Séminaire

Donor Motivations and Fundraising Cycles: Theory and Evidence on Political Candidates' Event and Non-Event Fundraising

Sebastian Thieme (Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse)

23 novembre 2021, 12h45–13h45

Toulouse

Salle Auditorium 4

Résumé

How do candidates raise funds in different stages of the electoral cycle? We argue that the mode by which candidates raise money, in particular their reliance on event vs. non-event fundraising, is closely linked to donor motivations and electoral cycles. Throughout the cycle, event fundraising has a special appeal to individual donors with materialistic and social motives. This implies that certain types of candidates, such as incumbent legislative leaders, committee chairs, or otherwise prominent candidates can rely on such donors to a greater extent. In addition, candidates rely more on event fundraising - as well as on non-individual donors -during the earlier stages of their candidacy, due to a relative lack of ideological or partisan motivations on behalf of individual donors, which is driven by electoral cycles in partisan salience. We collect data from campaign finance disclosures in five U.S. states which require disclosure of the mode by which a candidate raised a donation and combine the data with information on candidacies and candidate attributes. We examine our hypotheses through a series of descriptive and inferential analyses, including a research design to estimate effects of committee and leadership positions on donations to state legislators. The analyses provide stylized facts and evidence on campaign finance in the U.S., with implications for candidate selection, political responsiveness and polarization that can inform debates about the effects of campaign finance reforms.

Référence

Sebastian Thieme (Institute for Advanced Study in Toulouse), « Donor Motivations and Fundraising Cycles: Theory and Evidence on Political Candidates' Event and Non-Event Fundraising », IAST Lunch Seminar, Toulouse : IAST, 23 novembre 2021, 12h45–13h45, salle Auditorium 4.