Hillary Clinton Just Achieved Another Big First

Her campaign is fueled by unprecedented support from female donors.

Kyodo/AP

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Women just don’t donate as much money to political campaigns as men do—until now. Traditionally, women have always made up a smaller percentage of donors to American political campaigns and have given less than their male counterparts. In recent years, the divide between men and women on political giving has narrowed a bit, at least on the Democratic side. In 2012, for example, Barack Obama received 44.1 percent of his donations from women, while Romney picked up just 28 percent of his war chest from female donors. (That counts only donations over $200, since   info for smaller contributions isn’t reported). Whether it’s her status as the first female major party nominee or her campaign’s special emphasis on courting female donors, Hillary Clinton has broken through. The majority of donations (over $200) to her campaign are from women contributors, who also kicked in a larger share of her campaign cash.

OpenSecrets.org, where I used to work, has the full breakdown of the numbers.

Source: OpenSecrets.org

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