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Campaign Strength: Addressing the Measurement Problem in the Ability of Incumbents to Deter Strong Challengers through Pork Barreling
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Campaign Strength: Addressing the Measurement Problem in the Ability of
Incumbents to Deter Strong Challengers through Pork Barreling
Andrew H. Sidman
Department of Political Science
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4392
## email not listed ##
http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/asidman/
Abstract
Does pork barreling allow incumbents to prevent the emergence of quality challengers?
One of the difficulties inherent in answering this question is that ineffectively measuring quality can bias the effects of distributive spending on election outcomes downward, as noted by Levitt and Snyder (1997). Paradoxically, increases in distributive spending may not be closely linked with the most common measure of quality, electoral experience. I address this problem by rephrasing the question and examining whether distributive spending can cause the challenger’s campaign to be weaker (less popular and have fewer resources at its disposal). To do this, I have created a measure of campaign strength that is a departure from the traditional notions of candidate quality. This measure has stronger predictive power than the use of just electoral experience (although there is a heavy cost to using the measure to predict election outcomes—endogeneity) and distributive spending is shown to have a significant effect on campaign strength. Using the electoral experience measure, however, we would have to conclude that incumbents are not able to deter a strong challenge through the use of distributive benefits, which is a clear misstatement of the benefits distributive spending can give to incumbents.
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Campaign Strength: Addressing the Measurement Problem in the Ability of
Incumbents to Deter Strong Challengers through Pork Barreling
Andrew H. Sidman
Department of Political Science
Stony Brook University
Stony Brook, NY 11794-4392
## email not listed ##
http://www.sinc.sunysb.edu/Stu/asidman/
Abstract
Does pork barreling allow incumbents to prevent the emergence of quality challengers?
One of the difficulties inherent in answering this question is that ineffectively measuring quality
can bias the effects of distributive spending on election outcomes downward, as noted by Levitt
and Snyder (1997). Paradoxically, increases in distributive spending may not be closely linked
with the most common measure of quality, electoral experience. I address this problem by
rephrasing the question and examining whether distributive spending can cause the challenger’s
campaign to be weaker (less popular and have fewer resources at its disposal). To do this, I have
created a measure of campaign strength that is a departure from the traditional notions of
candidate quality. This measure has stronger predictive power than the use of just electoral
experience (although there is a heavy cost to using the measure to predict election outcomes—
endogeneity) and distributive spending is shown to have a significant effect on campaign
strength. Using the electoral experience measure, however, we would have to conclude that
incumbents are not able to deter a strong challenge through the use of distributive benefits, which
is a clear misstatement of the benefits distributive spending can give to incumbents.
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