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Campaign Spending Effects in U.S. Senate Elections: Evidence from the National Annenberg Election Survey
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Campaign Spending Effects in U.S Senate Elections:
Evidence from the National Annenberg Election Survey
Abstract
Over the past thirty years, research has led to a variety of conflicting assessments
of the relative impact of campaign spending by congressional challengers and incumbents. The National Annenberg Election Survey of 2000 offers a fresh perspective on some of the central issues in this debate. Examination of changes over time and across panel waves in knowledge and evaluations of Senate candidates and in consequent voting intentions strongly confirms the efficacy of challengers’ expenditures. Early assessments of the incumbent’s vulnerability were remarkably prescient and had a powerful effect on the amount of money challengers were able to raise and spend, but challengers’ levels of spending clearly affected as well as reflected their electoral strength. Challengers gained support over time and across panel waves in direct proportion to their level of spending, and the differences between high and low spending challengers were quite large. Incumbents adjusted their level of spending to that of their challengers. Their levels of familiarity and, to a lesser extent favorability increased over time—suggesting that their campaigns did reach and influence voters not already aware of them—but to a degree entirely unrelated to how much they spent. More important, their spending did not appear to offset the effects produced by challengers’ spending in any discernable way.
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Campaign Spending Effects in U.S Senate Elections:
Evidence from the National Annenberg Election Survey
Abstract
Over the past thirty years, research has led to a variety of conflicting assessments
of the relative impact of campaign spending by congressional challengers and
incumbents. The National Annenberg Election Survey of 2000 offers a fresh perspective
on some of the central issues in this debate. Examination of changes over time and
across panel waves in knowledge and evaluations of Senate candidates and in consequent
voting intentions strongly confirms the efficacy of challengers’ expenditures. Early
assessments of the incumbent’s vulnerability were remarkably prescient and had a
powerful effect on the amount of money challengers were able to raise and spend, but
challengers’ levels of spending clearly affected as well as reflected their electoral
strength. Challengers gained support over time and across panel waves in direct
proportion to their level of spending, and the differences between high and low spending
challengers were quite large. Incumbents adjusted their level of spending to that of their
challengers. Their levels of familiarity and, to a lesser extent favorability increased over
time—suggesting that their campaigns did reach and influence voters not already aware
of them—but to a degree entirely unrelated to how much they spent. More important,
their spending did not appear to offset the effects produced by challengers’ spending in
any discernable way.
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