Continuity and Change in the Presidential Money Primary

Authors

  • Randall E. Adkins
  • Andrew J. Dowdle

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.15763/issn.2374-7781.2008.28.0.319-341

Abstract

From 1980 to 2000 the candidate that raised the most campaign funds before the start of the primary season tended to win the party nomination. Adkins and Dowdle (2002) found that the positive effect of candidate performance (as measured by national poll results, change in candidate viability, and length of candidacy) and campaign organization (as measured by the amount of money the candidate’s campaign spent on fundraising, size of the candidate’s electoral constituency, and whether the candidate self-financed his campaign) explained much of the variation in fundraising in the months before the Iowa caucuses that make up the money primary. In this research two OLS regression models were generated to examine whether developments such as frontloading and campaign finance reforms, which occurred prior to the 2004 nomination cycle, demonstrated change or continuity in presidential money primary. Overall, the results suggest a great degree of similarity, even though candidates may now be running harder to raise more money in a shorter period of time.

References

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrew J. Dowdle. 2000. Break Out the Mint Juleps? Is New Hampshire the "Primary" Culprit in Predicting Presidential Nomination Outcomes. American Politics Quarterly 28:251-269. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532673X00028002006

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrew J. Dowdle. 2001a. How Important Are Iowa and New Hampshire to Winning Post-Reform Presidential Nominations? Political Research Quarterly 54:431-444. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/449165 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/106591290105400210

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrew J. Dowdle. 2001b. Is the Exhibition Season Becoming More Important to Forecasting Presidential Nominations? American Politics Research 29(3):283-288. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1532673X01293005

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrew J. Dowdle. 2002. The Money Primary Presidential Studies Quarterly 32:256-275. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0360-4918.2002.00220.x

Adkins, Randall E., and Andrew J. Dowdle. 2004. Bumps in the Road to the White House: How Did George W. Bush Win the Republican Presidential Nomination? Journal of Political Marketing 3:1-27. http://dx.doi.org/10.1300/J199v03n04_01

Aldrich, John. 1980a. Before the Convention: Strategies and Choices in Presidential Nominations. Chicago: University of Chicago.

Aldrich, John. 1980b. A Dynamic Model of Presidential Nomination Campaigns. American Political Science Review 74:651-669. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1958148

Balz, Dan 1999. Bush's Fund-Raising Opens Huge Disparity; Unprecedented Edge Likely to Limit Rivals. Washington Post, July 1, p. A01.

Bartels, Larry M. 1988. Presidential Primaries and the Dynamics of Public Choice. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University.

Bartels, Larry M. 1985. Expectations and Preferences in Presidential Nominating Campaigns. American Political Science Review 79:804-815. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1956845

Brown, Clifford, Lynda Powell, and Clyde Wilcox. 1995. Serious Money: Fundraising and Contributing in Presidential Nomination Campaigns. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511521553

Campaign Finance Institute. 2005. So the Voters May Choose: Reviving the Presidential Matching Fund System. Washington DC: Campaign Finance Institute.

Cohen, Marty; Karol, David; Noel, Hans; and Zaller, John. 2008. Political Parties in Rough Weather. The Forum 5(4), Article 3.

Damore, David. 1997. A Dynamic Model of Candidate Fundraising: The Case of Presidential Nomination Campaigns. Political Research Quarterly 50:343-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/106591299705000205 http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/448961

Dowdle, Andrew J., Randall E. Adkins, and Wayne P. Steger. 2008. The Viability Primary: Modeling Candidate Support Before the Primaries. Political Research Quarterly, forthcoming. http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1065912908317032

Edsall, Thomas B. 2003. Kerry Lends Campaign $6.4 Million; House Mortgaged as Funds Dwindle. The Washington Post, December 24, p. A06.

Farrar, Donald, and Robert Glauber. 1967. Multicollinearity in Regression Analysis: The Problem Re-visited. Review of Economics and Statistics 49:92-107. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/1937887

Goff, Michael J. 2004. The Money Primary: The New Politics of the Early Presidential Nomination Process. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield Press.

