Incumbent Spending Research Articles

Between Election Rivalry and the Agency Costs of Government: The Effectiveness of Party Competition Across Indian States, 1957–2018

Two dimensions of the intensity of interparty rivalry are used to test the hypothesis that greater interparty competition enhances government efficiency. Using data from a set of 14 large Indian state governments between 1957 and 2018, we find confirmation for two political rivalry hypotheses. The first is that the ex-post size of the first versus second place seat share winning margin is a useful metric of the (in)effectiveness of rival party policing of incumbent spending behavior. The second is the hypothesis that excessive spending by the incumbent governing party is decreased by the expectation of greater election contestability and that contestability is related to the expected effective number of competing parties ( ENPSeats) nonmonotonically. Our analysis suggests that contestability across Indian States reaches a maximum when the incumbent faces an expectation of ENPSeats that is closer to 5 than to Duverger's 2.

Do rival political parties enforce government efficiency? Evidence from Canada 1867–2021

This paper investigates the role of inter-party rivalry in enhancing federal government efficiency in post-Confederation Canada. It tests and finds confirmation in the data for two hypotheses. The first is that the ex post size of the first versus second seat share margin is a useful metric for the ineffectiveness of political parties in policing the incumbent's spending behaviour over its period of tenure. The second is the hypothesis that shirking by the incumbent governing party is decreased by greater expected electoral contestability and expected contestability is related to the effective number of competing parties (ENPSeats) nonmonotonically. In this regard the results suggest that contestability in Canada reaches a maximum when the incumbent faces a value of ENPSeats that is closer to 2.5 than Duverger's 2.

Is It All About the Money? How Campaigns Spur Participation in State Court Elections

Competitive, vigorous campaigns have been shown to increase participation across a variety of elections, including those at the state and local level. Building on previous work that examines the impact of money in judicial elections, this study explores the impact of campaign effort on participation in state court elections. Using data from 260 state Supreme Court elections occurring from 1990 to 2004 across 18 states, I find that competitive campaigns—not just expensive ones—are important for encouraging participation in these contests. Additionally, the study uncovers differential effects of challenger and incumbent spending. Ultimately, the findings contribute to our understanding of campaign effects in judicial elections while also providing an additional test of the idea that campaigns matter, especially in low-information contests.

Electoral Imbalances and Their Consequences

This paper studies the consequences for the electoral process of reputational and partisan imbalance; that is, asymmetries in voters' evaluations of candidates' quality (for example, due to incumbency) and of party labels (for example, due to ideology). Our theory is predicated on the notion that voters are ``rationally ignorant'' as they face cognitive constraints on their ability to acquire and process political information. Our model rationalizes key empirical regularities identified in the literature: the strong effect of incumbency on electoral outcomes, the existence of an incumbency spending advantage, as well as the moderate electoral impact of partisan redistricting. We explain why current methods used to identify the sources of the incumbency advantage are likely to produce biased estimates, and suggest ways to resolve this issue. We also highlight how campaign finance reforms should be precisely tailored to the type and level of imbalance they are meant to address.

Electoral Imbalance and Democratic Responsiveness

It is widely believed that competitive elections are required for good democratic performance. Many races, however, see little electoral competition due to various electoral imbalances, especially reputational imbalance (asymmetries in voters' evaluation of candidates' quality, due for example to incumbency) and partisan imbalance (asymmetries in voters' evaluation of party label, due for example to ideology). We study the consequences of both types of imbalances in a unified theoretical framework building on the notion that voters are rationally ignorant. Our paper rationalizes key empirical regularities such as the existence of large incumbency spending and electoral advantages, as well as the moderate electoral impact of partisan redistricting. It generates novel empirical implications regarding the identification and interpretation of the effect of incumbency or campaign spending. We also highlight how moderate level of imbalance can improve the performance of the electoral process and discuss the consequences of our results for campaign regulation.

Money, candidates, and mayoral elections

In this paper, we extend a well-trod line of research from congressional and state-level elections—the electoral impact of campaign expenditures and candidate characteristics—to a relatively understudied context, urban mayoral elections. Using a sample of large U.S. cities, we provide evidence that mayoral elections are very similar to elections at other levels of office: there is a tremendous incumbency advantage, one that is overcome only with great effort; campaign spending is closely tied to incumbent vote share but it is challenger rather than incumbent spending that seems to drive outcomes; and challengers are hopelessly outspent. In addition, we find that the effect of local economic conditions on incumbent success is mediated by challenger spending and that incumbent candidates fare better in racially diverse settings.

