Look Who's Coming to Dinner

Abstract

House congressional campaign committees (CCCs) have increasingly relied on incumbents for financial support during the past decade. To raise money for their party's CCC, incumbents can (a) contribute to the CCC through their own principal campaign committee and/or leadership PAC or (b) broker contributions from donors. The authors argue that direct incumbent contributions make available to the party campaign committee broader contribution networks than do brokered incumbent contributions. One observable implication of this thesis is that ties to D.C. lobbyists should be a more powerful predictor of brokered than of direct contributions to the CCCs. Comparing Federal Election Commission data on direct member contributions to the National Republican Congressional Committee (NRCC) with unique data on member ticket sales to the 2005 NRCC March Gala, the authors find strong support for this expectation. Soliciting direct contributions from incumbents appears to be a better means for the CCCs to gain access to new campaign money.