Grush, Joseph E. 1980. Impact of Candidate Expenditures, Regionality, and Prior Outcomes on the 1976 Democratic Presidential Primaries. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 38(2):337-347. http://dx.doi.org/10.1037/0022-3514.38.2.337

Guerrant, Daniel G., and Paul-Henri Gurian. 1996. The Changing Impact of Viability During the Presidential Primary Season. Social Science Journal 33(2):137-148. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0362-3319(96)90032-4

Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1996. Winnowing: The Strategy of Eliminating Opponents in Presidential Primaries. Paper presented at the Annual Meeting of the American Political Science Association, San Francisco, CA, August 28-September 1.

Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1993a. Candidate Behavior in Presidential Nomination Campaigns: A Dynamic Model. Journal of Politics 55(1):115-140. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2132231

Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1993b. Primaries vs. Caucuses: Strategic Considerations of Presidential Candidates. Social Science Quarterly 74:310-321.

Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1990. The Influence of Nomination Rules on the Financial Allocations of Presidential Candidates. Western Political Quarterly 43:661-687. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/448710 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/106591299004300314

Gurian, Paul-Henri. 1986. Resource Allocation Strategies in Presidential Nomination Campaigns. American Journal of Political Science 30:802-821. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2111274

Gurian, Paul-Henri, and Audrey A. Haynes. 1993. Campaign Strategy in Presidential Primaries, 1976-1988. American Journal of Political Science 37:335-341. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2111535

Haynes, Audrey A., Paul Henri-Gurian, and Stephen M. Nichols. 1997. The Role of Candidate Spending in Presidential Nominations. Journal of Politics 59:213-225. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2998223

Hinckley, Katherine, and John Green. 1996. Fund-raising in Presidential Nomination Campaigns: The Primary Lessons of 1988. Political Research Quarterly 49:693-718. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/449132 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/106591299604900401

Lewis-Beck, Michael. 1980. Applied Regression: An Introduction. Beverly Hills: Sage. http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412983440

Magleby, David B., and William G. Mayer. 2008. Presidential Nomination Finance in the Post-BCRA Era. Pp. 141-168 in The Making of the Presidential Candidates 2008,ed. William G. Mayer. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Malbin, Michael J. 2006. A Public Funding System in Jeopardy: Lessons from the Presidential Nomination Contest of 2004. Pp. 217-246 in The Election After Reform: http://dx.doi.org/10.1089/elj.2006.5.2

Mayer, William G. 1996. Forecasting Nominations. Pp. 44-71 in In Pursuit of the White House: How We Choose Our Presidential Nominees, ed. William G. Mayer. Chatham, NJ: Chatham House.

Mayer, William G., and Andrew E. Busch. 2004. The Front-Loading Problem in Presidential Nominations. Washington, DC: Brookings.

Mutz, Diana. 1995. Effects of Horse-Race Coverage on Campaign Coffers. Journal of Politics 57(4):1015-1042. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2960400

Mosk, Matthew, and John Solomon. 2008. Clinton and Obama: Each Pull in Over $100 Million. The Washington Post, January 1, p. A04

Newport, Frank. 1999. Republican Frontrunner One Year Before Presidential Election Almost Always Has Won Nomination. The Gallup Monthly, pp. 10-11.

Norrander, Barbara. 1993. Nomination Choices: Caucus and Primary Outcomes, 1976-1988. American Journal of Political Science 37(2):343-364. http://dx.doi.org/10.2307/2111376

Norrander, Barbara. 2000. The End Game in Post-Reform Presidential Nominations. Journal of Politics 62:999-1013. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/0022-3816.00043

Norrander, Barbara. 2006. The Attrition Game: Initial Resources, Initial Contests and the Exit of Candidates During the U.S. Presidential Primary Season. British Journal of Political Science 36:487-507. http://dx.doi.org/10.1017/S0007123406000251

Paolino, Phillip. 1994. Candidate Name Recognition and the Dynamics of the Presidential Nomination Process. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, Durham, NC: Duke University.

