No Experience Required: Early Donations and Amateur Candidate Success in Primary Elections

Abstract

The electoral dominance of “quality” candidates—political insiders with a history of holding office—is well‐established. However, research on the recent rise in successful political neophytes is less studied. Despite longstanding trends in the predominance of experienced candidates in primary elections, nearly half of all quality candidates who ran in non‐incumbent races lost to a candidate without prior electoral experience in 2018. In this article, we investigate the success of political newcomers in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives by examining a topic often overlooked in the growing literature on primaries: campaign finance. We show that, from 2016 to 2020, political newcomers saw (1) greater success in future fundraising, and (2) an increased likelihood of primary election victory when they garnered more early contributions from outside their district. This contrasts with prior elections, where early money from inside a candidate's own congressional district served as the strongest predictor of future fundraising and electoral success.

Giving to the Extreme? Experimental Evidence on Donor Response to Candidate and District Characteristics

“…If donors contribute strategically to help their party win or retain seats, they may prefer to support candidates who are thought to be viable based on district enthusiasm, endorsements, strong fundraising, or favourable previous electoral performance. Although such traits have been associated with winning in the past, so-called ‘newcomers’ may also be increasingly seen as viable given contemporary patterns of candidate recruitment (Bawn et al 2012; Porter and Steelman 2023).…”

Political Parties and Loser’s Consent in American Politics

“…Experienced candidates long had the advantage in fundraising, but in recent years amateur candidates have outraised experienced candidates and have had increased success in winning office. In past decades, three out of every four new members of Congress had previously held elective office; since 2016, that figure has fallen to 50 percent in both parties (Porter and Steelman 2022; Porter and Treul 2023). Those without previous electoral experience may be less committed to the rules of competition, including “loser’s consent.”…”

Keep Winning with WinRed? Online Fundraising Platform as the Party’s Public Good

“…In addition, the cost of elections has significantly increased in the 21st century, and any efforts to regulate campaign financing, such as the Bipartisan Campaign Reform Act of 2002 (BCRA), have been slowly dismantled. Outside groups and organized interests are filling fundraising needs, potentially enabling political newcomers and ideologically extreme candidates (La Raja and Schaffner, 2015;Rauch and La Raja, 2017;Porter and Steelman, 2022). In such periods, are existing structures of parties sufficient?…”