Money As Calories: The Diminishing Marginal Effect of Presidential Campaign Ads

• In Event: Poster Session: Elections and Voting Behavior

Abstract

Like calories for human health, money is essential for presidential elections. Presidential campaign advertising is subject to the law of diminishing marginal effect. Ads spending that is too low or too high will eventually lead to problems. The initial ads spending increase the candidate’s popularity, but later it will self-hurt the candidate, and then diluted. Aggregating the 2012 data of Wesleyan Media Project and RealClearPolitics, my time-series model shows that Obama’s margin of ads spending increased his margin of daily polls from May 29 (nomination clinched) to Aug. 27 (national convention), decreased his margin of daily polls from Aug. 27 to Oct. 3 (1st debate), and had no effect from Oct. 3 to Nov. 6 (Election Day). The findings deepen the understanding of money’s role in presidential elections and contribute to the study of campaign advertising.

Author

• Xiaodong Fang, Georgetown University