Reiter, Howard L. 1985. Selecting the Presidents: The Nomination Process in Transition. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania.

Seelye, Katharine, and Elisabeth Bumiller. 2008. With 3 States Set to Vote, A Dash About Chesapeake. New York Times, February 12, p. A17.

Stromer-Galley, Jennifer, and Andrea B. Baker. 2006. Blogs in Howard Dean's Primary Campaign. Pp. 111-131 in The Internet Election: Perspectives on the Web in Campaign 2004, eds. Andrew Paul Williams and John C. Tedesco. Lanham, MD: Rowman and Littlefield.

Steger, Wayne P. 2000. Do Primary Voters Draw from a Stacked Deck? Presidential Nominations in an Era of Candidate-Centered Campaigns. Presidential Studies Quarterly 30:727-753. http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/j.0360-4918.2000.00141.x

Steger, Wayne P. 2008. Forecasting the Presidential Primary Vote: Multiple Candidates in Sequential Elections, International Journal of Forecasting, forthcoming.

Trippi, Joe. 2004. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised: Democracy, the Internet and the Overthrow of Everything. New York: Regan.

Vargas, Jose Antonio. 2008. Campaigns Experimenting Online to See What Works. The Washington Post, February 3, p. A14.

Will, George F. 2003. Dean Opting Out . . . The Washington Post, November 13, p. A31.

Downloads

Published

2008-01-01

Issue

Vol. 28: Winter 2007-2008

Section

Articles

License

Authors who publish with American Review of Politics agree to the following terms:

  1. The Author retains copyright in the Work, where the term “Work” shall include all digital objects that may result in subsequent electronic publication or distribution.

  2. Upon acceptance of the Work, the author shall grant to the Publisher the right of first publication of the Work.

  3. The Author shall grant to the Publisher and its agents the nonexclusive perpetual right and license to publish, archive, and make accessible the Work in whole or in part in all forms of media now or hereafter known under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 License or its equivalent, which, for the avoidance of doubt, allows others to copy, distribute, and transmit the Work under the following conditions:

    1. Attribution: other users must attribute the Work in the manner specified by the author as indicated on the journal Web site;

    2. Non-Commercial: the materials may not be used for commercial purposes;

    3. Share Alike: If you remix, transform, or build upon the material, you must distribute your contributions under the same license as the original.

with the understanding that the above condition can be waived with permission from the Author and that where the Work or any of its elements is in the public domain under applicable law, that status is in no way affected by the license.

  1. The Author is able to enter into separate, additional contractual arrangements for the nonexclusive distribution of the journal's published version of the Work (e.g., post it to an institutional repository or publish it in a book), as long as there is provided in the document an acknowledgement of its initial publication in this journal.

  2. Authors are permitted and encouraged to post online a pre-publication manuscript (but not the Publisher’s final formatted PDF version of the Work) in institutional repositories or on their Websites prior to and during the submission process, as it can lead to productive exchanges, as well as earlier and greater citation of published work (see The Effect of Open Access). Any such posting made before acceptance and publication of the Work shall be updated upon publication to include a reference to the Publisher-assigned DOI (Digital Object Identifier) and a link to the online abstract for the final published Work in the Journal.

  3. Upon Publisher’s request, the Author agrees to furnish promptly to Publisher, at the Author’s own expense, written evidence of the permissions, licenses, and consents for use of third-party material included within the Work, except as determined by Publisher to be covered by the principles of Fair Use.

  1. The Author represents and warrants that:

    1. the Work is the Author’s original work;

    2. the Author has not transferred, and will not transfer, exclusive rights in the Work to any third party;

    3. the Work is not pending review or under consideration by another publisher;

    4. the Work has not previously been published;

    5. the Work contains no misrepresentation or infringement of the Work or property of other authors or third parties; and

    6. the Work contains no libel, invasion of privacy, or other unlawful matter.

  2. The Author agrees to indemnify and hold Publisher harmless from Author’s breach of the representations and warranties contained in Paragraph 6 above, as well as any claim or proceeding relating to Publisher’s use and publication of any content contained in the Work, including third-party content.