It's Not Just How Much You Raise, It's Also From Where You Raise It

Donations to all state house candidates in 2010 in lower 48 states.

The following is a guest post from Kristen Coopie Allen, who received her PhD last spring from the University of Pittsburgh and begins as an assistant professor at Wright State University this fall. Her dissertation, on which the post below is based, can be viewed here.

With the 2014 midterm election cycle less than 15 months away, congressional, gubernatorial, and state candidates are preparing for another November showdown. As Seth noted last year, the buzz around elections tends to focus on presidential and congressional candidates, but the 6,000+ state legislative seats up for grabs in election years can have big implications for policy (civil unions, marijuana legalization, etc). It’s these elections – specifically, the flow of contributions to these candidates – that I focus on in my research, with excellent guidance from two Mischiefs, Jen and Seth. 

I question how the contributions that come from constituents and out-of-district donors affect race outcomes. Most of us would like to believe that the U.S. isn’t plutocratic by nature, representing those who can afford to pay into the electoral system. The idea is that (hopefully) something more than money is winning elections for candidates – it could be the dispersion of donors across time and geography. If, as I argue, it is not as much about the money as it is the dispersion of contributions, then this may signal that elections are not being bought outright. The democratic ideal is that a large number of citizens participate. But is this what we actually see when it comes to political donations?

The answer is that it depends. To test the effects of dispersion in terms of location, time of contribution, and the number of contributors, I geocode over 900,000 individual contributions to 6,079 state legislative candidates in the 2010 election cycle using ArcGIS, matching each contributor to the candidates that are running to represent her district. Regression results (see figure below) show that having more locations represented by donors lead to small increases in vote share. Early money also benefits candidates, but again, only with minimal effect – a maximum 3 point advantage.

The surprising result has to do with in- versus out-of-district donors. Having more in-district contributors is actually shown to decrease a candidate’s overall vote share in the General Election (blue diamonds). Granted, like the other variables, the overall effect is not large. A candidate with 100% of her donors residing in her district boundaries is only expected to earn 3 fewer points in the General Election than a candidate with no in-district contributors. If the candidates are separated into winners and losers, this effect is washed out for losing candidates – it’s the winners that suffer slightly when they have more in-district donors. The differences between candidate types are not drastic: on average (47% of incumbent contributions come from within their districts, compared to 53% for challengers and 54% for open seat candidates), but it is enough to suggest that outside money helps winners.

What does this mean for state campaign fundraising? Should candidates stop soliciting from within their districts for campaign funding? Not in the least. We expect candidates, not donors, to accurately represent the interests of the district. If in-district donations don’t directly assist with electoral success, then either the donors are voting against their donation targets or the non-donors are a more influential group. Or it is possible that winning candidates are better able to utilize the money given to them, regardless of source, to demonstrate that they are the best choice. Of course, there are other confounding factors that affect electoral outcomes, including PAC donations, state party involvement, and district characteristics. Candidates should continue to practice good campaign strategy, and for better or worse, that involves soliciting just about anyone they can for donations.