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Campaign War Chests in Congressional Elections

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  20 January 2017

Stephen Ansolabehere  and
James M. Snyder Jr
Stephen Ansolabehere*
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
James M. Snyder Jr
Affiliation:
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
*
Dept of Political Science, MIT, Cambridge, MA, USA. E-mail: sda@MIT.edu
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Abstract

This paper examines several hypotheses that have been proposed to explain the existence and growth of legislators' campaign “warchests”. We examine the sources and political consequences of warchests in US House elections over the period of 1978–1998. Briefly, our findings are as follows. First, we find little evidence in support of the deterrence hypotheses. Second, short-term electoral forces-scandals, partisan tides, challenger quality-accounts for a large fraction of the explained variation in savings. Third, incumbents act as if they have finite, “target” levels of total savings. Fourth, some of the accumulated savings before 1992 appear to be for retirement. Finally, we find considerable evidence that many of the largest warchests are accumulated to help members run for higher office.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business and Politics , Volume 2 , Issue 1 , April 2000 , pp. 9 - 33
Copyright
Copyright © V.K. Aggarwal 2000 and published under exclusive license to Cambridge University Press 

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