The Political Geography of Campaign Contributions in American Politics

Abstract

This article examines the geographic origins of individual campaign contributions to the Republican and Democratic parties and their candidates from 1992 to 2004. Results demonstrate that contributions are affected by how potential givers are situated in space. There is a geographic pattern to giving independent of wealth, age, occupation, and other individual characteristics that predict donations. Campaign contributors are not only people with resources and incentives to participate, but also part of networks in which social influence can be brought to bear in the solicitation of contributions. The article also shows that the Republican and Democratic donor bases are much more similar geographically than their bases of electoral support. campaigns need financial resources. This article sets campaign contributions in geographic context to answer two important questions about campaign contributions.First, where do parties and major party candidates raise their funds? Much ink has been spilled recently about the rivalry between "red" and "blue" electorates and the extent to which the parties have either distinctive or intersecting bases of mass support. Contributing, a demanding form of political participation, is not uniformly distributed throughout the population (Brady, Schlozman, and Verba 1999;Verba et al. 1993). While giving is undeniably associated with wealth, many people who can afford to give do not do so, while others give beyond their means. If the major parties have dissimilar geographic bases of electoral support, do they also have different bases of financial support? In an era when the two major parties appear to be well matched in their capacity to raise funds, determining where the gold is most profitably mined contributes to practical and scientific knowledge about politics.Second, does geographic context have an independent effect on campaign contributions? The geographic distribution of campaign contributions could be merely an artifact of the spatial distribution of individuals with the resources and inclination to give. However, there is good reason to expect otherwise,

The Consequences of Battleground and “Spectator” State Residency for Political Participation

“…One can make a similar argument about attending a candidate's meeting, but a person can donate and potentially affect the outcome of an election anywhere in the country. This may explain why two recent studies, which examined the geographic origins of presidential campaign contributions, found that the competitiveness of a state had no effect on the amount of money candidates raised in it (Panagopoulos and Bergan 2004;Gimpel et al 2006). 3 As a result, the analysis is more likely to reveal significant EC participatory gaps in voting and meeting attendance than donating.…”

Generosity and Philanthropy: A Literature Review

“…Knoke (1990) found a negative relationship between the level of education and annual donations to 35 professional societies, recreational organizations and women"s associations, controlling for income and occupational prestige. Gimpel, Lee and Kaminski (2006) found that contributions to the Republican party were higher in areas with higher average levels of education, but contributions to the Democratic party actually decreased with average education. A field experiment with mail solicitations to fund a new center for environmental policy analysis in the U.S. found no effect of education (List 2004).…”

The Political Geography of Campaign Finance: Contributions to 2008 Republican Presidential Candidates

“…Additionally, we expect that this money came from the big three, densely populated states of New York, California, and Texas, supporting the claims of Gimpel, Lee, and Kaminski (2006). Finally, we expect that the candidates who are perceived as frontrunners will have an easier time raising money from outside their home states supporting the claims of Hinckley and Green (1996) and Brown, Powell, and Wilcox (1995).…”