Asymmetries in Campaign Spending and Electability of Parliamentary Candidates

• In Event: Political Financing, Election Campaign Spending & Democratic Stability in Africa

Abstract

In African elections, incumbent executives typically outspend opposition candidates and this incumbency advantage, in addition to other legal and illegal strategies, often account for high re-election rates. What is less clear, however, is whether incumbent MPs, who are elected through majoritarian electoral rules, enjoy similar asymmetries in campaign resources and whether these incumbency advantages increase the likelihood of re-election. This paper leverages an original survey of 360 randomly selected candidates in Nigeria’s 2019 National Assembly elections to examine potential sources of disparities in reported campaign spending among parliamentary candidates, and the implications of these disparities on candidates’ electability. The results indicate that both ruling party and opposition MPs enjoy large incumbency advantages (on average, MPs outspend their non-incumbents co-partisans by a ratio of 2:1). Whereas MP, on average, rely on personal resources for 50 percent of their campaign expenses, ruling party MPs receive substantially more funding from their party. Finally, our results do not provide any evidence that campaign spending is correlated with election outcomes; so, although MPs outspend their rivals, this incumbency advantage does not translate into electoral success.

Author

• Nicholas Kerr, University of Florida