Women Political Consultants: Who Are They, Where Are They? - Statistical Data Included

For years, political scientists have tried to understand women's political participation more fully, in all of its various forms.

Considerable research has been conducted on women party activists in state parties as well as women lawmakers at both the state and federal levels. While the findings offer different insights into the political participation of women, together they note the importance of studying women as a sub-group of political actors to determine if and when women differ from their male counterparts.

Another increasingly important, yet relatively understudied facet of women's political participation is women political consultants and their participation in the burgeoning political consulting industry.

Women are under-represented in the political consulting industry. Dennis Johnson writes, "The political consulting business for its first 25 or 30 years has been dominated by white men playing serious games of politics...Few women were involved at any significant level of political consulting during the first decades." A variety of studies estimate that roughly 20 percent of political consultants are women. Research into the differences between male and female consultants finds that women are more likely to be motivated by their political beliefs than the thrill of competition. In addition, women consultants are more ideological in their political beliefs than their male counterparts.

These findings and the concept of political consulting as a form of political participation, begs a closer look at the differences between men and women political consultants -- and their respective levels of participation in political campaigns.

Is there a difference in accessibility? Do men and women political consultants have equal access to highly competitive, richly funded political campaigns?

Are women political consultants participating in the most competitive elections in the United States? Specifically, did political consulting firms with women partners work for the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial candidates in 1998?

The data for this study comes from Campaigns & Elections magazine, which, for 12 years, has published a win-loss record for political consulting firms following every election cycle. In the past two cycles, Campaigns & Elections also has identified the "Big Winner" firms in congressional, senatorial, gubernatorial and presidential races. These "Big Winner" firms worked for the winning candidate in the most competitive elections in the nation. This study examines the "Big Winner" political consulting firms in 25 congressional races, eight senate races and 16 gubernatorial races in 1998 (Jalonick 1999). In addition, this study examines the firms that are listed in Campaigns & Elections "Best Client List." The "Best Client List" identifies the firms with the most well-rounded client lists (candidates in both House and Senate races), firms that have won tough races in the past election cycle, and firms with high-profile clients. As a result, this list identifies the top consulting firms in the political consulting industry.

To assess the presence of women political consultants, I identified all of the partners of each consulting firm listed as a "Big Winner" or as having a "Best Client List." This resulted in a total number of 124 firms, 88 "Big Winner" firms and 110 firms with "Best Client Lists."

The total number of cases listed as "Big Winner" and on the "Best Client List" was 124, 31 of which had women partners, or 25 percent. Of the total data set, 52 firms were Republican and 72 Democrat. Twenty-one of the 72 (29.2 percent) Democratic firms had women partners and there were 10(19.2 percent) Republican firms with women partners. Of the 31 total women partnered firms, 67.8 percent were Democratic and 32.2 percent were Republican.

The campaign services break down of the 124 firms were as follows: 46 media, 34 polling, 18 direct mail, 12 fundraising, seven general, six voter contact and one research. Women were partners at 38.2 percent of polling firms, 25 percent of fundraising firms, 23.9 percent of media firms, 16.7 percent of direct mail firms and 16.7 percent of voter contact firms. In addition, of the 31 firms with women partners, 41.9 percent were polling firms, 35.5 percent were media firms, 9.6 percent were direct mail firms and 9.6 percent were fundraising firms and 3.2 percent were voter contact firms. There were no women partners in general consulting or research firms.

Not only were there 31 firms that had women partners, there were only 34 women partners in the 124 firms listed in the data set. Three firms had two women partners and 28 firms had only one woman partner. In seven of the 28 firms with one woman partner, the woman was the only partner of the firm. There were a total of 262 partners in the data set. As a result, women were 13 percent of the partners in the "Big Winner" firms and the firms with the "Best Client List." Of the 88 "Big Winner" firms, 23 or 26.1 percent had women partners. Women were partners of 27.9 percent of Democratic firms and 22.2 percent of Republican firms. In addition, women were partners in 40 percent of the polling firms, 26.5 percent of the media firms, 22.2 percent of the fundraising firms, 21.4 percent of the direct mail firms and 16.6 percent of the voter contact firms. Consulting firms listed in the "Big Winner" categories worked on one campaign in any of the three categories: 1) House, Senate or governor, 2) campaigns in one or mor e categories or 3) multiple campaigns in one category. In terms of each category, women-partnered firms worked between one and three House races, with one women-partnered firm working on six "Big Winner" House races.

