Most faculty donations go to Obama

Despite the fact that Obama is effectively unopposed for the Democratic nomination and there is a competitive Republican primary that is still unresolved, only one of the 96 individual donations from professors or administrators has gone to a Republican. Molecular biology lecturer Ethan Perlstein donated $50 in January to long-shot candidate Buddy Roemer. Roemer dropped out of the Republican primary race in February.

The Federal Election Commission, an independent regulatory agency that enforces campaign finance law, keeps open records that list donations to candidates and political organizations.

However, it is unlikely that such a measure accurately reflects the ideological composition of Princeton’s faculty, some said. Faculty could give to Republican candidates through other conduits — like political action committees or the Republican National Convention — and it is possible that some who might choose to vote Republican have not yet settled on a candidate to support with a donation or a vote.

“I don’t think it means there are no Republicans in Princeton; I think there are plenty,” physics professor Chiara Nappi, who has donated $750 directly to Obama’s campaign in this election cycle, said of the finding. “Either they don’t make contributions or they make their contribution through other means.”

Given that Nappi’s most recent donation of $5,000 to Obama, which she said she made through the Israel advocacy group J Street, was not visible through FEC records, faculty members who tend to vote Republican could similarly give to Republican presidential candidates through conservative advocacy groups without disclosure.

Professor and well-known conservative Robert George said in an email that the lack of faculty or administration donations to Republican candidates was “par for the course.”

“The overwhelming majority of professors at colleges and universities around the country are on the liberal side of the ideological spectrum and are strongly attached to the Democratic Party,” George explained. “Very few are Republicans, and even fewer are conservatives.”

Though physics professor Peter Meyers, who donated $500 to Obama’s campaign, said that he thought universities’ faculties tend to vote for Democrats in general, he expressed doubt about the data’s significance.

“You can make cute comments about, you know, what this implies, but I don’t know that academics are really a model for any larger segment of society, so I don’t know that it means all that much,” he said.

But Meyers added that the overwhelming majority of donations to the Democratic candidate showed that “that’s who [the Princeton faculty] are.”

Why only one University faculty member donated to a Republican candidate through his presidential campaign is unclear, professors said.

“Perhaps it is because many do not strongly favor one Republican over the others, since the competitors’ policy prescriptions do not vary all that much,” George said.

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Nappi offered a different possible explanation.

“It might also be that Democrats tend to be more liberal with their money than Republicans, that’s possible,” she speculated. Liberals “tend to give, that’s what ‘liberal’ means, you want to share."

College Republicans president Jacob Reses ’13 said that he was surprised by the finding, and he attributed the dearth of donations to “the uncertainty that has characterized the contest for the 2012 presidential nomination.” Reses is also a columnist for The Daily Princetonian.

Meyers said he donated to Obama’s campaign last year because he thought the press was exaggerating the implications of Obama’s dipping popularity ratings. He explained that as Obama’s popularity slipped, people rushed to declare him a “failure” which further discouraged people from voting for him.

“I think now as the alternatives become clearer, that’s not as much of a problem, actually,” he added.

But to George, who has not endorsed a candidate this cycle, the quality of the Republican field is not depressing contributions from the conservative corners of the faculty.

“On the question of the viability of the candidates, I haven’t heard any despairing comments from conservative faculty,” he said.

“Everyone agrees that it will be a tough fight against what will certainly be an expertly run and heavily financed Obama campaign. But no one has said to me: ‘It’s no use; Obama cannot be defeated.’ ”