Why bother campaigning? Campaign effectiveness in the 2009 European Parliament elections

This paper explores the effectiveness of European Parliament candidates' campaigns. We analyze the relationship between candidates' spending and their likelihood of success, controlling for a range of relevant co-varying factors. We then investigate whether the effects of electoral spending are conditioned by two variables: ballot design and incumbency. We find that, ceteris paribus, spending was positively related to a candidate's likelihood of electoral success in the 2009 campaign, though this effect is small in scale. We also reveal that the electorally positive effects of spending are observable across both 'party-centered' and ‘candidate-centered’ ballot structures, and that there is some evidence that incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending.

The Incumbent Spending Puzzle*

ObjectiveThis article seeks to explain the puzzle of why incumbents spend so much on campaigns despite most research finding that their spending has almost no effect on voters.MethodsThe article uses ordinary least squares, instrumental variables, and fixed‐effects regression to estimate the impact of incumbent spending on election outcomes. The estimation includes an interaction term between incumbent and challenger spending to allow the effect of incumbent spending to depend on the level of challenger spending.ResultsThe estimation provides strong evidence that spending by the incumbent has a larger positive impact on votes received the more money the challenger spends.ConclusionCampaign spending by incumbents is most valuable in the races where the incumbent faces a serious challenge. Raising large sums of money to be used in close races is thus a rational choice by incumbents.

Incumbents without a Campaign Finance Advantage: Competition and Money in Chile's Congressional Elections

Research from various countries has shown that incumbents in legislative elections raise and spend more money when they face a tougher contest. A statistical analysis of Chilean candidates’ campaign finance disclosures shows the opposite: an inverse relationship between incumbent spending and electoral competitiveness. This occurs because Chile's deputies are relatively limited in their influence over policy and pork and because the congressional electoral system makes most competitive contests relevant only to the intra-coalitional balance of power. This account implies that political finance is as much a function of political systems and the supply of contributions as it is candidates’ demand for funds, and motivates several hypotheses about campaign finance in Chile. Among others, the analysis confirms that incumbents and challengers compete on a level playing field, spending similar amounts of campaign finance. The paper also illustrates that incumbents and challengers fare equally well in Chile's “secret” donation system.

Campaign Spending, Diminishing Marginal Returns, and Campaign Finance Restrictions in Judicial Elections

For years, scholars of elections have argued about whether campaign finance limitations adversely affect electoral competition. In this article, we examine how the institutional campaign finance restrictions differentially affect the performance of incumbents and challengers. Using elections for the state high court bench between 1990 and 2004, we demonstrate that candidate spending in judicial elections has diminishing marginal returns, but that the returns to challenger spending diminish more slowly than incumbent spending. Since this is the case, campaign finance restrictions that limit candidate spending disproportionately harm challengers, increasing the incumbency advantage and decreasing electoral competition. More specifically, we show that states with more stringent contribution limits have lower levels of candidate spending, and these restrictions thus put challengers at a competitive disadvantage.

Campaign Spending, Diminishing Marginal Returns, and Campaign Finance Restrictions in Judicial Elections

For years, scholars of elections have argued about whether campaign finance limitations adversely affect electoral competition. In this article, we examine how the institutional campaign finance restrictions differentially affect the performance of incumbents and challengers. Using elections for the state high court bench between 1990-2004, we demonstrate that candidate spending in judicial elections has diminishing marginal returns, but that the returns to challenger spending diminish more slowly than incumbent spending. Since this is the case, campaign finance restrictions that limit candidate spending dispropor- tionately harm challengers, increasing the incumbency advantage and decreasing electoral competition. That is, states with more stringent contribution limits have lower levels of candidate spending, and the restrictions thus put challengers at a competitive disadvantage.

Incumbent and Challenger Campaign Spending Effects in Proportional Electoral Systems

Positive effects of campaign spending on electoral outcomes have been found in several comparative, multiparty contexts, but very few of these systems use proportional representation. The few studies examining spending effects in multiparty elections have found that incumbent spending is no less effective than challenger spending, contrary to the vast bulk of empirical literature drawn from single-member district contexts. This study reexamines incumbent—challenger differences in spending effects under the single transferable vote. Examining the Irish general elections of 2002, the authors find a positive and statistically significant relationship between spending and votes. Candidates that spend more win more votes, and outspending one’s rivals means winning more of the vote share. Spending more also directly increases a candidate’s chance of winning a seat. Finally, incumbent spending is considerably less effective than spending by challengers from other parties but no less effective than spending by challengers from a candidate’s own party.

Campaign spending limits, incumbent spending, and election outcomes

Abstract. We study the impact of campaign spending limits for candidates in Canadian federal elections. We first demonstrate that spending limits are binding mostly for incumbent candidates. We then use this information to produce endogeneity‐corrected estimates for the impact of incumbent spending on electoral vote shares. Furthermore, we examine the impact of spending limits on broader measures of electoral outcomes, finding that larger limits lead to less close elections, fewer candidates, and lower voter turnout.

