The Partisan and Policy Motivations of Political Donors Seeking Surrogate Representation in House Elections
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The Partisan and Policy Motivations of Political Donors Seeking Surrogate Representation in House Elections Anne E. Baker1
© Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature 2019
Abstract Non-constituent donors constitute an increasingly important fundraising base for members of the U.S. House. These donors are theorized to be seeking “surrogate representation” by buying additional representation rather than relying solely upon representation provided by their own House members. However, precisely why they contribute in this way remains unclear. Using data from the Cooperative Congressional Election Studies (CCES) 2008–2014 in a series of logistic models, I investigate whether self-reported donors make contributions to House races outside of their home states for policy or partisan reasons. I uncover evidence that surrogate seekers make their out-of-state contributions to recover partisan representation and to gain additional partisan and policy representation. Further, conservative issue stances significantly increase the likelihood of out-of-state giving more so than liberal stances suggesting conservative donors have less difficulty identifying surrogate representatives. Taken together, the results suggest surrogate seekers are strategic and politically sophisticated with respect to their giving choices and motivations. Keywords Donors · Congressional elections · Representation · Policy preferences Increasingly members of the U.S. House of Representatives rely upon funds provided by campaign contributors who live outside of their districts and states (Baker 2016a; Gimpel et al. 2008). More than half of the House depends upon donor contributions for half of their campaign revenue and a quarter of these members are highly dependent upon out-of-the-district contributions (Baker 2016a). And the share of members who are highly dependent is growing.1 This trend is potentially 1
While this practice is increasingly the norm, it is not new. Grenzke (1988) first examined this fundraising tendency using a set of House members from the 1977–1982 election cycles. The most recent study to date is by Harry Stevens and Alexi McCammond (2018), who are staff at Axios: https://www.axios .com/house-campaign-contributions-outside-money-f776be9e-f74b-4834-8ff4-ae30df1f7c61.html. * Anne E. Baker [email protected] 1
Santa Clara University, 500 El Camino Real, Santa Clara, CA 95053, USA
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problematic if it interferes with representation. Members of the House are intended to be the most locally focused of all federal officeholders, so any incentive to redirect their focus beyond their districts could detract from the representation they provide to constituents. And there is evidence that a greater dependency upon out-of-thedistrict funds leads dependent House members to be less ideologically responsive and more ideologically distant from their constituencies (Baker 2016a). In light of these trends, a better understanding of donors’ motivations is paramount in r
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