Dennis Mueller’s discussion of campaign contributions and Grier’s empirical study of the effectiveness of spending by incumbents and challengers is bolstered in a recent New York Times article by Michael Luo and Griff Palmer. The article discusses directly a divide between spending on Democratic campaigns and on Republican ones on current campaigns, but provides real world evidence for Grier’s 1989 findings.
Firstly, one of the Congressional races discussed is that of New York’s 20th District. There, the sitting Congressman is Scott Murphy; the Republican Chris Gibson is challenging the seat. The money spent collectively by Gibson and his supporters on his campaign totals $1.1 million, whereas the figure for Murphy is $1.7 million. This is a great illustration of Grier’s model, which predicts that the each marginal dollar spent by an incumbent will bring fewer votes than each marginal dollar spent by a challenger – campaign contributions have diminishing returns beyond a certain inflection point. That inflection point roughly corresponds to the difference between incumbents and challengers and is a reason that Murphy’s campaign is costing more.
Further, the article puts forth total spending figures for democrats and republicans on the current midterm campaigns. Democratic candidates in races that the article looks at have spent a total of $119 million compared to a Republican total of $79 million. This is a reflection of the greater number of incumbent Democrats. Luo and Palmer mention this correlation but do not concern themselves with its economic implications.
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While it is true that incumbents will have higher levels of campaign spending, this is not because incumbent campaigns cost more, but that incumbents are more successful at raising money, a sign of incumbency advantage, not disadvantage. Grier’s model shows that incumbents have an advantage over challengers due in part to having already established name recognition, they have to spend less money to reach the same level of votes than challengers do. The fact that Scott Murphy (D), the incumbent, lost and the challenger Gibson (R) won demonstrates that incumbency and campaign spending are not determining factors in reelection. Also important are the policy positions of the candidates, and in this case, for Murphy, association with the presidential party during a bad economic times. Another example of this dynamic in this district’s race, Perriello’s (the incumbent) campaign spent approximately $1 million more that Hurt’s campaign. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/campaign/2010/spending/VA-05.html
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