Why wouldn’t donations be a reasonable proxy? 3,000 samples is more than enough to have a statistically significant analysis of a population of 100,000.
> 3,000 samples is more than enough to have a statistically significant analysis of a population of 100,000.
It's not a valid sample because it's not a random selection - statistical sampling isn't only about sample size.
One reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the above numbers is that the Democrats in government are less stingy about donations, or that the Republicans there don't really like the GOP and are there for the money alone.
Nationally, Democrats raise significantly more money than Republicans[0], especially from small donors[1]. It wouldn't be surprising to me if this skew was stronger for people working in government.
It's not as odd when you look at employment length. One of the stats I've seen is that Democrats who go into the civil service are more likely to stay long term. Republicans are more likely to leave for the private sector.
I'd expect employees who have been there longer, and so are likely making more money, to be both more likely than shorter term employees to make political donations and to be likely to make bigger donations than those shorter term ones that do donate.
It is not a population sample - IE: we didn’t randomly pick 3000 people and observed who they donated to. Or in other words: we asked the whole population who they wanted to donate to and 97,000 said “none”.
It's not a valid sample because it's not a random selection - statistical sampling isn't only about sample size.
One reasonable conclusion that can be drawn from the above numbers is that the Democrats in government are less stingy about donations, or that the Republicans there don't really like the GOP and are there for the money alone.