Equal Pay For Women? On 2020 Democratic Campaigns, It's Happening

When I reported here, three months ago, that women appeared to have achieved near-parity on Democratic Presidential campaign staffs, there was reason to wonder if that would last.

At that point, female candidates—led by Elizabeth Warren, who staffed up early—accounted for more than 60 percent of all staff payroll in the race. Since then, a bevy of bro-pols have launched campaigns, or significantly ramped up hiring.

But the result has been even greater gender equity.

According to my analysis of 22 campaigns’ finance reports for the first six months of this year, 53 percent of the 1800-plus payroll staffers have been women—and they received 53 percent of the pay, which totaled just over $20 million.

In fact, on average, every woman staffer has been paid 102 percent of what the average male staffer has been paid.

As the chart below shows, some 2020 challengers are hiring women for high-paying roles in their campaigns. For example, on Gov. Steve Bullock's campaign, women staffers make $1.48 for every dollar paid to male staffers. Tap any bar on the chart for more information.

By comparison, at this point in the 2007 Democratic race, 46 percent of the major campaigns’ payroll was going to women—43 percent for candidates other than Hillary Clinton.

It shows that women are not merely filling low-level roles, as they have in the past, but are well represented in more powerful positions.

Only five of the campaigns were led by female campaign managers through June. (John Hickenlooper hired a woman, M.E. Smith, to replace Brad Komar in that position on July 1.) But, more than half of all the campaigns’ national communications directors, political directors, and organizing directors are women, as are nearly half of all state directors for early-voting Iowa, New Hampshire, Nevada, and South Carolina.

The evenness of the split shows in the 20 highest-paid people, for each of the seven campaigns with 100 or more total staff in the second quarter of the year: 71 were women, and 69 were men.

And, while Senators Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Amy Klobuchar, and Elizabeth Warren continue to set examples, most of the male candidates are matching them stride-for-stride.

Joe Biden’s campaign has a nearly equal number of men and women on staff, and on average has paid the women a little more than the men. Same for Beto O’Rourke, and Bernie Sanders. Cory Booker, Julian Castro, John Hickenlooper, Jay Inslee, and Seth Moulton all have roughly gender-equitable staffs, according to the figures.

“It is something we are really intentional about” on the Beto O’Rourke campaign, says Aleigha Cavalier, national press secretary. “Beto for America is committed to building a team that is reflective of our country today, and running a campaign that embodies Beto’s values and vision for this country.”

As Cavalier suggests, it hasn’t happened by accident. But, it’s also more than just the work of this set of candidates in this cycle.

A huge number of women have been able to gain experience and prove themselves, not just on Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign but on the large number of successful Democratic congressional campaigns in 2018.
The payrolls do not, however, include some of the most powerful and high-paid people on the campaigns, who are compensated as consultants or contractors rather than through payroll—not to mention those “kitchen cabinet” circles whose names don’t appear on finance reports at all.

Kelly Dittmar, of the Rutgers University Center for American Women and Politics, has previously found that about three-quarters of strategic consultants for federal or gubernatorial campaigns were men.

“Just as all American political institutions, campaigns are gendered institutions that have long advantaged men and masculinity, including in their allocation of power and influence at the staff level,” Dittmar tells me via email. “Real inclusion along gender lines means ensuring that women's voices are at all tables, and that they are weighed as heavily as men's in shaping major campaign decisions and strategies.”

A few of the campaigns have been less successful at achieving gender parity on their payrolls.

Pete Buttigieg, whose staff ballooned rapidly in the past few months, has hired more women than men—but so far they have earned just 83 percent of their male colleagues, on average. Just seven of the 20 top earners on his campaign in the second quarter were women, lowest of the large-staffed campaigns.

Barely a third of John Delaney’s payroll went to women in the first six months of the year. Eric Swalwell’s now-defunct campaign was similarly male-heavy.

Some of the smallest, most recently launched campaigns, such as Michael Bennet’s, Bill de Blasio’s, and Tim Ryan’s, have the worst disparities, which could change as they begin hiring.

Ryan takes the prize for greatest imbalance. As of the end of June, his nascent campaign had made just a single, $709 wage payment to a woman—with the other 98 percent of payroll going to men.

And in case you’re wondering: the parity has not been matched by the 2020 candidate these Democrats are all gunning for. Donald Trump’s official re-election campaign has paid 65 percent of its payroll to men this year, with women constituting 47 percent of the staff but earning on average just 60 percent of the men’s wages. And that’s not even counting well-compensated campaign manager Brad Pascal, who is paid as a consultant and is thus not on the reported payrolls.