Do political consultants' roles in American elections reflect candidate-centered or party-centered politics? I reassess the argument that American politics is candidate-centered if party organizations cannot nominate congressional candidates. I evaluate an overlooked means of party influence over U.S. House nominations via the market for consultants, many of whom contract with party committees to conduct electioneering activities while others maintain contractual autonomy from party committees. This dichotomy between connected and unconnected consulting firms is a consequence of campaign finance policy contributing to the expansion of parties' coordinated and independent spending efforts. Many political consulting firms that contract with parties also take on House candidates as clients, while other firms with candidate clients do not contract with parties. I assess whether candidate use of the fonner type-i.e., the party-agent consultant-increases the ability to win a primary election compared to hiring the latter type, the free agent, controlling for firms' past records of success, client loads, and primary election characteristics. The results indicate that use of party-connected consultants increases a primary candidate's electoral prospects, and they reveal party influence, though not quite control, over House nomination.

Does the hiring of political consultants make election races more competitive? If so, why? Most scholars of political consulting argue their expertise enhances competition; I argue that consultant reputation also boosts competition. Many political consultants are part of the Washington establishment, which notices their association with candidates. In particular, congressional candidates of the out party, especially challengers, have an incentive to hire the most reputable consultants to signal to political elites their viability. I demonstrate a positive empirical relationship between out-party candidates hiring top consultants (compared to less reputable ones) and how competitive their race is perceived by elites. These findings and theoretical insight provide a basis for understanding the high costs of political consultants and their impact on election outcomes.

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Recent scholarship into American political parties argues that the power to nominate presidential candidates has not entirely devolved from the party to voters but retains party influence via a network of allied actors including political consultants. Once party elites coalesce around a preferred candidate, primary voters tend to comply with their will. However, scholarship has not yet shown whether consultants help produce this effect. Consultants, even those with close contractual ties to the party organization, do not behave as this view expects, and they worked for several GOP candidates in 2012, enhancing intraparty competition rather than rallying around the front‐runner.

Socialist Studies - Fall 2018 - Complete Issue