Donation Motivations

Abstract

Understanding why donors give money to legislative candidates is vital for assessing how money influences politics. In this paper, I test theories of why political action committees (PACs) and individuals, the two largest sources of campaign money, contribute to legislative candidates. Using a variety of data at the state and federal level, I show dramatic differences between individual and PAC contribution patterns. An original survey of donors in the 2012 election cycle shows that individuals consistently rank ideological concerns as highly important when deciding where to give. Finally, using two different within-legislator designs, I show a causal relationship between incumbency, ideology, and contributions. These results provide the most direct and comprehensive test of contributor motivations to date.

Interest Group Activists and the Polarization of State Legislatures

“…Nevertheless, like the earlier work in search of legislative vote buying, the new literatures may continue to obscure the broader effect of campaign contributions on legislative outcomes. Prior studies draw a sharp line between atomized individual campaign donors on the one hand, and official party committees and interest group organizations on the other (Barber 2016a(Barber , 2016bgrimmer and Powell 2016;La raja and schaffner 2015). Barber (2016b, 297-98) argues that individual donors are motivated by ideology, whereas interest group donors are motivated by a desire for access to important legislators.…”

“…groups seek access to politicians in order to shape policy outcomes (Barber 2016a;Hall 2015, 2016;grimmer and Powell 2016), but people closely affiliated with these groups can also contribute money directly to candidates. groups may have a larger effect on legislative behavior indirectly through the contributions of affiliated individuals than they do from the contributions that come directly from the group's legally incorporated PaC and 501(c) organizations.…”

“…in particular, it matters to what extent candidates' individual donors are affiliated with and coordinated by interest groups. While previous work focuses on whether individual donors are different from PaC donors (Barber 2016a(Barber , 2016bBarber, Canes-Wrone, and thrower 2017), individual donors are often affiliated with political organizations like political action committees (PaCs). indeed, interest groups such as americans for tax reform, the National rifle association, and MoveOn.Org are comprised of individuals.…”

Detecting and Understanding Donor Strategies in Midterm Elections

“…Unsurprisingly, income is positively associated with political giving-people with higher incomes have more discretionary funds to allocate to political contributions (James 2009;Rosenstone and Hansen 1993;Verba et al 1995). Beyond this monetary factor, political extremism strongly influences individuals' decisions to contribute to campaigns (Barber 2016;Barber and McCarty 2015;Bonica 2014Bonica , 2016Francia et al 2005). Finally, people who are very interested in politics and care deeply about electoral outcomes are more likely to donate to political candidates or organizations (Grant and Rudolph 2002;Souraf 1992).…”

“…But selection of less "obvious" recipients also implies a heightened degree of motivation and intentionality on the part of the contributor. Just as more partisan, ideological, and interested individuals are more likely to donate in the first place (Barber 2016;Barber and McCarty 2015;Ensley 2009;Francia et al 2005;Grant and Rudolph 2002;McCarty, Poole, and Rosenthal 2016;Souraf 1992), so too may they be more motivated to engage in more discerning patterns of contributing.…”