The Time to Give: PAC Motivations and Electoral Timing

Abstract

There has been much discussion about how members of Congress desire money early in the campaign season. However, theoretical models of how contributions are allocated during the electoral cycle have been lacking. Our analysis attempts to remedy this gap by providing and testing a model which specifies how the process of bargaining between members of Congress and organized interests produces the pattern of donations observed over the course of the electoral cycle. Most notably, our results suggest that strategic incumbents can receive money early in the campaign if they desire but that they are generally unwilling to pay the price of lower aggregate fundraising and greater provision of access. These findings buttress earlier empirical findings that question the instrumental value of early money. In addition, our results highlight that contribution choices are fundamentally influenced by short-term factors, especially electoral conditions, that do not lend themselves to the routinized behavior necessary for contributors to invest in incumbents for long-run payoffs.