US Campaign Research Articles

Examining public perceptions of US campaign finance over time through survey experiments

In Buckley v. Valeo (1976), the US Supreme Court ruled that campaign finance regulations “are appropriate legislative weapons against the reality or appearance of improper influence.” Using data from multiple survey experiments repeated across six CCES surveys from 2012 to 2020, we test whether varied information regarding US campaign finance institutions and laws alter public perceptions of the campaign finance system and campaign finance reform across time, including the perception of improper influence. Respondents had more negative attitudes toward candidates who received support from Super PACs. However, respondents were not moved by primed differences in expenditure limits, coordination, or donation disclosure. Ultimately, we find that the majority of Americans dislike and distrust the campaign finance system and generally remain unmoved by any experimentally-primed differences. These experimental findings remain consistent across time, indicating that attitudes toward the US campaign finance system are stable and resistant to change.

Incorporating Immigrants into Canadian Politics: An Experiment on the Effects of Attentiveness to Elections in the Country of Origin

Abstract In recent decades, Canada and other democracies have experienced a significant rise in migrant settlement. This has sparked much interest among scholars and policy makers in the forces that encourage or impede the political incorporation of newcomers. In this research note, we consider a factor that has received relatively little scrutiny, the impact of immigrants’ attention to native-country politics on willingness to participate in residential-country elections and affiliate with a political party in that country. We examine this through an original survey of Americans in Canada conducted during the 2020 US election cycle. A randomized experiment demonstrates that directing the attention of American emigrants to US campaigns can lower interest in Canadian elections and weaken attachments to a Canadian political party, particularly for those who are less integrated into Canadian society. These findings point to a potential tension between political engagement as an e migrant versus as an im migrant.

Political contributions by American inventors: evidence from 30,000 cases

AbstractPolitical scientists know surprisingly little about the political behavior of inventors, or those who produce new technologies. I therefore merged US patent and campaign contribution (DIME) data to reveal the donation behavior of 30,603 American inventors from 1980 through 2014. Analysis of the data produces three major findings. First, the Democratic Party has made significant inroads among American inventors, but these gains increasingly come from only a few regions and flow to a relatively small number of candidates. Second, deeper geographic trends explain most of the change in aggregate donation patterns. Third, inventors do not strategically donate to candidates outside their own district and, since 2006, inventors increasingly contribute to relatively centrist employer PACs with weak ties to the Democratic Party. These findings suggest that the interaction between market-oriented policy and American electoral institutions may inhibit the formation of broad cross-regional coalitions to support the knowledge economy.

How Experiments Help Campaigns Persuade Voters: Evidence from a Large Archive of Campaigns’ Own Experiments

Political campaigns increasingly conduct experiments to learn how to persuade voters. Little research has considered the implications of this trend for elections or democracy. To probe these implications, we analyze a unique archive of 146 advertising experiments conducted by US campaigns in 2018 and 2020 using the platform Swayable. This archive includes 617 advertisements produced by 51 campaigns and tested with over 500,000 respondents. Importantly, we analyze the complete archive, avoiding publication bias. We find small but meaningful variation in the persuasive effects of advertisements. In addition, we find that common theories about what makes advertising persuasive have limited and context-dependent power to predict persuasiveness. These findings indicate that experiments can compound money’s influence in elections: it is difficult to predict ex ante which ads persuade, experiments help campaigns do so, but the gains from these findings principally accrue to campaigns well-financed enough to deploy these ads at scale.

Emotion regulation and cheap talk as signaling strategies: Evidence from crowdfunding for Ukraine

Crowdfunding, as enabled by donors worldwide, has played a critical role in financially supporting military forces, NGOs, humanitarian groups, and civilians in the Ukraine-Russia Crisis. This global mobilization underscores the evolving dynamics in the modern geopolitical landscape, emphasizing the transformative power of online collective action in fundraising and organizing. This study draws on signaling theory to pinpoint success indicators in crowdfunding for Ukraine projects on GoFundMe. Recognized as an effective explanatory framework, signaling theory is used as it bridges fundraising tactics with donation behavior in crowdfunding contexts. Particularly, the research examines how emotions and semantics contributed to (or hindered) fundraising success through sentiment analysis, topic modeling, and paragraph vectors. Findings revealed that trust showcased in fundraisers’ texts and videos amplified donations. Conversely, expressions of sadness deterred donations. Furthermore, the strategic deployment of an anti-Putin narrative notably enhanced fundraising results, but this strategy was way more likely to be deployed by fundraisers based in the United States. The distinct linguistic patterns of US campaigns were so pronounced that machine learning classifiers could predict the fundraiser’s origin (US vs. non-US) with 82% accuracy based solely on language. Overall, the study sheds light on the importance of emotion regulation and “cheap talk” as functional signaling strategies that facilitate value alignment. It provides new theoretical insights and methodological feasibility of examining how strategic communication affects financial outcomes in crowdfunding.

