Study: Based On Political Donations, Doctors Are Favoring The Left
These donor physicians have also become more generous, and the shift of these medical professionals from their historic preference for Republican candidates to their recent affinity for Democrats is attributed to the increase in women doctors and the decline in the number who run their own practice or work in small practices.
The Associated Press: Doctors Lean More Left, Political Donations Show
The first rigorous look at donor doctors also finds they’ve become increasingly generous, with political contributions surging to almost $200 million in recent years. An increase in female doctors — who more often than men donated to Democrats — and a decline in physicians working on their own or in small practices occurred during study years. Those changes likely contributed but reasons for the political shift are unclear, said study co-author David Rothman, a social medicine professor at Columbia University’s medical school (6/2).
The Washington Post’s Wonkblog: Doctors Are Donating Less Often To Republican Candidates
There have a few been recent hints at how the sweeping changes within the medical industry are reshaping the politics of being a doctor. But a new study suggests a profession once solidly aligned with Republicans has become more Democratic in the past 20 years, as the number of female doctors grows and the traditional small physician's office is on the wane. Researchers analyzing doctors' federal campaign contributions between the 1991-92 and 2011-12 election cycles found that doctors -- who once contributed to Republican campaigns at consistently higher rates than the entire donor population -- have become less enthusiastic donors to the GOP (Millman, 6/2).
