Ohio State faculty, staff and students donated to various seats ahead of this year’s election, but one element remained overwhelmingly the same: about 96% went to candidates within the Democratic Party or political action groups that support it.

A Lantern analysis of over 180,000 publicly available Federal Election Commission filings shows that this year alone, Ohio State faculty, students and staff donated nearly $1 million to candidates and political action committees nationwide.

This trend remains consistent — even when adjusted for contributions designated for primary and general elections — when expanded to the last five years, during which total contributions jumped to over $4.5 million given almost wholly,  about 93%, to Democratic candidates and groups.

These results persist when aggregated by sects of the Ohio State community, with a different trend emerging for just one group — the board that oversees the university. 

Contributions among 15 voting members of Ohio State’s Board of Trustees lean more heavily toward bipartisan groups. However, when accounting only for partisan candidates and committees, about 88% of contributions were given to Republican candidates for federal office or political action groups.

Though breakdowns of votes from Ohio State community members — or students, staff and/or faculty — aren’t available, donors who identified their employer as Ohio State strongly preferred donating to Vice President Harris over President-elect Donald Trump ahead of Election Day, filings show. 

Fifty-five percent of Ohio voted to re-elect Trump in the November election, according to the Associated Press. 

Even so, Franklin County — where Ohio State’s main campus is located — went solidly for Harris, as she won 63.7% of the vote.

Democratic presidential candidate former Vice President Joe Biden speaks during the final presidential debate with Republican presidential candidate President Donald Trump, on the campus of Belmont University, in Nashville, Tennessee on Thursday, October 22, 2020. Credit: Pool/ABACA via TNS

U.S. Rep. Nikema Williams, left, shares a laugh with Vice President Kamala Harris at the Democratic Party of Georgia s Spring Soiree in Atlanta in May 2023. After winning the U.S. House seat Rep. John Lewis held until he died in 2020, Williams began serving double duty as a member of Congress and chair of the state Democratic Party. As a federal lawmaker, however, she faced limits on fundraising for the state party. Credit: Natrice Miller via TNS

This year’s Ohio Senate race between Democratic incumbent Sen. Sherrod Brown and businessman Bernie Moreno was one of the most anticipated in the country. USA Today reported that as of Nov. 1, over $400 million went into the race, making it the most expensive Senate race of all time.

Moreno won the seat with 50.2% of the vote, according to the Associated Press, helping secure Republican control of the Senate. But ahead of voting, Ohio State donors leaned heavily in Brown’s favor.

At least 16 Ohio State community members gave to Moreno in the past two years, totaling nearly $8,000. Brown received at least 5,000 individual contributions, totaling more than $330,000.

Ohio Republican Senate Candidate JD Vance speaks to supporters at a Save America Rally at the Covelli Centre on Sept. 17, 2022, in Youngstown, Ohio. (Jeff Swensen/Getty Images/TNS)

Democratic candidate for the state of Ohio, Tim Ryan, visited Ohio State on Oct. 19, 2022. Credit: Lantern File Photo

Similar to the Ohio State community as a whole, records show people who identify as university teaching faculty and contributors lean heavily Democratic.

Faculty alone have contributed at least $1.7 million to candidates and committees in the past five years, with an average donation of $46.50 per person.

 

This notion that college campuses lean Democratic is widely shared, though few academic studies show its merit.

One of the most complete studies is nearly 20 years old, however, it shows that 46% of faculty members surveyed identify as moderate, followed by 44% who describe themselves as liberal and just 9% who identify as conservative. These numbers varied greatly by area of expertise and emeritus status.

Even so, Nathaniel Swigger, associate professor in Ohio State’s Department of Political Science, said the belief in the trend alone is enough to have a profound effect on the ideological gap in higher education.

Swigger attributes the widening of this difference to selection bias. He said it’s a relatively recent trend that was exacerbated during the years Trump held office, when Republican candidates and elected officials were especially hostile toward higher education.

Swigger said this compounds over time: Democrats become more likely to go to college and therefore make up faculty. Republicans don’t.