Mediated public diplomacy and securitisation theory: the US campaign against Chinese 5G in Brazil and Chile

Amidst the transition to the fifth generation of mobile telecommunications (5G), the US has launched a diplomatic campaign to prevent other states from acquiring such technologies from Chinese providers. In reply, China has launched a similar campaign to rebut being perceived as a security threat. However, the outcomes of such influencing campaigns in other states have been varied. This article argues that mediated public diplomacy and securitisation theory offer complementary ways to research the competition between the US and China in terms of influencing the policies of foreign states. Empirically, it examines the cases of Brazil and Chile, where the US campaign against Chinese 5G suppliers was successful in setting the agenda. However, neither the increased economic interdependence of Brazil and Chile with China nor their close political cultural congruency with the US, though, are enough to explain the different outcomes of the US campaign against Chinese 5G providers in each country. Indeed, Chile rejected the US securitisation move, while in Brazil it was successful, but partial in that it only refers to government 5G, not commercial 5G. The article argues that the degree of consensus among national political elites and other non-state actors to endorse or reject the US narrative explains such differences.

Analysis of the Historical Development and Critical Importance of US Election Campaign Finance Regulation

Election, one of the fundamental representations of democracy is changing due to the flood of money running into campaign finance; this essay trying to identify the historical development and impact of US campaign regulation on the virtues of democracy. The general trends across academia spilted between liberitarian and egalitarian perspectives in debating the fundamental tradeoff between freedom and equality by looking at the logic behind the changing regulation. This essay takes an inclusive approach reviewing the various fields that conduct campaign finance research while providing a historical overview of the US election campaign regulations and their critical impact on American political society.

Social Media Data Mining of Antitobacco Campaign Messages: Machine Learning Analysis of Facebook Posts.

Social media platforms provide a valuable source of public health information, as one-third of US adults seek specific health information online. Many antitobacco campaigns have recognized such trends among youth and have shifted their advertising time and effort toward digital platforms. Timely evidence is needed to inform the adaptation of antitobacco campaigns to changing social media platforms. In this study, we conducted a content analysis of major antitobacco campaigns on Facebook using machine learning and natural language processing (NLP) methods, as well as a traditional approach, to investigate the factors that may influence effective antismoking information dissemination and user engagement. We collected 3515 posts and 28,125 associated comments from 7 large national and local antitobacco campaigns on Facebook between 2018 and 2021, including the Real Cost, Truth, CDC Tobacco Free (formally known as Tips from Former Smokers, where "CDC" refers to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention), the Tobacco Prevention Toolkit, Behind the Haze VA, the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids, and Smoke Free US campaigns. NLP methods were used for content analysis, including parsimonious rule-based models for sentiment analysis and topic modeling. Logistic regression models were fitted to examine the relationship of antismoking message-framing strategies and viewer responses and engagement. We found that large campaigns from government and nonprofit organizations had more user engagements compared to local and smaller campaigns. Facebook users were more likely to engage in negatively framed campaign posts. Negative posts tended to receive more negative comments (odds ratio [OR] 1.40, 95% CI 1.20-1.65). Positively framed posts generated more negative comments (OR 1.41, 95% CI 1.19-1.66) as well as positive comments (OR 1.29, 95% CI 1.13-1.48). Our content analysis and topic modeling uncovered that the most popular campaign posts tended to be informational (ie, providing new information), where the key phrases included talking about harmful chemicals (n=43, 43%) as well as the risk to pets (n=17, 17%). Facebook users tend to engage more in antitobacco educational campaigns that are framed negatively. The most popular campaign posts are those providing new information, with key phrases and topics discussing harmful chemicals and risks of secondhand smoke for pets. Educational campaign designers can use such insights to increase the reach of antismoking campaigns and promote behavioral changes.

"Success or Failure? The Problem of Evaluating the Results of the US campaign in Afghanistan"

The end of the US campaign in Afghanistan in 2021 has led to mixed outcomes from the point of view of the American expert community. The article analyzes the problems and ways of evaluating the results of the US long-running campaign in Afghanistan. Special attention is paid to the key issues affecting the US withdrawal and to the main conclusions and lessons that American politicians and experts consider necessary to learn to increase the effectiveness of the US foreign policy mechanism.

