Polarized Patriots: Political Giving by U.S. Military Officers

Abstract

How has political polarization affected political giving by military officers? I argue that public data on military officers’ donations to political causes is likely to reveal partisan and ideological divides among military officer donors. I analyze military officers’ donations from 1979 to 2024 and show that the number of military officers donating to political causes has increased dramatically. The results show that military officer donors are polarized, sorted by their partisan donation tendencies and divided by political ideology. While the data show military officer donors are unlikely to be representative of all military officers, I find that military officer donors lean Republican more than nonmilitary partisan donors and are more conservative than other partisan donors (including donors from many other professional classes). The findings are significant to American civil−military relations, because military officers’ political giving may exacerbate known challenges with political polarization and civil−military relations.