When I was in grad school, I had a Romanian friend say, “I am going the gym. I have to go because I paid $50 for three months. If I hadn’t paid I wouldn’t care but since I paid, I have to go to get my money’s worth out of it”. Although things have changed now that we are in the era of digital subscriptions that people routinely forget about, in general when people pay money for something, they are usually pretty attentive to it and take care to get value out of their investment. Much the same can be said about political donations.
A member of the “donor class” will donate to all candidates in a race. This is how even the most extrene candidates will get donations. If a homeless fellow who never bathes and thinks that indoor pumbling is sinful and needs to be abolish should decide to run for mayot, even he will get donatations from the donor class, because, due to the unpredictability of democracy, if he should somehow gain popularity and get elected, the donors want to be able to say that “hey, I helped you get elected”
But for the small donor, for which a political donation is a personal investment rather than a business expense, that is totally different matter. Much like my aforementioned Romanian friend, a small donor is not going to get value out of their small investment, A small donor will not likely skip the election and will most likely vote for the candidate or party in which they have donated. Why would a small donor donate to a candidate whom they do not intend to vote for?
Small donations, for the most part, equate to a pre-vote Small donations allow campaigns to compile data on potential voters and could be used to determine where they have support that would be declare a state or a district to be safe or in play where they might be able to allocate resources.
When Nate Silver started out, he used campaign coffers as part of his model to predict election outcomes. His logic was that the more money that a campaign had, that indicated the more that the campaign could spend and also a gauge of the level of support.
This theory has not aged well.
Disney shut down the Five Thirty Eight site that they received from Nate Silver with barely a whimper because the prognostication model has been a total flop.
After the 2014 midterms, Larry Sabato’s group published an article where they have studied the results and came to the conclusion that out of state money have little effect – if any – on election results. I would like to link to the article, but it is so far back in the archives that I have not been able to find the link.
What this means is tha with all the brouhaha about Citizen’s United, it really has not measurable effect on the outcome of an election. No matter how much money a candidat has in their war chest or how much they spend on advertisment, the chances of getting a voter who paid $30 for the campaign of another candidate to change their mind is for all intents and purpose risible.
I have seen the emails. If a town in Alabama with a poppulation of fifty will pass an ordinance to ban abortion, even though the town has no clinic, there will be a flood of emails asking for donations to help fight this law. Can anyone point to any donation that they have made which actually brought about the result that they donated for?
Granted, a campaign needs a modicum amount of money for basic campaign needs, to pay for offices and staff, and some Get-out-the-Vote activities, like renting vans to get voters to the polls, etc , but for the most part, if they have the votes, the money that they have doesn’t matter and if they don’t have the votes the money that they have doesn’t matter. I can speak for my myself that there is not amount of campaign dollars and no amount of television ads that I can be exposed to that would cause me to change my vote. The Law of Diminishing Returns applies to campaign funds as well as anything else.
After the last few election cycles, it should be clear that money does not buy votes and does not buy elections. Even with one campaign massively out spending the other, recent elections have essentially come to a draw. So what is the purpose of all the campaign donations since they cannot be used to buy elections? It cannot buy voters but it can be used for campaign expenses.
I remember a story about George Washington. During the American Revolution when he was contracted by the Contenental Congress to lead the army, he offered to not be paid a salary but to serve in exchange for expenses. When he came out of retirement during, I believe, the Shay’s Rebellion, he made the same offer and he was told, no, you will be paid a salary.
A politician may spend many years in office accumulating a large war chest. When they retire, they are not allowed to keep the campaign contributions, but they can donate it to other campaigns. Often when they do, they are usually invited to appear at campaign events – where they are able to partake in the “expenses” that are found in the non-public areas at campaign events. When campaign contributions are not reliable to seal election victories, they do allow politicians to enjoy a standard of living far in excess of what their salaries would support.
Donations to any candidate that would not be on the ballot of one’s local precinct, only goes to supporting this activity.