Closing the Gap in State Legislative Races: The Effect of Campaign Spending on Ballot Drop-off

Matthew Davis,Priscilla Southwell

doi:10.5539/jpl.v8n2p118

Abstract

This article analyzes ballot drop-off in state legislative elections. Publicly available campaign finance information and election turnout results from the State of Oregon from 2008-2014 were used to test the collective and individual effects of various campaign expenditures on ballot drop-off. The results show that overall campaign expenditures have a statistically significant effect on reducing ballot drop-off. However, the effects of specific types of expenditures vary; media and professional expenditures help to reduce ballot drop-off, but field and general office expenditures have little effect.

Highlights

All political campaigns face the daunting task of deciding how to best allocate their limited resources to improve their chances of victory
The results show that overall campaign expenditures have a statistically significant effect on reducing ballot drop-off
We can see that the R-squared is quite high, which shows that money and the presence of an incumbent explain most of the undervote

Summary

Introduction

All political campaigns face the daunting task of deciding how to best allocate their limited resources to improve their chances of victory These decisions involve a calculated financial investment in a range of communication techniques to persuade voters and turn them out to vote. The phenomenon of lower turnout for races further down the ballot (i.e. state legislative seats, municipal elections and ballot measures) from those at the top of the ballot (presidential, congressional and gubernatorial) is often referred to as ballot “drop-off.”. Each one of those voters who fails to fill out their complete ballot is a missed opportunity for a legislative vote. This article is an analysis of the effectiveness of various communication strategies and campaign expenditures used in certain state legislative races to offset this ballot drop-off, by analyzing data in Oregon in 2008-2014

Methods

Results

Conclusion