Social network analysis of individual donors reveals a pattern of division in the Republican Party

With only two major political parties in the country, both the Republican and Democratic Party face the challenge of unifying ideologically diverse constituencies around a single presidential candidate. Using social network analysis, Andrew Dowdle and Song Yang inspect the behavior of individual donors during primary and national elections to examine cohesiveness within the two parties. Their work shows that the Democratic Party tends to be more unified compared to the Republican Party, even in years when it lost the overall election.