MacArthur’s need for speed: Why Fuller was fired at Biak

AbstractThe US campaign for Biak in 1944 was one of the most challenging, albeit little known, operations of the Pacific war. Major General Horace Fuller’s HURRICANE Task Force faced a tenacious enemy determined to hold the island’s three airfields at all costs. Grossly underestimating the number of Japanese defenders on Biak, MacArthur and Kreuger allocated Fuller only two regimental combat teams for the initial invasion in May 1944. Once ashore, the US troops encountered a shift in Japanese tactics from defending at the water’s edge to using inland fukkaku, honeycombed underground defensive positions that masked Japanese troops and artillery. When the task force failed to deliver the airfields as quickly as desired by General Douglas MacArthur, Lieutenant General Walter Krueger relieved Fuller as task force commander and replaced him with Lieutenant General Robert Eichelberger. This article contends that Krueger did not have good cause to relieve Fuller; rather, he simply did so to placate MacArthur, who, for a multitude of reasons, pressured Krueger for a fast victory. I assess flaws in the planning and execution of the operation, MacArthur’s motives, and personality dynamics between MacArthur and Krueger to support my conclusion that Fuller was ultimately a victim of MacArthur’s impatience.

Polarized disinformation. The coverage of US presidential election by Polish TV

RESEARCH OBJECTIVE: Analysis of how the 2020 US presidential election was covered and framed by Polish television news programs, and whether the polarization of media and politics in Poland was reflected in the studied content, influencing its bias.
 THE RESEARCH PROBLEM AND METHODS: The analysis of the coverage of the US presidential campaign by three nationwide TV news programs – TVN, TVP and Polsat by using content analysis with elements of framing analysis and comparative analysis.
 THE PROCESS OF ARGUMENTATION: The article consists of four parts: the first explains the methodology of the study, the second discusses how presidential elections are covered and framed and what influences the national media being interested in covering foreign events. The third part presents the results of the study, and the last contains the discussion and conclusions.
 RESEARCH RESULTS: The coverage was dichotomous and there was a correlation between the political affiliation of the media and their choice of framing. The media used a combination of game, strategy and conflict framing that highlighted differences between Trump and Biden in terms of the election results and their personal attributes. We found that the electoral rivalry was portrayed as a conflict between the candidates and that the Polish media constructed “enemy” images of candidates and voters depending on their political sympathies.
 CONCLUSIONS, INNOVATIONS, AND RECOMMENDATIONS: The polarization of media and politics in Poland was reflected in the coverage of the US election. The broadcasters placed Polish political conflicts in the context of the US campaign. It shows that foreign events may be covered by national media through the prism of political bias.

International court curbing in Geneva: Lessons from the paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body

AbstractThe 21st century has witnessed a backlash against many international courts (ICs). Studies of IC backlash have generally taken an optimistic tack, noting that most courts have survived backlash intact or—in the case of the paralyzed Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO)—are likely to do so after a temporary period of slumber. In this context, this paper analyzes the United States' successful effort to paralyze the AB, deriving lessons from this deviant case of backlash against one of the world's most active and independent ICs. Undertaken in the context of the “Reversing Delegation” research project, this account is organized in five parts. First, I demonstrate that the creation of the AB was a classic instance of delegation of dispute‐settlement power, and that the AB quickly emerged as an active agent of trade liberalization. Second, I explore the roots of politicization, noting that dissatisfaction with AB jurisprudence preceded the Trump administration, although Trump's delegitimation of the AB was more far‐reaching than that of his predecessors. Third, I examine the administration's use of the veto power to paralyze the AB, an act of de facto de‐delegation. Fourth, I assess the pushback from the many other WTO members that sought to defend the AB, showing how they failed to blunt the US campaign. Fifth, I analyze the remarkably successful outcome of the US attack, and draw lessons for judicial independence and the rule of law in international politics.

