Donations and Dependence: Elite Individual Contributor Strategies in House Elections

In congressional races, individual contributions have always constituted a significant majority of candidate funding, and these patterns have deepened in recent elections. Despite the importance of individual contributors, past work has largely neglected this crucial financial constituency in favor of research on corporate PACs.  In this talk, I present the first analysis of aggregate contributions from the population of elite individual contributors—distinguished by how often they contribute in elections—to House candidates. Using an original ‘big’ dataset constructed from over fifteen million Federal Election Commission (FEC) disclosure records, I find strong evidence that the character of aggregate donations from repeat donors is largely access-oriented, while funds from infrequent donors appear more ideological. Repeat donors strategically invest in House candidates, and in powerful House incumbents in particular.  That repeat contributors appear access-oriented on this dimension provides a persuasive case for re-evaluating the role of individual contributors in the campaign finance system. Given these findings, I also argue that scholars may have vastly under-estimated the sources, size, and salience of investment-oriented dollars in American politics. For more information on Jennifer Heerwig, click here.