A Dynamic Model of the Effect of Campaign Spending on Congressional Vote Choice

Abstract

The relationship between campaign spending and congressional vote choice is clearly dynamic, yet the typical formulation of this process involves aggregate models estimated with cross-sectional data. In this paper, we estimate an explicitly dynamic model of the relationship between spending and votes in a single House district in 1984. By attaching only contributions raised at the point of survey interviews, we eliminate the measurement error present in the only other study of this sort. By defining spending as the lag of contributions, we are able to investigate which expenditure schemes seem to benefit candidates most. We find statistically significant effects for challenger spending but not for that of the incumbent. The sharpest effects occur when contributions are lagged only one day. We also find that money has the greatest effect on the preferences of those individuals who did not vote, suggesting that the people most susceptible to the candidate's message are also the ones least likely to follow through on the commitment.