The 2004 election was a watershed in presidential campaign fundraising. Three or four times as many people contributed to the candidates in 2004 as in 2000, including an unprecedented number of small donors and Internet donors, according to a new report released today.

Grant Reeher, political science professor at the Maxwell School of Syracuse University, co-authored the report, along with Joe Graf of the Institute for Politics, Democracy & the Internet (IPDI); Michael Malbin of the Campaign Finance Institute (CFI); and Costas Panagopoulos from Yale University. More than 1,500 donors were surveyed and three dozen interviewed at length for “Small Donors and Online Giving: A Study of Donors to the 2004 Presidential Campaigns.”

“There is a lot of good to be found in these results—more people participated, more ordinary people participated, and more avenues to participation were opened. In the absence of additional significant reforms of the campaign finance system, these are positive changes,” Reeher noted. At the same time, he noted that in a larger sense, the changes were not earth-shattering—the candidates who were expected to raise the most money did, and, with the exception of Howard Dean, most of their totals came from expected groups. “The revolution came and no one got hurt,” he added.

Reeher also noted that the Internet made contributing so easy that 40 percent of online donors gave money without first being approached by a campaign.

“This report dispels the notion that small donors are angrier and more partisan than big donors. They’re not. Small donors in the 2004 presidential election were good for American democracy,” according to Graf.

Among the key findings:

• The Internet and Young Donors: Nearly all young donors gave online (more than 80 percent). Giving online will be central to the future of campaign fundraising.
• Small Donors' Political Views: While there has been concern that small donors may be more polarized or more extreme in their views than major donors, the report found that small donors were no more polarized or extreme in their views than people who gave large amounts of money.

The Maxwell School of Syracuse University is the premier academic institution in the United States committed to scholarship, civic leadership, and education in public and international affairs. Maxwell is home to Syracuse University’s social science departments and to numerous nationally recognized multidisciplinary graduate programs in public policy, international studies, social policy, and conflict resolution. Maxwell's graduate program in public administration -- the first of its kind in the nation -- is ranked consistently the leading graduate public affairs program in the country.