University community members donated more than half a million dollars to political campaigns and committees during the 2024 election cycle, according to a nonprofit campaign finance organization.
Faculty, staff, contractors and students who listed their employer as GW to the Federal Election Commission donated $551,752 to political committees, with 97.19 percent of contributions going to Democratic or Democratic-affiliated committees and 2.09 percent of contributions going to Republican or Republican-affiliated committees, according to OpenSecrets data. GW community members donated the largest sum of any candidate to the campaign of Vice President Kamala Harris, totaling $206,796, and gave a total of $1,623 to the campaign of former President Donald Trump — the most they gave to a Republican candidate or affiliated group.
Methodology: OpenSecrets analyzes contributions from political action committees and individuals giving $200 or more in a year. Figures for the current election cycle are based on data released on Oct. 17, 2024. Contributors include all those who listed their employer as GW, including faculty, staff, contractors and students.
The Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee and Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, which are tasked with turning their respective chambers blue, received $18,101 and $19,328, respectively, from GW community members.
The congressional candidate campaign that received the most donations from GW community members was Angela Alsobrooks, a Democrat running to represent Maryland in the Senate against former Maryland Gov. Larry Hogan, a Republican. Community members donated $26,711 to Alsobrooks during the 2023-24 election cycle, who ran in a contentious Democratic primary.
GW community members also donated to the campaigns of candidates in a number of competitive races outside of the DMV area, including Democratic Sens. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, Jon Tester of Montana and Jacky Rosen of Nevada. They also contributed to the campaigns of Ruben Gallego, a Republican Arizona congressman, and Colin Allred, a Democratic congressman from Texas who are both running for Senate.
Among local universities, Georgetown University community members donated the most money this cycle with $765,363 in contributions, followed by GW, with their most donated-to candidate being Harris with $277,357 in contributions. Gallaudet University community members donated the least money among the universities with $11,068 total contributions.
GW ranked No. 7 among the University’s 12 peer schools for total campaign donations, with community members from Tufts University contributing the most during this cycle, with $1.6 million in donations, followed by New York University with $1.2 million in donations. Tulane University donated the least among GW’s 12 peers, with a total of $133,964.
GW community members’ donations are slightly under half of contributions from the 2020 election, when they contributed $1,374,219, a record-breaking year for campaign expenditures at both GW and in general. The amount donated during the 2024 cycle has eclipsed donation totals during the 2016, 2012 and 2008 elections.
Political scientists and government experts said GW’s location in Washington, D.C., likely influences donations due to the heightened amount of political and media discussions in the city.
James Gimpel, a professor of government at the University of Maryland, said the people most likely to contribute to campaigns have political interest, a commitment to a party and the disposable income necessary to make a contribution. He said faculty are “good givers” and lean “decisively” toward the Democratic Party due to them being well-informed on politics and sympathetic to the progressive causes of the party.
Gimpel said business and engineering fields of study are more mixed in their party affiliations, while faculty who teach social sciences, humanities and law are the most likely to support left-leaning causes.
“Some employment sectors are dominated by Democrats, some by Republicans, and others quite mixed,” Gimpel said in an email. “Higher-ed is mainly attractive to Democrats, with the exception of a few fields of study.”
78 percent of faculty nationwide support the Harris-Walz ticket, while only 8 percent support the Trump-Vance ticket, according to a poll of more than 1,100 faculty members by InsideHigherEd in October.
Ann Ravel, a board member of OpenSecrets and the former chair of the FEC, said during the 2022 midterm election that professors are likely to donate more money to state or local races instead of congressional elections because the candidates elected will more directly affect their lives if they are residents or employees in a certain area. Ravel also said being in D.C. has “great influence” on faculty because there is more of a discussion on political issues that arise in the area.
“It is quite true compared to the rest of the country that people in D.C., all the way up from cab drivers to professors, are very involved in political issues,” Ravel said in a 2022 interview.
James Thurber, a distinguished professor of government emeritus and the founder of the Center for Congressional and Presidential Studies at American University, said District citizens and faculty in general tend to lean left, and faculty are motivated to donate because the race for the presidency and the balance of power in the House is “too close to call.”
“It would be different if you were in Boise, Idaho, or someplace. Media and discussions and social networks here really reinforce involvement in politics,” Thurber said. “That is not the case in other cities around the United States.”
Parker Malphrus, a sophomore majoring in political science and a member of the GW College Republicans, said he isn’t “surprised” that most GW faculty donate to Democratic candidates because he said he believes faculty on campuses tend to lean left.
“I hope for the day that we can have more balance and faculty and then professors donating to each side and just to kind of have a good balance of Republican and Democrats, to allow for different perspectives on campus,” Malphrus said. “I think it's much needed.”
A Pew Research poll from 2019 reported that 87 percent of Democrats said they believe universities are open to a wide range of viewpoints and opinions, compared to 44 percent of Republicans.
Malphrus said most of the classes he has taken so far at GW have had a politically “centered approach,” and he has never observed a professor try to persuade students to vote for a specific candidate or party.
“We do bring in a lot of professors from all parts of the political realm, which is very neat, but I mean, they're not here to convince us to vote one way or another,” Malphrus said.
