Dark Money in Congressional House Elections

12 Pages Posted: 2 Mar 2022 Last revised: 16 May 2022

See all articles by Christian Cox

Christian Cox

University of Arizona - Department of Economics

Abstract

The deregulation in campaign finance, stemming from the 2010 United States Supreme Court decision in Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission , has led to nonprofit organizations with anonymous donors spending on advertisements targeting candidates. I study the effects of this “dark money” 501(c)(4) nonprofit spending on election outcomes in US Congressional House elections. Since 501(c)(4)s are not legally required to disclose spending to the Federal Election Commission, I use advertising data to measure their behavior. I estimate a model of the voter’s candidate choice, which is influenced by the spending of different groups. I find that 501(c)(4)s do not have significant effects on candidate vote share when accounting for the spending of candidates, parties, PACs, and Super PACs.

Keywords: elections, campaign finance, nonprofits, advertising

Suggested Citation

Cox, Christian, Dark Money in Congressional House Elections. Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=4047686 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.4047686

Christian Cox (Contact Author)

University of Arizona - Department of Economics ( email )

McClelland Hall
Tucson, AZ 85721-0108
United States

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