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The Determinants of Individuals' Campaign Contributions To Congressional Campaigns

Converse College

A.L. Wilhite

University of Alabama in Huntsville

Using data obtained from the FEC, an exploratory empirical sketch of the determinants of individuals' contributions to congressional candidates for the 1980 and 1982 election cycles is constructed. There appear to be important differences between individual and institutional (PAC and party) campaign contributions. Individual contributions make up a much larger share of the challengers' finances than the incumbents' finances and because individual contributions require more time and effort to acquire, challengers face a cruel corollary to the incumbent advantage. Challengers have to work harder to receive less money. In addition, the data suggest individual contributors are not swayed by the race and sex of the candidate, which may not be true for institutional contributors. Finally, this work questions the validity of the classical assumption that challengers' fund-raising efforts are unaffected by the size of the incumbents' campaign chest.

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