324 Chapter 9 | ElectionsWhen you look at campaign finance data, the first thing you will see is that
it is easy to find which individuals or organizations gave money to a candidate,
political party, or other organization.^44 Thus, if you are worried that a particular
organization is using campaign contributions to inf luence elected officials, you can
learn which officeholders have received the group’s donations. In fact, campaign
finance records are so readily available that it is generally easy to identify fraudulent
organizations.
However, the raw data do not always tell the whole story. For example, while
total spending is often quite high, it is important to remember that a large
percentage of campaign expenditures are for advertising. A 30-second ad on a
major television network can cost tens or hundreds of thousands of dollars.^45 Given
that even House campaigns may run hundreds of ads and presidential campaigns
generally run tens of thousands of ads, it is easy to see why campaign costs pile
up so quickly.
There is little evidence that campaign contributions alter legislators’ behavior or
that contributors are rewarded with votes supporting their causes or favorable policies.
Research suggests that most contributions are intended to help elect politicians whom
contributors already like, with no expectation that these officials will do anything
differently because they received a contribution.^46 On the other hand, contributions
may help with access, getting the donor an appointment to present arguments to
a politician or his or her staff.^47 And yet people and organizations that generally
contribute are already friendly with the politicians they support, and so the politicians
would likely hear their arguments in any case.
It’s also clear that having a lot of campaign cash doesn’t make a candidate a
winner—and winners don’t always outspend their opponents. Consider the 2016
Republican presidential primaries: the campaigns of Jeb Bush, Chris Christie, and
Marco Rubio had large budgets and the support of outside groups with deep pockets.
Even so, they all lost. The winner of the election, Donald Trump, spent substantially
less than his opponents in both the nomination and general-election campaigns. In
the general election, for example, Hillary Clinton’s campaign outspent Trump’s by
nearly $200 million. The Democratic Party and allied outside groups also outspent
the Republican Party and its groups by a similar amount. Even so, Trump won. Of
course, Trump entered the campaign with high levels of name recognition and his
campaign message resonated with Republican primary voters. But that is exactly the
point: victories aren’t bought with campaign cash. Candidates need a base level of
funding to hire staff, travel, and run some campaign ads. Beyond that point, success
is a function of what candidates say and do, not the amount of contributions they
receive or ads run on their behalf.^48“Why
Should
I Care?”
When you follow the news about political campaigns, pay attention to the money
candidates raise (and spend), where they campaign (and to whom they appeal), the
tone and message of their campaigns, and larger fundamentals, such as the strength
of the economy. These factors can provide strong clues about who is likely to win (or
lose). Remember, though, that politicians don’t win elections just by spending a lot
of money. Sometimes candidates win despite lower budgets. The other factors listed
here and examined in this chapter often have stronger effects on the outcome than
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