Race and Surrogate Representation: Evidence from Campaign Contributions

• In Event: Minority Advocates Beyond Voting

Abstract

Race and geography are closely intertwined in American politics. Mansbridge's theory of surrogate representation predicts that racial minorities will value descriptive representation from legislators outside of their own districts. Campaign contributions offer an important test of this theory, as individuals can contribute to candidates inside and outside of their home districts. Using new data on the racial identities and locations of campaign donors, we test competing theories of donor motivations for contributing outside of their districts. The findings suggest that all groups of donors appear to have strategic partisan motivations. However, in contrast to previous studies of donor motivations, we find strong evidence that donors of color place a high value on coethnic officeholders, even when they are far away from the officeholder's district. We find evidence that the racial makeup of a donor's own district affects their out-of-district contributions, suggesting that motivations for surrogate descriptive representation are national rather than local. Although we observe increasingly nationalized contribution behavior in more recent elections, heterogeneity across time is modest.

Authors

• Jake M Grumbach, Princeton University

• Alexander Laurence Sahn, Princeton University

• Gaurav Sood, Independent