive– those academics sure are a liberal bunch– but here’s another number to keep in mind: According to fundraising numbers from the CRP, Democrats have raised $178,351,385 so far, while Republicans have raised $118,084,242. $178 million out of a total of $296 million is 60%.
So, while it’s notable that 76% of academic contributions favor Democrats, bear in mind that 60% of everybody’s contributions favor the Democrats. Maybe us Ivory Tower types aren’t as out of tough with the mainstream as some people would have you think.
(Of course, the split in academic contributions was similar in the 2004 election, according to the CRP release, and there, they were on the short side of a 53-47 split. So it’s not that academics are more in tune with the public, it’s really that the general public are catching up to the correct views held by academics…)
Really, the only surprising thing about this is the relative magnitude of the academic contribution, though given the number of college faculty in the country, and the fact that professors as a group are probably more politically engaged than employees of many other industries, maybe it’s not such a big shock. The partisan divide doesn’t surprise me at all– if anything, I’m surprised it’s not bigger.
When one of the two major political parties regards the entire enterprise of academia with barely-disguised contempt, well, it’s not too surprising to find that academics overwhelmingly support the other party. We’re not the most socially gifted lot, but we’re not stupid…