Beyond accessibility: Exploring digital inclusivity in US progressive politics

This article explores inclusivity in the context of digital politics. As online campaigns and digital participation become increasingly central to democratic politics, it is essential to better understand the implications of this shift for marginalized and politically vulnerable people. Focusing on people with disabilities, this study applies a grounded theory approach to investigate what factors shape inclusivity in digital politics and begins to theorize this under-researched concept. Through interviews with self-advocates and election professionals with disabilities involved in innovative digital mobilization efforts for progressive US political organizations and campaigns, as well as a review of related strategies, this article illuminates digital inclusivity as a “process” connected to, but also distinct from the “outcomes” of social and political inclusion and exclusion. Key incentives and obstacles are identified, and emerging principles of digital inclusivity that are simultaneously community-rooted and sensitive to the context of contemporary US politics are discussed.

Making Sense of Human Rights Diplomacy: Evidence from a US Campaign to Free Political Prisoners

AbstractScholarship on human rights diplomacy (HRD)—efforts by government officials to engage publicly and privately with their foreign counterparts—often focuses on actions taken to “name and shame” target countries because private diplomatic activities are unobservable. To understand how HRD works in practice, we explore a campaign coordinated by the US government to free twenty female political prisoners. We compare release rates of the featured women to two comparable groups: a longer list of women considered by the State Department for the campaign; and other women imprisoned simultaneously in countries targeted by the campaign. Both approaches suggest that the campaign was highly effective. We consider two possible mechanisms through which expressive public HRD works: by imposing reputational costs and by mobilizing foreign actors. However, in-depth interviews with US officials and an analysis of media coverage find little evidence of these mechanisms. Instead, we argue that public pressure resolved deadlock within the foreign policy bureaucracy, enabling private diplomacy and specific inducements to secure the release of political prisoners. Entrepreneurial bureaucrats leveraged the spotlight on human rights abuses to overcome competing equities that prevent government-led coercive diplomacy on these issues. Our research highlights the importance of understanding the intersection of public and private diplomacy before drawing inferences about the effectiveness of HRD.

Early Crowdfunding Response to the COVID-19 Pandemic: Cross-sectional Study.

BackgroundAs the number of COVID-19 cases increased precipitously in the United States, policy makers and health officials marshalled their pandemic responses. As the economic impacts multiplied, anecdotal reports noted the increased use of web-based crowdfunding to defray these costs.ObjectiveWe examined the web-based crowdfunding response in the early stage of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States to understand the incidence of initiation of COVID-19–related campaigns and compare them to non–COVID-19–related campaigns.MethodsOn May 16, 2020, we extracted all available data available on US campaigns that contained narratives and were created between January 1 and May 10, 2020, on GoFundMe. We identified the subset of COVID-19–related campaigns using keywords relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic. We explored the incidence of COVID-19–related campaigns by geography, by category, and over time, and we compared the characteristics of the campaigns to those of non–COVID-19–related campaigns after March 11, when the pandemic was declared. We then used a natural language processing algorithm to cluster campaigns by narrative content using overlapping keywords.ResultsWe found that there was a substantial increase in overall GoFundMe web-based crowdfunding campaigns in March, largely attributable to COVID-19–related campaigns. However, as the COVID-19 pandemic persisted and progressed, the number of campaigns per COVID-19 case declined more than tenfold across all states. The states with the earliest disease burden had the fewest campaigns per case, indicating a lack of a case-dependent response. COVID-19–related campaigns raised more money, had a longer narrative description, and were more likely to be shared on Facebook than other campaigns in the study period.ConclusionsWeb-based crowdfunding appears to be a stopgap for only a minority of campaigners. The novelty of an emergency likely impacts both campaign initiation and crowdfunding success, as it reflects the affective response of a community. Crowdfunding activity likely serves as an early signal for emerging needs and societal sentiment for communities in acute distress that could be used by governments and aid organizations to guide disaster relief and policy.

International Court-Curbing in Geneva: Lessons from the Paralysis of the WTO Appellate Body