Specifically, women were partners in 12.5 percent of the firms with one "Big Win-ner," 44 percent of the firms with two "Big Winners" and 43.8 percent of the firms with three "Big Winners." In terms of the Senate races, four firms with women partners had one "Big Winner" Senate race and were not partners in the two firms that won three "Big Winner" Senate races.

The women-partnered firms made up roughly 16.7 percent of all "Big Winner" Senate races. Finally, women-partnered firms, or 24.3 percent of the firms, participated in "Big Winner" gubernatorial races. For all the races in 1998 in the data set, two women-partnered firms worked six of the "Big Winner" races, four firms worked five races and three firms worked four races.

In general, women-partnered firms were distributed across the total number of "Big Winner" races similarly to firms without women partners.

There were 110 firms on the "Best Client List": Sixty-one Democrat, or 55.5 percent and 49 Republican, or 44.5 percent. Twenty-eight of the firms had women partners, or 25.5 percent; 18 of the Democratic firms had women partners, or 29.5 percent and 10 of the Republican firms, or 20.4 percent had women partners. Roughly 64.3 percent of the women partnered firms were Democratic and 35.7 percent Republican on the "Best Client List."

The findings from this study suggest that women are competing in the most competitive campaigns in the United States. In addition, they seem to be competing at a similar, if not at a slightly higher rate, than their percentage of the industry.

A previous study by American University shows that women made up roughly 18 percent of the campaign consulting industry. This research found that women were partners in 25 percent firms with the "Best Client Lists" and "Big Winners." At first glance, these figures suggest that women are competing at a higher rate in the most competitive House, Senate and gubernatorial elections than their percentage of the industry.

However, while women-partnered firms have a higher degree of participation in the elite levels of campaign politics than in the political consulting industry in general, the number of women in proportion to men as partners in these firms must be underscored. Comparing the number of women partners with male partners, it is clear that women lag significantly behind men in percentage of participation at this level. Women make up a smaller percentage of the population in firms that are winning big and landing the best clients: 13 percent compared to being 18 percent of the total industry.

In addition, there were more Democratic women-partnered firms than Republican firms with women partners. Despite that fact that Democratic firms made up more than the majority of firms listed, of the total number of women-partnered firms, roughly two-thirds, were Democratic firms. This finding is similar to other studies that have found higher number of women Democratic voters and a greater proportion of Democratic women officeholders than Republican. As is the case for women voters, women candidates, and women elected officials, women political consultants come disproportionately from the Democratic Party.

It does not appear that women are concentrated in particular services of the campaign consulting industry. Of the firms listed, they were absent as partners in research and general consulting firms.

Anecdotal evidence suggests that general consultants are individuals who have worked in politics for many years and are hired on to help campaigns with broad issues of strategy and message due to their name recognition and professional record. Women's more recent foray into professional campaign politics could explain their absence from this group.

In addition, firms with women partners are not concentrated in any one type of race. Women partnered firms comprised roughly 25 percent of the firms that worked on "Big Winner" House and "Big Winner" gubernatorial races and 29.2 percent of firms that worked on "Big Winner" Senate races. These numbers reflect the overall percentage of women partnered firms in the population and suggest that firms with women partners are not confined to working on just House races but are working in highly competitive statewide races as well.

The most important implication of this research is the small percentage of women partners compared to the number of men partners. It seems that while men partners are concentrated in firms with up to five or six male partners, no firm studied had more than two female partners. The question that this raises is: What is the effect of the sparse number of women spread thinly over the industry as opposed to concentrated in particular firms, sectors of the industry or type of electoral competition? Would women's influence increase if they were to concentrate their efforts in these different ways? Future research should examine the effects of women's concentration in consulting firms by type of race, type of service or electoral success.

More importantly, political scientists need to pay attention to gender differences in political participation because research has demonstrated that women and men affect political outcomes in different ways. The differences between women voters and women legislators and their male counterparts have resulted in the election of different leaders and policy outcomes than if women had been absent from the process.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group