Journalist Zaid Jilani: Study finds voters, donors in same party diverge on many issues

Journalist Zaid Jilani said Monday that a recent study found that voters and donors within the same party have different opinions on many issues. 

The study, conducted by University of California Berkeley’s David Broockman and Stanford University’s Neil Malhotra, compared and contrasted the political views of donors that give to one political party to voters of that party, Jilani said. 

“We often see lawmakers, at the federal level or state level, I think, take positions that are closer to donors than they are to voters,” Jilani told Hill.TV. 

“And no one has ever really comprehensively polled the donors, so this survey really kind of lets us know at least one snapshot of where the differences are between the two group,” he added.  

Republican voters tended to be more in favor of raising taxes on the ultra rich, spending on poverty and universal health care than the Republican donors, he said. The GOP donors and voters “are not very far apart” on how they view social issues, with donors having more conservative views on gun control.

Jilani said that Democratic donors are “very out of step” with voters on social issues, as donors are “much more in favor” of unrestricted access to abortion and gun control.