Sponsorship, Disclosure, and Donors

Abstract

This research examines how an attack ad's sponsorship conditions its effectiveness. We use data from a survey experiment that exposed participants to a fictional campaign ad. Treatments varied the ad's sponsor (candidate vs. group), the group's donor base (small donor vs. large donors), and the format of the donor disclosure (news reports vs. disclaimers in the ads). We find that ads sponsored by unknown groups are more effective than candidatesponsored ads, but disclosure of donors reduces the influence of group advertising, leveling the playing field such that candidate-and group-sponsored attacks become equally effective. Increased disclosure does not, however, advantage small-donor groups over large-donor groups.

In the Shadows of Sunlight: The Effects of Transparency on State Political Campaigns

“…Furthermore, because of the bundled nature of state disclosure reforms and the coarseness and limited time series available with available disclosure data, this study cannot test the relative impacts of discrete disclosure changes. The recent move toward experimental evaluation of variations on disclosure and disclaimer regimes is useful in this regard (see e.g., La Raja 2014; Dowling and Wichowsky 2013;Ridout, Franz, and Fowler 2014).…”

Voters Use Campaign Finance Transparency and Compliance Information

“…We can put these results in context by comparing them to the literature on the negative favorability effects of political ads. Candidates who run negative ads generally experience backlash for doing so (Ridout et al, 2015). The backlash to a negative ad run by a dark money group (Rhodes et al, 2019) or other outside groups (Dowling & Wichowsky, 2015) is 11-13 points.…”

“…In our campaign finance context, prior work suggests that trust increases when under-disclosure is not pointed out. Specifically, political ad sponsors who do not disclose their donors, but whose lack of disclosure is not highlighted for respondents, are perceived to be more trustworthy than candidate campaigns running ads with the required disclaimer (Ridout et al, 2015). Studies 1 and 2 ask about candidate trustworthiness in the context of campaign finance transparency.…”

“…Campaign finance disclosure provides a rare opportunity for a campaign to signal to voters how transparently the candidate will govern and their willingness to comply or over-comply with legal requirements. Several scholars have studied campaign transparency, often using advertising disclaimers (Dowling & Wichowsky, 2013Ridout et al 2015, Rhodes et al, 2019. However, compliance is not a focus of these studies.…”

“…One of the biggest changes is the rise of "dark money," or political spending that happens without any disclosure. Many political actors and messages remain anonymous (Dowling & Wichowsky, 2013Ridout et al, 2015;Rhodes et al, 2019). At the same time, the Supreme Court's jurisprudence centers the informational benefits of campaign finance disclosure when considering constitutional challenges to disclosure laws (Wood, 2018).…”