Following a decade of international court creation during the 1990s, the 21st century has witnessed a widespread backlash against many international courts from dissatisfied member governments. By and large, studies of international court backlash have taken an optimistic tack, noting that most international courts have survived episodes of backlash intact or – in the case of the paralyzed Appellate Body (AB) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) – are likely to do so after a temporary period of backlash-induced slumber. In this context, this paper analyzes the United States’ successful effort to paralyze the AB, to derive lessons from this striking case of backlash against one of the world’s most active and independent international courts. Undertaken in the context of a collective research project on “Reversing Delegation,” this account of the AB crisis is organized in five parts, examining in turn the empirical history of delegation, politicization, de-delegation, counter-mobilization, and the (interim) outcome of this episode during the Trump administration and the early months of the Biden Administration. First, I demonstrate that the creation of the AB was a classic instance of delegation of third-party dispute-settlement power, and that the AB quickly emerged as an active, and possibly activist, agent of international trade liberalization. Second, I explore the roots of US politicization of the AB, noting that dissatisfaction with AB jurisprudence preceded the Trump administration, although I argue that Trump’s politicization of the AB was more far-reaching, and more public, than that of his predecessors. Third, I examine the Trump administration’s stepped-up effort to use its veto power to paralyze the AB, an act of at least temporary de facto de-delegation. Fourth, I examine the pushback from the many other WTO members that sought to defend the AB: although these efforts have been widespread and consistent, I argue, they failed, over a period of years, to budge the US position. Fifth and finally, I analyze the outcome, thus far, of the US campaign, arguing that, by the standards of domestic curb-curbing activities, it has been remarkably successful, not only in temporarily paralyzing the AB but also in demonstrating that such efforts are allowed and even facilitated by WTO rules, planting the seeds for a potentially significant recontracting with the AB or its successor, and exerting a chilling effect on future AB judges following the end of the current crisis.

Two circuits: China defined with globalization

China has made achieving technological independence its top priority for years to come. China has turned a "crisis into an opportunity" in its response to the US trade war. China's industrial capabilities have been fully confirmed during the fight against the COVID-19 epidemic. The emergence and adoption in China of the concept of “two circuits” (dual-circulation”) means the predominant reliance on the internal circuit compared to the external. The old strategy focused on external markets and external resources helped China to become a "global factory". But times and China have changed: the domestic market of the country has huge potential, and tendencies towards de-globalization have spread abroad. The economic activity of the PRC turned towards the internal market and internal regions of the country. The state came out in defense of the market - against large international monopolists, no matter domestic or foreign. This posture opposes the sluggish economic dynamics in the industrial centers of the West caused by the monopolization of domestic markets by large and super-large transnationals, who overwhelmed governments, other branches of state power, many international and non-governmental organizations by narrowing and exploiting the market space. "Two circuits", as well as "self-reliance" in China, have a pronounced socialist orientation.The escalating US campaign for technological pressure on China is backfiring. The country is committed to further strengthening its growing technological prowess. China has thrown a strong challenge to Western domination, which has more than just an economic dimension. China has an increasing impact on the world and - less dependent on it.

A Comparison of Online Medical Crowdfunding in Canada, the UK, and the US

Despite major differences in their health care systems, medical crowdfunding is increasingly used to finance personal health care costs in Canada, the UK, and the US. However, little is known about the campaigns designed to raise monetary donations for medical expenses, the individuals who turn to crowdfunding, and their fundraising intent. To examine the demographic characteristics of medical crowdfunding beneficiaries, campaign characteristics, and their association with funding success in Canada, the UK, and the US. This cross-sectional study extracted and manually reviewed data from GoFundMe campaigns discoverable between February 2018 and March 2019. All available campaigns on each country domain's GoFundMe medical discovery webpage that benefitted a unique patient(s) were included from Canada, the UK, and the US. Data analysis was performed from March to December 2019. Campaign and beneficiary characteristics. Log-transformed amount raised in US dollars. This study examined 3396 campaigns including 1091 in Canada, 1082 in the UK, and 1223 in the US. Campaigns in the US (median [IQR], $38 204 [$31 200 to $52 123]) raised more funds than campaigns in Canada ($12 662 [$9377 to $19 251]) and the UK ($6285 [$4028 to $12 348]). In the overall cohort per campaign, Black individuals raised 11.5% less (95% CI, -19.0% to -3.2%; P = .006) than non-Black individuals, and male individuals raised 5.9% more (95% CI, 2.2% to 9.7%; P = .002) than female individuals. Female (39.4% of campaigns vs 50.8% of US population; difference, 11.3%; 95% CI, 8.6% to 14.1%; P < .001) and Black (5.3% of campaigns vs 13.4% of US population; difference, 8.1%; 95% CI, 6.8% to 9.3%; P < .001) beneficiaries were underrepresented among US campaigns. Campaigns primarily for routine treatment expenses were approximately 3 times more common in the US (77.9% [272 of 349 campaigns]) than in Canada (21.9% [55 of 251 campaigns]; difference, 56.0%; 95% CI, 49.3-62.7%; P < .001) or the UK (26.6% [127 of 478 campaigns]; difference, 51.4%; 95% CI, 45.5%-57.3%; P < .001). However, campaigns for routine care were less successful overall. Approved, inaccessible care and experimental care raised 35.7% (95% CI, 25.6% to 46.7%; P < .001) and 20.9% (95% CI, 13.3% to 29.1%; P < .001), respectively, more per campaign than routine care. Campaigns primarily for alternative treatment expenses (16.1% [174 of 1079 campaigns]) were nearly 4-fold more common for cancer (23.5% [144 of 614 campaigns]) vs noncancer (6.5% [30 of 465 campaigns]) diagnoses. Important differences were observed in the reasons individuals turn to medical crowdfunding in the 3 countries examined that suggest racial and gender disparities in fundraising success. More work is needed to understand the underpinnings of these findings and their implications on health care provision in the countries examined.

