Using tax dollars for re-election: the impact of pork-barrel spending on electoral success

Abstract

Pork-barrel spending is the appropriation of federal money for use in projects that only benefit narrowly defined groups. In the past, researchers have attempted to show that pork-barrel spending increases the likelihood of an incumbent being reelected but empirical evidence has been hard to find. I hypothesize that pork-barrel spending does not directly increase the likelihood of reelection; instead, pork-barrel spending can be used to increase fundraising and the additional campaign funds are then used to increase the likelihood of being reelected. I find that a $10 million increase in pork-barrel spending will lead to a 0.10% increase in the share of the vote in an election. While this may not seem like a major advantage to some, several elections over the past few years have been decided by < 1%. Therefore, legislators in tightly contested races may be able to use pork-barrel spending to gain some degree of separation from their challenger.