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There is a buzz in the air among those who follow politics about the increasing importance of small donors in elections. It’s true that in some races in some places, small donors are contributing at greater levels than they have previously. This can only help engage more people in politics. However, the larger story is that the great bulk of campaign contributions still come from big donors.

In sharp contrast, under Arizona’s Clean Elections law, candidates may build their entire campaigns on the participation of small—$5—donors.[1] Candidates who wish to take part in the system must raise a set number of these $5 contributions from Arizona residents. They then qualify to receive a public grant to run their campaigns. Once they accept this grant, they must abide by strict spending limits and can no longer raise any private money for their campaign.[2]


This study for the first time examines the demographic profile of $5 qualifying contribution donors in Clean Elections gubernatorial campaigns in Arizona over the course of two election cycles. We demonstrate that Arizona’s qualifying contribution donors have a different profile than typical big donors giving to Arizona campaigns for those candidates who opt into the private system. They are more diverse racially and ethnically, as well as economically and geographically. This makes intuitive sense. We know that overall big donors to political campaigns tend to be wealthier and less diverse than the rest of the population.[3] It would follow that small donors to campaigns would be more widely spread out among neighborhoods where people tend to have lower- to mid-level incomes.

These findings underscore the importance of public financing systems in encouraging wider political participation by such donors. To conduct this analysis, we examined the $5 qualifying contributions collected by Arizona gubernatorial candidates in the 2002 and 2006 elections, comparing and contrasting them with contributions raised by candidates running with funding from private sources—more than 67,000 contributions in all. We analyze these data by zip code alongside U.S. Census data to determine the racial, ethnic, geographic, and economic characteristics of these donors.

In nearly every category we looked at, Clean Elections $5 donors more accurately represent the diversity of the state than the private system does:

Racial/Ethnic Diversity

• Race/ethnicity. Clean Elections small donors are more racially and ethnically diverse than big donors giving to privately funded candidates. In particular, areas where Latino populations are concentrated provide more contributions from Clean Elections small donors than they do to privately funded campaigns. Clean Elections candidates collected twice as much, proportionately, of their contributions from zip codes with the highest percentages of Hispanics than did privately funded candidates. In the zip codes with the lowest percentages of Hispanics, privately funded candidates raised proportionately better than a third more of their campaign cash than Clean Elections candidates did—9.5 percent versus 6.8 percent. Zip codes with the highest percentages of American Indians in the state also provided more contributions, proportionately, for Clean Elections candidates than for privately funded candidates.

Economic Diversity

• Income. Clean Elections small donors are drawn from populations on the lower and middle parts of the income scale as compared to big donors giving to privately funded candidates. Neighborhoods with median household incomes up to $50,000 were a larger source of contributions for Clean Elections candidates than for privately funded candidates. In contrast, neighborhoods with median household incomes over $50,000 were a lucrative source of contributions for privately funded candidates. Privately funded candidates received 62 percent of their contributions from these more affluent zip codes, nearly double the 32 percent figure for Clean Elections candidates.

• Blue collar. Clean Elections donors are more likely to live in areas where people work in “blue collar” professions than big donors giving to privately funded candidates. Zip codes with the highest concentration of blue collar workers were the source of more than 2.4 times more qualifying $5 contributions for Clean Elections candidates, proportionately, than they were for big contributions for privately funded campaigns. In contrast, zip codes with the lowest blue collar populations contributed 11.5 times more, proportionately, to privately funded candidates than they did to Clean Elections candidates.

• Home value. Clean Elections candidates collected more of their contributions, proportionately, from areas where housing prices are lower than privately funded candidates did. The most extreme contrast was in zip codes where median home values were $200,000 and above. Here, privately funded candidates collected 3.4 times more of their contributions, proportionately, than Clean Elections candidates did.

• Poverty. Clean Elections donors tend to come from areas where there are greater levels of poverty than those areas inhabited by big donors to privately funded campaigns. Overall, Clean Elections candidates raised more proportionately—1.9 times as much—than privately funded candidates did from zip codes with high levels of poverty. On the other end of the scale, zip codes with the lowest concentration of people living in poverty were the source of 1.6 times as much campaign cash, proportionately, for privately funded candidates than for Clean Elections candidates.

Family Concentration

• Female-led households. Areas with higher levels of female-led households are more widely represented among Clean Elections small donors than they are by big donors to privately funded campaigns. The pattern was most dramatic at the extremes. In neighborhoods where three percent or under of the households were headed by women, privately funded candidates raised more than 2.2 times as much cash, proportionately, than Clean Elections candidates did. In contrast, in zip codes where the concentration of female-headed households was seven percent or higher, the scenario was almost exactly reversed. Clean Elections candidates raised more than 2.3 times as much, proportionately, from these zip codes as privately funded candidates did.

• Households with young families. Neighborhoods with high percentages of families with children under 18 accounted for larger percentages of Clean Elections $5 donors than big donors to privately funded campaigns. Neighborhoods where 35 percent or more of the households have children under age 18 were the source of proportionately more small contributions to Clean Elections candidates than they were for big contributions to privately funded candidates—30 percent versus 21.8 percent.

• Geographic Diversity Rural versus urban. Rural areas are more widely represented by Clean Elections small donors than they are by big donors to privately funded campaigns. While all the candidates collected more of their contributions from urban areas, Clean Elections candidates collected 1.5 times as much, proportionately, from zip codes with higher rural populations—15.7 percent of their contributions, versus 10.5 percent.

• Statewide distribution. Clean Elections small donors and big donors to privately funded campaigns alike came disproportionately from Maricopa and Pima counties, where more than three quarters of the population live. However, the reliance on the two counties was much more extreme for privately funded candidates than it was for Clean Elections candidates.

• Out-of-state influence. By definition, Clean Elections $5 donors live in Arizona. Privately funded campaigns, however, collected a significant proportion of campaign cash from out of state.

Looking closely at individual candidates, some particular patterns also emerged. For example, Len Munsil, the GOP gubernatorial candidate in the 2006 general election, raised more of his contributions from middle class neighborhoods than his opponents did. Prior to his candidacy, Munsil headed the Center for Arizona Policy, a conservative, Christian-oriented organization. Alfredo Gutierrez, a Democratic candidate in the 2002 primaries, raised three times as many contributions, proportionately, from zip codes with a high Hispanic population than any other candidate, Clean Elections or privately funded.

[1] In 2006, gubernatorial candidates were required to collect at least 4,200 $5 contributions in order to qualify for the Clean Elections program.
[2] While they work to collect their qualifying contributions, Clean Elections candidates may raise a small, set amount of “seed money” from private contributors. They may also contribute a set, small amount of their own money to their campaigns.
[3] See, for example, this 1998 study on donors to congressional campaigns: www.opensecrets.org/pubs/donors/donors.asp.