Protracted Conflicts in Afghanistan and Chechnya: American Perspectives on Russian Experience

Since the early 1980s, American scholarly and analytical literature has discussed the effectiveness of Soviet, and subsequently Russian, management of low-intensity conflicts. Though both the Soviet and Russian experience has been examined from many perspectives, including the military, economic, social and political, the American academic community does not tend to deem such an approach relevant and useful in terms of understanding US foreign policy. This disjoint is even harder to understand given the fact that the American military faced the same problems in Afghanistan and Iraq as the Soviet army experienced in Afghanistan (1979–1989), and Russian forces experienced during the First Chechen War (1994–1996). The greatest perplexity for American authors was the ability of Soviet and Russian leaders to recreate a power hierarchy on the ground while relying on their former adversaries – the Afghan Mujahideen and Chechen separatists. According to American intellectual discourse, reliance on a former enemy cannot be considered, by definition, during post-conflict state-building. Since the condition of the Russian conflict settlement model was pragmatism that is opposite to normative approach of the American policies in conflicts, this experience was not in demand in American foreign policy practice. The number of works by American scholars that include the comparison between the Soviet/Russian and the US campaigns is significantly smaller than the number of papers focusing on Soviet and Russian conduct, let alone their experience of nation-building. The aim of this study is to analyse American academic discourse about the Soviet/Russian experience of conducting low intensity conflicts. In the first part, the authors analyse the key mistakes of the Russian leadership during the campaigns, according to the estimates given by American researchers; the second part examines Russian strategy and its conflict settlement drawing comparison with the American experience. The authors conclude that US adaptation on the basis of Russian experiences in Afghanistan and Chechnya has proved impossible due to normative imperatives dominating American academic papers and policies. These imperatives bind the conflict resolution with the level of sophistication of a given country’s institutions. Perhaps, the vice versa claim could have grounds, yet it exceeds the limits of this study.

Lobbying Expenditures and Campaign Contributions by the Pharmaceutical and Health Product Industry in the United States, 1999-2018

Government efforts to lower drug costs and other legislative and regulatory initiatives may be counteracted by campaign donors and lobbyists in the pharmaceutical and health product industry. To review how much money the pharmaceutical and health product industry spent on campaign contributions and lobbying in the US from 1999 to 2018 at the federal and state levels. Analysis of federal-level and state-level data obtained from the Center for Responsive Politics and the National Institute on Money in Politics, respectively. These nonprofit, nonpartisan organizations track federal and state campaign contributions and lobbying expenditures by individuals and groups. Lobbying expenditures and contributions to political campaigns. Total spending, inflation adjusted to 2018 dollars using the US Consumer Price Index, on lobbying and campaign contributions by year, source, and state. From 1999 to 2018, the pharmaceutical and health product industry recorded $4.7 billion-an average of $233 million per year-in lobbying expenditures at the federal level, more than any other industry. Of the spending, the trade group Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America accounted for $422 million (9.0%), and the other 19 top companies and organizations in this industry accounted for $2.2 billion (46.8%). The industry spent $414 million on contributions to candidates in presidential and congressional elections, national party committees, and outside spending groups. Of this amount, $22 million went to presidential candidates and $214 million went to congressional candidates. Of the 20 senators and 20 representatives who received the most contributions, 39 belonged to committees with jurisdiction over health-related legislative matters, 24 of them in senior positions. The industry contributed $877 million to state candidates and committees, of which $399 million (45.5%) went to recipients in California and $287 million (32.7%) went to recipients in 9 other states. In years in which key state referenda on reforms in drug pricing and regulation were being voted on, there were large spikes in contributions to groups that opposed or supported the reforms. From 1999 to 2018, the pharmaceutical and health product industry spent large sums of money on lobbying and campaign contributions to influence legislative and election outcomes. These findings can inform discussions about how to temper the influence of industry on US health policy.