Recovering voice through out-of-district donations

Abstract

A growing share of Americans live in electorally lopsided congressional districts, potentially depressing their political participation. Unlike with voting, there are no place-based restrictions on giving, raising the question of whether individuals disengaged by lopsided home districts find voice through greater non-local giving. I explore this using the post-2010 redistricting, which reassigned individuals to more, or less, competitive districts. When an individual’s district becomes exogenously less competitive, she donates more out of district to competitive races. Givers regard non-local giving as a substitute for local political participation, increasing their out-of-district gifts by $\$0.40$, and reducing their within-district gifts by $\$0.75$, for every one p.p. increase in their home district’s lopsidedness.