The authors revisit the gender gap in campaign finance and find an advantage for women candidates in earning donations from individual donors due to the activities of female donor networks and the changing congressional donor pool. Women supported by these networks, especially Democratic women, receive a boost in campaign fundraising compared to their male counterparts, whereas women not supported by these networks receive significantly less. The ideological leanings of congressional donors also advantage Democratic women. Substantial partisan gender differences in this area of campaign finance persist, and this fund-raising gap may contribute to the growing partisan gender gap in Congress.

Young adults have particularly low levels of civic engagement. Incorporating experiential learning activities as part of the political science curriculum shows promise to reverse this trend. We analyze the impact of a mock presidential election simulation on the civic engagement of college-aged students. Exit surveys of student participants and a oneyear follow-up survey confirm that this experiential learning activity had a positive effect on participants' levels of political knowledge, their interest in public life, and their attitudes about government in general.

This article describes a political debate among congressional candidates that the authors organized in 2006. The debate was structured to maximize student involvement both in the planning stages and during the event itself. After discussing relevant literature on experiential learning, the article describes the debate format and details the issues encountered in planning and organization. Given the large number of stakeholders, a number of challenges emerged in dealing with the candidates, media, students, and university bureaucracy. Our description of these issues is designed to assist others wishing to organize similar debates. The article also examines student learning outcomes from the perspectives of those involved in debate planning and those who attended as part of an American Government class. We find that participation enhanced political knowledge and engagement for both groups. Finally, the paper considers how assessment of the debate's impact could be addressed more effectively and systematically in the future.

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