The Effects of Outside Money on City Council Elections in Los Angeles

• In Event: Election-Related Challenges to Democracy in the U.S.

Abstract

Citizens United has not only greatly affected the financing of campaigns for some federal and state offices, but is increasingly shaking up local races around the country. However, research thus far has primarily focused on the effects of independent expenditures (IEs) on congressional races without paying a great deal of attention to local elections. I seek to partially fill this gap by analyzing the influence of IEs on city council races in Los Angeles since 2010. Specifically, in my fixed effects regression models I predict the vote share for candidates and electoral wins. The independent variables for both primary and general elections are the ratio of outside support, the ratio of outside opposition, and the ratio of campaign spending. Preliminary results show that outside money is a strong predictor of both candidates’ vote share and electoral wins. Overall, my results indicate that outside money plays a critical role in primary elections with many open seat candidates, but that the motivation for groups to get involved in these races seems to be often based on long-term relationships and policy interests rather than trying to influence the outcome of specific races.

Author

• Henrik M. Schatzinger, Ripon College