These results also reflect a larger trend that individuals with more education tend to lean more Democratic — something the New York Times reported has been widening in recent years. 

In 2020, President Joe Biden won the majority of college graduates’ votes, but the Democratic Party’s share of votes from voters without a degree continues to decline, the Times reported. 

This proved true in the 2024 election, in which Harris performed worse among voters without a college degree. According to USA Today, some exit polling showed the gap widened as much as nine points.

The Board of Trustees serves as “the chief fiduciary and strategic body” of the university, according to its Ohio State webpage.

The Ohio governor appoints 15 Ohio residents to serve as voting members of the Ohio State Board of Trustees for nine-year terms, and up to three non-voting, non-residents to serve three-year terms. With approval from the board, public non-trustee members may serve on committees to “ensure expertise is available in various areas of concentration,” according to the board’s webpage.

All current board members were appointed by Gov. Mike DeWine or his predecessor John Kasich. 

Two Ohio State students may also be selected by the governor to serve two-year terms on the board, though the current students were excluded from this analysis.

Most members of the board currently hold or have held leadership positions at major companies or organizations. Currently, this spans from partners at law firms to the former CEO of Marathon Petroleum, according to biographies on Ohio State’s webpage.

Political action committees that support candidates of both parties, especially ones run by these companies or organizations, account for nearly half of voting members’ contributions.

The total contributions from board members at the federal level totaled to about $200,000 in roughly the same period that faculty committed more than $4.5 million. Though the largest individual donation from a faculty member was $5,000, some board members’ single contributions reached $35,000.

Unlike the smaller contributions from faculty members, the average contribution from the board reached over $1,300.

Swigger said this trend among the board is likely an economic effect. He referenced a research article that posits that because there are such wide disparities in the cost of living, the perception of what wealth means changes depending on where someone lives.

“Having a lot of money in Ohio is different than having a lot of money in New York City,” Swigger said. “I strongly suspect that if you were to look at the personal fortunes of the members of the Board of Trustees, that you would find them on the higher end of the income spectrum, and people on the higher end of the income spectrum, especially if they’re on the higher end of the income spectrum relative to those around them, tend to lean Republican.”

Ohio State spokespeople declined a request on behalf of the Board of Trustees to discuss whether these findings accurately represent the board’s ideologies and philosophies for giving to candidates.

This year, Forbes reported this same trend, finding that just 36% of low-income voters are Republicans.

A survey from Pew Research Center, though, found Democrats have the biggest advantage among the most wealthy and least wealthy.

Records for this analysis were taken from the Federal Elections Commission’s publicly available database. Data was pulled for contributions to candidates in federal elections and to political action committees.

Federal law requires disclosures for contributions over $200 to a single candidate during an election cycle. Donors are required to identify their employer and occupation, among other personal information.

This data is self-reported by contributors and is therefore subject to mistakes and typos. The Lantern only used data from contributors that could be reasonably understood as someone with a connection to Ohio State.

Contributors who identified their employer as “Ohio State,” “Ohio State University” or “OSU” were pulled for this analysis. When examining faculty, those who identified their occupation as a faculty member, lecturer or professor were automatically included.

The Lantern made an additional effort to identify faculty members who listed their occupations outside of these keywords, verifying these positions through Ohio State’s webpages. This means those with emeritus status or who hold additional positions within or outside of the university were included.

Donors with out-of-state addresses were verified as being currently or previously employed by the university. Employers listed as “OSU” or other acronyms were also verified as being employed or enrolled at Ohio State.

Donations to campaign committees, political action groups and online fundraising platforms like WinRed and ActBlue were all considered. If contributions to either of these platforms were earmarked to specific candidates, they were considered as contributions to those committees.

Political action committees were included under one party if they have historically only donated to that party or against the other. All others were considered bipartisan. 

This analysis is based on committee profiles from OpenSecrets, an independent nonprofit that tracks money in politics. 

Independent candidates who caucus with one party — notably, Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont — were included with that party for this analysis.