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January 17, 2010 11:56 PM UTC

What Is Some Pols Readers' Fascination With Campaign Cash?

  • 34 Comments
  • by: donscottknox

Admittedly, I am a journalist and a non-campaign person. But what’s some Pols readers’ fascination with how much money is being raised by candidates? Most of the funds raised by candidates only matter if you’re looking for a job with one of the campaigns, IMHO. Is that what’s going on here? Are you all looking for jobs? (Hint: The private sector pays A LOT more.) Surely a “base” of money is required to run a credible campaign: establish an office, create ads, coordinate events, pay for polls and phone banks. But after that, does money matter? History, and economic research, says NO.

From “Freakonomics”

Here’s the surprise: the amount of money spent by the candidates hardly matters at all. A winning candidate can cut his spending in half and lose only 1 percent of the vote. Meanwhile, a losing candidate who doubles his spending can expect to shift the vote in his favor by only that same 1 percent.

More after the jump.

 

What really matters for a political candidate is not how much you spend; what matters is who you are.

Carrying that point forward …

Some politicians are inherently attractive to voters and others simply aren’t, and no amount of money can do much about it. (Messrs. Dean, Forbes, Huffington, and Golisano already know this, of course.)

Read the whole analysis here: http://www.mfw.us/freakonomics…

So the bottom line is that Jared Polis, while rich, probably would have won his CD-2 race anyway. (I’m not saying that Joan Fitz-Gerald is unlikeable, but the voters liked Polis a little bit more.) Romanoff, while behind in fund-raising, is likeable enough in Denver that he won four straight House elections and was elected by peers to be House Speaker. Michael Bennet’s likeability is the true unknown: He’s never run for office, unless you consider his selection by the smallish Denver school board and his election by Bill Ritter in the “Election of One.” By contrast, John Hickenlooper is hugely likeable. He’s won two elections on his own and a number of bond elections. Plus, he’s an ex-brew-pub owner. A lot of people like beer. (I can’t get enough of the stuff.)

I’ll post about GOP likeability later.

Does money matter? Not to the level I’ve seen on the Pols Website. But it matters some. Adam Sandler demonstrated this in the movie The Wedding Singer: http://www.entertonement.com/c…

Mr. Simms (Kevin Nealon): “Do you have any experience?”

Robbie (Adam Sandler): “No sir, I have no experience, but I’m a big fan of money. I like it, I use it, I have a little. I keep it in a jar on top of my refrigerator. I’d like to put more in that jar. That’s where you come in.”

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34 thoughts on “What Is Some Pols Readers’ Fascination With Campaign Cash?”

    1. Money made the difference for Obama over Clinton and McCain. It turned an unknown into a known and financed an incredible ground game the other two candidates couldn’t match.

      Money can be wasted on unattractive candidates. The more their money makes them known the less they’re liked.

      Can anyone give an example of a Colorado candidate who focused on the caucuses, raised virtually no money and won a primary or general election statewide?

  2. It’s just a fascination.

    During this time of the quarter, it seems to me that the money-counting posts crop up a lot more.

    But you dodged my question: Does money matter that much?

      1. Not at all. So enlighten me:

        If one candidate raises $1 more than another, they win — no question about it?

        If one candidate raises $100K more than another, they win — no question about it?

        If one candidate raises $1M more than another, they win — no question about it?  

          1. to be dismissive of people and so hard to justify this mindless obsession people have of counting coins.

            MOTR, I realize I’ve intruded into your personal zone with a question that you feel has been asked and answered. But honestly, your snap-judgment response fails to illuminate.

            Me: Money doesn’t matter as much as some Polsters thinks. You disagree. Case closed.

            2. She is a country girl who has a fetish for using words like “shit” & “fuck” to express emotions while in the process of insulting others and she enjoys the phrase “piss on my leg”. Indeed MOTR you can only be pissed on if you allow yourself to be pissed on, as they say.

              I don’t believe intelligent tГЄte-Г -tГЄte is part of her vernacular. Here’s an example of her lack of coherency and how her focus remains disconnected from important issues of our time.

              Who the fuck is Julie?

              And why are you replying to me? Learn to read a fucking thread.

              Why don’t you go outside and play hide and go fuck yourself.

              by: Middle of the Road @ Mon Oct 19, 2009 at 10:11:34 AM MDT

              1. She’s simply the most passive/aggressive lassie to abuse the blogs. She has a fetish for name calling and then running back under her rock when confronted with facts. And her other sweet little habit is never directly replying to those she has issues with.

                But at least she stopped using her sister’s death to make a point against me in her sig line. That shows a smidgen of maturity, now doesn’t it? Now she just posts random comments from 4 months ago to try and make her point. I just can’t figure out why folks here and at other blogs don’t take her seriously, can you? It’s a mystery!

  3. is that they are criticizing correlations (candidates with more money generally win) but they offer no insight as to the causal data. I’m assuming that they ran some sort of regression of campaign spending on electoral outcomes but I have yet to see their actual regression or methodology, so we have no reason to accept their causal conclusions.

