Overview
In June of this year, the Federal Election Commission for the first time allowed political campaigns to accept campaign contributions via text message, and both of the major presidential candidates now allow supporters to contribute directly to their campaign using a cell phone. In two surveys fielded in late September, we asked a series of questions aimed at determining how this new contribution model is fitting into Americans’ political giving habits. Because few (if any) congressional or state-level candidates currently accept mobile donations at this time, we limited our questions on this topic to presidential campaign contributions only.
10% of 2012 presidential campaign donors have contributed via text message or cell phone app. Democrats are more likely to contribute online or directly from their cell phone, while Republicans are more likely to contribute in person, by phone call, or via regular mail.
About the Survey
These findings are based on a combined analysis of two nationally representative telephone surveys (details of each are below). The combined data set contained a total of 2,010 respondents, 346 of whom had made a monetary contribution to any of the presidential candidates in the 2012 election. The margin of sampling error for the complete data set is +/-2.6 percentage points, and the margin of sampling error for presidential campaign contributors is +/-6.3 percentage points. For more information, please see the methodology section of this report.