Outsider Candidates and Bipartisan Support

• In Event: Money and Congressional Elections

Abstract

Do candidates outside the extended party network perform better when their primary electorate is more strongly partisan? What effect does support from dedicated donors of the rival party have on candidate performance? Recent literature has utilized a measurement of party support in elections defined as the share of donors between a candidate and their party’s fundraising committee. Expanding upon this measurement, I analyze two research topics splintering off from implications surrounding this measurement by compiling a data set of candidates who have run in senate primaries from 2006-2018, and also filed with the FEC during that time. First, I analyze the electoral outcomes of candidates who are not party supported, and find evidence suggesting outsider candidates do better in state primary electorates that are strongly-partisan, while party backed candidates perform worse. I also find evidence that candidates with larger shares of fundraising coming from shared donors between the candidate and the rival party’s fundraising committee hurts candidates electorally.

Author

• Andrew Benjamin Brown, University at Buffalo