Politics Money and Crowd Pleasing

Political Campaigns: Incumbents and Fundraising
1
When conducting a political campaign race, early money is an advantage because it helps to increase visibility and spread the message; however, it is by no means the greatest factor in a campaign’s ability to gain traction. The greatest factor will always be the message. In the 2012 presidential race, Ron Paul gained a great deal of traction with supporters. In the 2016 race, Bernie Sanders did the same. Both were overwhelmed in spending by their respective opponents—Paul by Romney and Sanders by Clinton. The establishment favorites were certainly helped by money, but Paul’s campaign was able to continue to raise funds from supporters throughout the duration of the campaign, as was Sanders’. Establishment politics ultimately blocked both candidates from succeeding—and that calls into question a whole other type of money. But in terms of fundraising, early money certainly does not help; but maintaining funding throughout the campaign is pivotal and that will depend on the traction of the message.
As Edsall (2013) notes, early cash can be wasted: “What we discovered on our side, to our surprise and disappointment, was that there were some superb pro-Romney ads, but there was little impact on voters, not what we would have expected them to have,” stated Romney’s chief strategist following the candidate’s defeat to Obama. The problem was not a lack of early funding: Romney’s campaign was flush with cash from the beginning. The problem was that Romney’s message simply did not resonate. In his case, the message was what mattered. Early cash may have given an advantage in the primaries—but not down the stretch.
Bry (2017) states that “early money is like yeast: it makes the dough rise.” While this concept does have its advantages, there is no replacement for a well-run and well-organized campaign. Early money may make the dough rise, but the bread still needs to be kneaded and baked and that requires a great deal more finesse than simply throwing money at it. Romeny’s campaign lacked the vision needed to make effective use of the money he had.
The keys to a successful fundraising strategy are to maintain a strong connection with the grassroots voter base and with larger, wealthier supporters who also believe in the message that the candidate is getting out. The message above all else is what will draw financiers to the campaign: if the message is on target and compelling, the funding will come at every step of the way. Ron Paul proved as much in 2012. Sanders did the same in 2016. And Trump did as well in 2016 by connecting with voters early on in the primaries with his simple but effective message of “Make America Great Again.” Once he won over the ground level support, the larger, wealthier donors like the Mercers had no choice but to back his horse against Clinton’s.
Could Trump’s message have resonated so well without the splashy theatrics that did, indeed, require early money which he himself was more than willing to front in the beginning? The helicopter rides, the red hats, the signs and ads—all of that came from early money that other candidates like Rand Paul would never have been able to afford. But all of that, too, was part of Trump’s message: success breeds success and audacity wins the day. So in his case it was a mixture of early money and message that helped in sure late money was there as well. Trump was still surpassed by Clinton in terms of spending, which shows that money is not all that matters—but it certainly helped Trump clear the field in the early days of the primaries.
References
Bry, B. (2017). Run women run. Retrieved from
http://www.runwomenrun.org/2013/11/early-money-like-yeast-makes-dough-rise/
Edsall, T. (2013). In political campaigns, do you get what you pay for? Retrieved from
https://opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/04/10/in-political-campaigns-do-you-get-what-you-pay-for/
2
Three advantages that incumbents have over their challengers in any political race are: 1) they typically have more name recognition as a result of their time in office; 2) they have greater access to institutional support, and 3) they are more connected to wealthy constituents who can boost their fundraising substantially more than that of challengers (Connect Us, 2018).
Name recognition enables the incumbent to leverage his or her popularity, just like a company does with a brand name when pushing a product to market. Voters are like consumers: it is a brand or name they recognize they are more likely to buy it or vote for it. Name recognition thus gives the incumbent an edge in the voter’s mind over a newcomer.
Institutional support allows the incumbent to connect with special interest groups and get the backing of the establishment, which can be of great use against challengers trying to fight their way in. The institutional support brings structure, organization, a game plan that is likely to be based on decades of experience, and a host of favorable media coverage to boot. Challengers have to rely on grassroots support and social media to get their message out; incumbents typically have access to mainstream media and traditional media channels.
Fundraising is a lot easier for incumbents as well. Once they are in office, their supporters can begin planning for fundraising from day one. Challengers are disadvantaged because it is often unknown whether they are going to run or not that far in advance—so the level of planning and coordination is not there. Plus, incumbents can benefit more from super PACs, as Petersen (2013) points out. These PACs enable for big donors to contribute to successful candidates: for them it is like investing in the future, which is more certain with an incumbent than with a challenger.
Two strategies that a challenger could do to overcome the incumbent’s advantages would be to: 1) attack the incumbent’s record, and 2) build off voter fatigue and voter angst by branding yourself as an outsider who will clean house in Washington. The incumbent’s record is a vulnerable point come election year because incumbents always make a ton of promises to voters during their campaign—but delivering on those promises once they are in office is not so easy. A challenger can pick apart virtually any incumbent’s record and find areas where he or she fell short of promises to the American public. The challenger can use this to attack the incumbent during the campaign and undermine the incumbent’s brand value, so to speak.
The other strategy would be to use voter fatigue and voter angst against the incumbent—much as Trump did in the 2016 election. Trump recognized that a large portion of the American public was dissatisfied with the general trend of governance in Washington and he leveraged this dissatisfaction in a big way. First, he used it as the basis of his campaign motto: he pledged that he would do what his predecessors had been unable to do—and that would be to make the country great again. Trump ran on the idea that he could rebuild the country and that anyone who voted for Clinton would just be voting for more of the same: it was like she was an incumbent or Obama 2.0. Trump played on this idea, which helped to undermine support for her.

References
Connect Us. (2018). 6 advantages and disadvantages of incumbency. Retrieved from
https://connectusfund.org/6-advantages-and-disadvantages-of-incumbency
Petersen, M. (2013). Super PACs are here to stay. Retrieved from
https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2013/mar/7/super-pacs-are-here-to-stay/