OWG - Old White Guys

Donor demographics: old white guys edition, part I

by Andrew Mayersohn and Anya Gelernt

Money-in-politics is not a young person’s game. While 2016’s presidential hopefuls may try to recreate Barack Obama’s successful appeal to young voters, they’ll spend much of their time hitting up the country’s wealthiest senior citizens for cash. Already Republican candidates are vying for the support of the septuagenarian Koch brothers and the octogenarian Sheldon Adelson, while Hillary Clinton prepares to rally longtime financial backers who were already middle-aged during her husband’s presidency.

It’s not surprising, then that the Center for Responsive Politics’ list of top individual donors is rife with retirees. Of the top 500 donors to federal candidates and committees in 2014, CRP was able to identify or approximate the age of 491. Only 10 were born in 1975 or later, and none after 1985. Among these mega-donors the average age was 65.6, while the most common age was 70.

Democrats have had much more success than Republicans with young voters in the last decade, but their top contributors are not much greener than the GOP’s. While the cycle’s biggest donor — by far — was the relatively spry liberal Tom Steyer (celebrating his 58th birthday later this month), the average Democrat in the top 500 was 64.1 years old in 2014, against 66.7 for Republicans. This matters as both sides worry about how their demographic base will shape their chances in future elections; each side lost at least one major long-time patron, including Peter Lewis on the left and Bob Perry and Harold Simmons on the right, during the 2014 cycle. Of course, it takes immense wealth to make the top tier of political givers — the top 500 all gave over $228,000 in 2014, more than four times the average household’s income — and few of the country’s wealthiest citizens, as identified by Forbes’ 2014 list of billionaires, are young. The American billionaires averaged 65.9 years of age, just months more than the average for mega-donors, and 70 was again the most common age on the list.

There are relatively youthful American billionaires, of course, but the youngest of them mostly shied away from the political arena in 2014. None of the 10 youngest members of Forbes’ list cracked the top 500, although several gave substantial amounts by mortal standards, such as Mark Zuckerberg ($66,800) and Dropbox founder Drew Houston ($43,400). (Zuckerberg’s total would be far higher if it included contributions to his 501(c) group FWD.us, which does not have to disclose its donors.) The youngest billionaire in the top 500 donors was Sean Parker (born 1979), also of Facebook fame; the youngest overall member of the top 500, Alexander Soros (born 1985), is not a billionaire like his more famous father. In fact, there aren’t as many names on both lists as you might think: 84 billionaires, or about one-fifth of the Forbes list, managed to crack the top 500 donors. The fourth- and fifth-biggest donors of 2014, Robert and Diana Mercer and Fred Eychaner respectively, were “mere” multimillionaires.

In recent years, newer companies such as Google and Facebook have stepped up their political presence to compete with long-established giants, and Steyer appeared on the scene rather suddenly, and emphatically, in 2014. It’s entirely possible that in 2016, a generation of younger moguls will similarly make their presence felt alongside the Adelsons and Kochs of the world. Whether or not that happens, though, the elderly will continue to be the source of a disproportionate amount of money in politics as long as retired CEOs and aging investors are willing to open their wallets when candidates call.

Stay tuned for more on the demographics of 2014’s top donors.