The Campaign Value of Incumbency: A New Solution to the Puzzle of Less Effective Incumbent Spending

A puzzle in research on campaign spending is that while expenditure is positively related to votes won, this effect is far more strongly, or even exclusively, enjoyed by challengers rather than by incumbents. We unearth a new explanation for the puzzle, focusing on the hidden, yet variable, campaign value of office perquisites which incumbents deploy in their campaigns to win votes. When these variable office benefits are unobserved, then the effect is to make observed incumbent spending less effective than spending by challengers. Using data from the 2002 Irish general election, where incumbency was assigned a variable campaign value and included in declared campaign spending, we are able to demonstrate this hidden incumbency effect and estimate its relationship to electoral success, in terms of overall votes, share of votes, and probability of winning a seat. Contrary to previous research showing ineffective incumbent spending, we find that when the campaign value of office is also measured, public office value “spending” is not only very effective in winning votes, but also seems to be more effective than regular incumbent spending.

The Iraq War, Partisanship, and Candidate Attributes: Explaining Variation in Partisan Swing in the 2006 U.S. House Elections

Although partisan swing is often assumed to be uniform across congressional districts, our analysis of the 2006 House elections demonstrates that systematic variation exists. In addition to incumbency status, partisanship, spending, and scandal, we find that variation in the local salience of national issues across districts affected the vote shift. Notably, partisan swing in Republican districts proved highly sensitive to the number of Iraq war deaths from that district and, to a lesser degree, to the roll-call vote of Republican House members on the war resolution. These findings have implications for theories of anticipatory representation, retrospective voting, and electoral accountability. This article is forthcoming in the Legislative Studies Quarterly, 32:4 November 2007.

Candidate Quality and the Impact of Campaign Expenditure: A British Example

In a critical evaluation of American studies of the impact of campaign spending, Levitt suggests that the models used are under‐specified because they omit to control for candidate quality. When such controls are introduced, he finds that challenger spending is of only marginal significance. Similar findings have been reported in British studies. In this short article we apply Levitt’s approach but still find that challenger spending has a significant and substantial impact on election outcomes, whereas incumbent spending does not.

Contribution Limits and the Effectiveness of Campaign Spending

Much work on the apparent ineffectiveness on incumbent spending in congressional elections has hypothesized that the productivity of incumbent spending is low because incumbents operate on the 'flat part' of their election returns function. Differences in campaign spending associated with state campaign finance laws allows for a test of this hypothesis. Exploiting cross-state variation in campaign finance laws, this paper tests whether campaign expenditures by state House candidates are more productive in increasing vote shares when candidates are subject to contribution limits. The results show that campaign expenditures by incumbents and challengers are more productive when candidates run in states with campaign contribution limits, as opposed to in states without limits. Further, in states with contribution limits, incumbent spending and challenger spending are equally productive, and spending by both candidates is quantitatively important in increasing their vote shares.

The Paradox of Less Effective Incumbent Spending: Theory and Tests

In this article, the reason why incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending is explained. The argument is that incumbent spending efficiency depends on the marginality of seats: safe incumbent spending is less effective than marginal incumbent spending, since safe incumbents have to buy fewer extreme voters, whereas marginal incumbents can easily buy a larger number of swing voters. The analysis of the US Senate elections between 1974 and 2000 shows that safe incumbent spending is less effective than challenger spending, but marginal incumbent spending is not. The analysis also shows that the previous finding of less effective incumbent spending is largely due to the fact that the data for marginal and safe incumbents have been aggregated.

Incumbent Spending in Gubernatorial Elections: An Investigation of Primary Type and Candidate Deviation

In the public choice literature, it has been shown that (i) candidates deviate from their median voter based upon the primary election type, and (ii) incumbents that deviate from the median voter will pay for deviating with higher campaign expenditures. This paper examines the relationship between gubernatorial incumbent campaign spending and the degree of openness of political primaries in the United States to examine if the type of primary system influences campaign spending. The authors find that incumbent candidates who face a more open primary will deviate less and therefore spend less to win elections.

Reevaluating Spending in Gubernatorial Races: Job Approval as a Baseline for Spending Effects

Research on campaign spending has tried to resolve the issue of differential effects for incumbent and challenger spending. This analysis offers two new perspectives to the spending effects literature: (1) It extends the scope of this research to include gubernatorial elections, and (2) it uses job approval ratings to control for governors’ popularity. This approval measure sets a pre-campaign baseline for the expected vote that keeps campaign variables from being credited with pre-existing levels of incumbent popularity. A two-stage least squares (TSLS) analysis of two decades of gubernatorial races shows that incumbent spending (unlike challenger spending) does not have a significant effect on the vote. If incumbent spending wins little new support in the course of campaigns, generous public funding for statewide candidates will boost spending by challengers without reducing challenger competitiveness via higher incumbent spending.