Individual Contributions: A Fundraising Advantage for the Ideologically Extreme?

Abstract

Some ideologically extreme candidates appear to generate enthusiastic support from individual donors, but previous systematic analysis has found no overall fundraising benefits accruing to extremism. I propose that the similar amount of funds raised by extreme and moderate candidates masks different fundraising coalitions. Just as senior members of Congress may have a comparative advantage in raising money from access-oriented contributors, ideologically extreme members of Congress may have a comparative advantage in raising money from ideologically motivated individual contributors. I test for this possibility by using a multilevel model to predict the proportion of funds candidates raise from individual contributions and confirm that, holding total fundraising amounts constant, extreme candidates are more likely to rely on individual contributors than are moderate candidates.