The Role of Candidate Spending in Presidential Nomination Campaigns

Abstract

One of the central questions about American presidential nominations concerns the effects of candidate spending on the outcomes of primaries and caucuses. This issue lies at the heart of normative concerns relating to political equality and access, representation, and democratic constraint on the presidency. Despite its importance, however, a good deal remains unclear about the extent to which, and under what conditions, money influences presidential nomination contest results. In this paper we explore these questions by testing a multivariate model of nomination outcomes in which we isolate the effects of spending on votes, controlling for the impact of other variables known to be important to the process. We find that candidate spending is an important component of success in the struggle for the presidential nomination. The relationship between spending and vote outcomes, however, is mitigated by other forces inherent in the battle.