    Additionally, even they say that “what matters isn’t what you spend it’s who you are” but that doesn’t address how voters form perceptions of “who you are.” It’s not as if every voter gets an objective and accurate picture of those people running for office, rather they learn about who a candidate is throughout a campaign, and the main source of information on candidates?

    TV.

    This means that TV ads are the primary way in which voters learn who a candidate is and a candidate with more money will be able to run more ads (hopefully better ads) that define their opponent as “anti freedom” or “pro economic destruction” or “anti teddy bears” or whatever. This means that increased campaign cash actually plays a fundamental role in defining “who a candidate is” meaning by Levitt’s own argument that campaign cash is fundamentally important.

    Additionally you could also just accept Levitt’s arguments on face (which I don’t) and still conclude that campaign cash is vitally important, so long as both candidates represent relatively mainstream views. I would certainly grant the argument that if your views put you wildly outside the median of voter preferences that you are unlikely to win (again remember that whether you fit in with that median is largely determined by available funds), but if you have 2 candidates that can each attract about 50% of the population, then you need a tie-breaker. What is that tie-breaker likely to be? Money. Again it would allow that extra 1% that Levitt acknowledges and could push one candidate over the edge. This is why Democrats are praying that Republicans will nominate Tea-Bagger candidates, because their views put them so far outside the mainstream (potentially) that no amount of money or incumbent discontent can save them.

    But, to reiterate, if Tea-Baggers or any other candidate can get enough TV time to convince median voters that either Democrats are outside the median and/or that they are within it, than they are a potent force. Money allows you to shape a political identity which is indeed what people vote for in the end.

    Hence the importance of a candidate’s fund-raising ability.

  4. Thank you for the post. It supports my assertion that no matter how much money Bennet is bribed with raises in contributions he will not win the general election.

    I think this is why the Republicans are so low key right now.  They are hoping that Romanoff doesn’t win the primary because they would rather face Bennet, someone they know they can beat. It’s a great strategy for the Republicans.

    1. BoulderDem, are you saying that in every single race from a lowly city council position to the U.S. Senate race in Colorado, all primary candidates since the 1960s who raised more money than their primary challengers have prevailed?

      I’m not gonna “hell no.” But this intrigues me: Could it be so?

      Before I set off on doing my research, can you narrow this assertion? How broadly are we talking about? U.S. Senate? U.S. House? Governor? Statehouse? Mayoral? City council? Town council?

      All of the above?

    2. I’ve never been completely convinced by the Freakonomics argument either, but one of the most basic facts of statistics is that you can’t assume that a correlation implies the causal relationship you are positing. Drowning deaths go up with ice cream consumption (think about it). Does that mean that eating less ice cream is the way to lower them?

      In this case, candidates who are perceived as being stronger attract more money. It is just as reasonable to assume that winners outraise losers because their pending victory attracts more donors rather than because more donors create their eventual victory.

      It would appear to be a self-reinforcing feedback loop: electoral strength attracts money which increases electoral strength.

      It is probably the case that below a certain threshold for each level of office, a candidate isn’t viable, but as a candidate raises money beyond viability the returns diminish at an accelerating rate and their own abilities become of comparably increasing importance.

  6. we’re stupid and money doesn’t matter.   Or if it matters it matters just a little.

    It seems to me it matters in a few ways.

    Messaging

    It gives campaigns the ability to get a message out and flexibility  to do it anyway you want.  Example- a campaign decides it wants to do a mailing to all 900,000  registered D’s in Colorado considered active by the SOS.  Just one large postcard sent to everyone.    

    Media

    Tv, radio, print,

    Polling (Messaging 2)

    It allows campaigns to hire the staff or consultants to test various messages in various locations.

    Staff – you covered

    Office space, phones, Events including travel, swag

    I’ve never run a campaign. So all I got to go on is other apparently well run and successful similar campaigns.

    Udall 08 – spent more than 10million

    Salazar 04 – also spent close to 8 figures

    If there was other news, cpols probably wouldn’t post on it as much and other MSM probably wouldn’t cover it as much.

  9. Anybody know what each each spent in the general?

    I’m wondering because Beauprez was considered a lock but ran such a disastrous campaign Ritter easily beat him.

    In fact, Ritter got the nomination largely by default, because no big name Dem wanted to run since early on Beauprez was considered a sure thing.  

  10. was that the candidate that raises the most cash almost always wins. Not has the most – raises the most. So cash raised is a very good indicator of who the people favor.

    On the flip side, self-funding almost always leads to a loss. Keep in mind that Jard raised over a million along with his self-funding. The biggie for Jared was his level of fundraising, not his bank account.

    1. David,

      I get it: You’re using campaign fund-raising as a proxy for the election. You’re not using spending; just fund-raising.

      My next question: Given that, does close count? In those campaigns where the person who raised the second-highest amount of money, not the most, and ultimately prevailed — what made the difference?

      It’s likeability/popularity, right (just like in high school)?

