Money and Politics: A First Look at Campaign Funding in the 2008 Senate Races

Can money buy an election? I’m not sure it’s possible to answer this question, although I’m sure that there are many people who think they have the answer. A related question that we can examine is this: do candidates who spend more money win?

It’s been a bit more than a month since Election Day 2008. On that day, 35 of the 100 seats in the United States Senate were up for election. This included the 33 that would normally come up in this year of the Senate’s six-year cycle, plus the special elections in Mississippi and Idaho brought about by a death and a resignation during the past two years.

In the near future, I’ll be taking a look at the money in Senate campaigns over the past several elections, but today I want to take a look at this most recent election, and I want make my examination at a point three weeks before Election Day. What can we learn about the spending that occurred up to that point, and its relation to what happened when the votes were cast?

Among these 35 races, five are not really suitable for this kind of analysis. One race (Minnesota) has yet to be decided. In once race (Arkansas), the incumbent did not face opposition. In the three others, one of the candidates did not file federal campaign documents.

So, let’s look at the money involved. Keep in mind that this information is as of October 15. In these 30 races, the two candidates (combined) spent an average of $9.9 million. However, is it meaningful to look at such averages when they involve states whose populations vary from just over a half-million to nearly ten million? Perhaps it’s better to look at expenditures per person in each state. Together, the two candidates in each race spent $3.86 per inhabitant. For the rest of this piece, the amounts will refer to dollars per inhabitant.

In 25 of these races, an incumbent ran for re-election. These incumbents spent $2.63, while their challengers spent $1.23. In every case, the incumbent out spent the challenger. In the other five races, the incumbent did not run for re-election. On average, the 10 candidates in these races for open seats spent $1.71. We can examine these open-seat races further by looking at the Political Party that previously held the seat. The incumbent Party’s candidates spent $1.56, whereas the “challenger” Party’s candidates spent $1.87.

So far, there is nothing surprising: incumbents out spent their challengers, while candidates for open seats were intermediate between the spending levels of incumbents and their challengers, and were fairly even between the Parties.

What happened on Election Day? Among the 25 races where incumbents sought re-election, 21 were successful. Because all incumbents out spent their challengers, we cannot disentangle money and incumbency in predicting these outcomes. However, we can ask if challengers who spent the most were the most successful. There is certainly some evidence of this: the highest spending challengers were in New Hampshire and Alaska, each spending more than $4.00. They both won. Challengers who were successful spent $2.70 compared with their unsuccessful colleagues who spent just $0.56. All four successful challengers were among the top nine (among the 25) spenders. However, there were exceptions: the challenger in Maine spent nearly $4.00 and lost by more than 20%, and the challenger in North Carolina spent just $0.66 and won.

Perhaps the most insight can be found in the races for open seats, although the small number of these precludes making generalizations. In all open seat races, the candidate who spent the most money won the election. This is true in spite of the fact that in three of these races, the Party of the incumbent lost.

As I said earlier, this represents a first look at money in US Senate races. Let’s be careful not to draw cause-effect relationships where none are warranted. While those who spent more money tended to win, we shouldn’t overlook the likelihood that early polling numbers actually generated more money and more victories.

With that in mind, there does seem to be a relationship between money spent and electoral success. Challengers who spent the most tended to be successful, and in the open seat races, the candidates who spent the most invariably won.

These results suggest a few things for future analyses. First and foremost, polling numbers need to be part of the analysis. In addition, although dollars per inhabitant has some merit as a measure of spending, perhaps an adjustment could make for a better number. After all, it takes some initial money just to have a campaign regardless of the population of the state. I welcome other suggestions for investigations I’ll do in the near future.