Mobilizing Sophisticated Donors: What Candidate Facebook Posts Do Attract Intra- and Inter-District Donations?

Abstract

Why do so many voters finance candidates, even out-of-district ones? We exploit two datasets from a candidate in the 2014 Taiwan City Mayor Election derived from 14,838 detail donation records and the candidate’s 296 Facebook posts during the campaign. We replicate previous findings at the district level, indicating that donations are influenced by both physical proximity and ideology. The post-level analysis shows that the neighboring effect does not build as a spillover of public policy or administrative reforms. Instead, residents donate more merely because they are closer to a campaign. Meanwhile, a candidate’s ideological posts can successfully increase donations within a few hours from a district where there are more friendly voters.