  11. the main substantive movement in the political season outside of the question of who is actually running is in fundraising.  On a political blog, of course every bit of every campaign is going to be dissected.  Further, fundraising is literally where people put their money where their mouths are.  Not only who raises the most money, but from whom they raise it is vitally important.  Early in the campaign season, fundraising totals and donors help everyone separate into tribes– no PAC money, big oil, labor, in-state vs out of state.  

    While the amount of money spent may not seem to affect the final two person electoral outcome, movement of money into the race determines all sorts of jockeying earlier on.  From a voter’s perspective, answering the questions of “how much and who from” help me to predict a candidate’s behavior after the election.

  12. Wellington Webb, Denver mayoral candidate in 1991, raises one-third of the primary dollars of his opponent, Norm Early, but trounces him. How? He laces up the shoestrings on his sneakers and visits every Denver neighborhood to show — to prove — he’s a regular Joe. His campaign logo, in fact, is a sneaker.

    Read more here: http://search.barnesandnoble.c…

    So how can Romanoff beat Bennet, or Wiens beat Norton? Sure, money would be great, but if high-octane personalities can break out a la Webb, well, that’s better than money. It’s golden.

    I’ll concede: More money is good, but it’s not fully predictive. Mostly, it allows you to make mistakes with money — buy the wrong time slots on the wrong stations with the wrong message — but still win. So campaign strategists use money as a hedge. But ultimately, don’t CANDIDATE and MESSAGE matter more than fund=raising? The wrong candidate with a lot of money is still a loser, right? Early was the wrong candidate, right?

    1. If: Money + effort/organization + message/messenger + timing/voter internals – baggage/gaffs > opponent’s: Then win

      But it can make up for a lot especially when you make early mistakes.

      91 is a long time ago for me (I left Denver for Grad School that year) so I don’t know how that election shook out.

      Why the fixation? It’s the easiest to measure.

    2. My bet would be Buck over Norton. Because he is talking to everyone & anyone who will talk to him.

      Jared Polis took this approach in his primary – I think his goal was to personally talk to each voter in the district – twice.  

  13. Having money is good for the campaign.

    First, there are the “proxy” effects: showing lots of individual and in-state donors all giving you cash sends a self-re-enforcing message to your donor base: you can win this because you have support.  It also equates to a media equivalent – doing well with cash, must have something going for you…

    Then there’s your own campaign message control.  Having money allows you to put out your message on more media; having money sooner allows you to define yourself before your opponent gets the chance.  Good exposure is key.  Having more of it once again gives the media the impression that your candidacy is steaming along, which in turn leads to positive stories, which leads to better name ID and positive recognition…

    You can only pound so much pavement during a campaign cycle.  Money gets you in to the homes and minds of people you can’t reach personally.

    It takes a lot of money to move opinions, sure.  But it doesn’t take as much to form them in the first place…  There is a pool of ~20% undecided voters out there for this year’s Senate race.  They want the information that media buys (paid by campaign cash) will bring.

  14. Money indicates support. Most people donate to candidates they think have a good chance of winning. If you can raise a lot of money, it follows that you have a good amount of support, and vice-versa. Andrew Romanoff is a great example of this; some activists may love him, but if he isn’t able to raise a lot of money, it shows that there is not a strong sentiment that he can win. That doesn’t mean he can’t win, but it shows that a lot of people think he will not.

    Money is essential to running a strong campaign. In a statewide primary for Senate, candidates will spend huge sums of money for staffing alone. If you can’t raise a good amount of money, you can’t staff up to a necessary level.

    Money = name ID. If you can raise a lot of money, you can spend a lot of time on television next fall. If you can’t raise a lot of money, you can’t do much on TV. If you can’t go on TV, you’re dead. Period.

    1. that I think is slightly incomplete is the unqualified equation of financial support to electoral support, because electorally it’s one person, one vote, but financially it’s not one person, one dollar.

      In other words, financial support can sometimes be a skewed indicator, when a small number of large donors out-contribute a larger number of smaller donors.

      Only a qualification of what you said, not a contradiction.

      1. You don’t have to raise more money to win, but it is usually the case that the candidate who is raising the most money is doing so because he or she is considered more likely to win and/or has more supporters. There is a reason that some candidates raise more money than others, and that is often reflected in the results.

        1. Especially since you used the word “usually.” But I think being explicit about the qualification is important.

          The downside of assuming money is a proxy for popular support is that by doing so we reinforce the ability of those with money to create the impression of popular support even where it may not exist. This should be kept separate from the question of whether the candidate with more money usually wins, because the money affects as well as measures the level of support

          Even disregarding the influence of corporate PACs, which on average and in the aggregate can outspend public interest PACs (despite the deep pockets of some public interest PACs), if one candidate had the complete support of the bottom 75% of income-earners, and the other the complete support of the top 25% of income earners, the latter would outraise the former by a considerable margin, even though the former has three times as much support.

          Both diistribution of support and amount (in numbers of individuals) of support affect fundraising, and fundraising is an indication of some function of the two rather than of either in isolation. The fact that they both affect outcomes is a given, but I don’t think we need to strengthen that fact by ignoring that it is not just popular will that is in play when the flow of money is involved.

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