The donor center evaporates — and the dominant pole flips

Distribution of common-space CFscores among reliable individual donors active in each cycle, 1980–2024. Each ridge is one cycle; fill is blue left of center, red right of center. Negative = left/Democratic, positive = right/Republican.

Takeaway: the trough at zero deepens every decade. The bulk also slides from the right (a Reagan-era donor pool with a positive median) to the left after 2008 — a change in who is itemized and active, not a change in anyone’s fixed score.

Reliable donor = gave to at least eight distinct recipients and is not a projected ideal point (DIME codebook §5.2). A donor enters every cycle in which they gave; their static CFscore enters that cycle’s distribution, so the changing shape is the changing composition of active donors, never individual movement. The post-2008 leftward bulk is the signature of ActBlue-era itemization of Democratic small-dollar giving — a reporting-and-composition change. Source: Stanford DIME v4.0; reliable donor-cycles in 2024.

The center, cycle by cycle

Share of active reliable donors within ±0.25 of center, by cycle. Solid = one-donor-one-vote; dashed = weighted by real dollars given.

Takeaway: by either count, the moderate donor is nearly extinct — under one-in-fifty of the reliable pool by the 2020s.

Both denominators are reported because they answer different questions: the share of donors who are moderate, and the share of dollars coming from moderates. Source: DIME v4.0, reliable individual donors.

Two parties’ candidates marching to the poles

Median CFscore of Democratic and Republican federal House & Senate candidates, with the interquartile band, 1980–2024. The shaded gap is the party-median distance.

Democratic candidates Republican candidates middle 50% of each party

Takeaway: the lines bow outward and the band between them — the space a moderate would occupy — widens into open water.

Candidate ideology is recipient.cfscore.dyn, the period-specific candidate ideal point. House and Senate candidates of the two major parties with a non-missing score. Source: DIME v4.0.

Near-center candidates, at every stage of the pipeline

Share of federal House & Senate candidates with a CFscore within ±0.25 of center, among all entrants, primary nominees, and seated winners, 1980–2024. Winner outcomes are not yet coded for 2024.

Takeaway: the collapse is visible at the nominee and entrant stages, not just among the seated — the center empties on the supply side, before November.

“Moderate” = |recipient.cfscore.dyn| < 0.25. Nominees are primary winners (pwinner = W); seated are general winners (gwinner = W). Source: DIME v4.0.