Money and elections : the flow of funds through the federal campaign system.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of Rochester. Department of Political Science, 2017.This dissertation consists of three related papers that examine how the interactions between federal and state-level parties, campaign committees, and laws affect campaign fundraising and the greater electoral context. This research is particularly significant in light of recent federal and state laws that seek to restrict influences of money on politics. Chapter 1 examines how a state-level institution, state legislative control of redistricting, affects incentives for contributors to give to state rather than federal campaigns. Using data on state legislative campaign receipts and a research design that incorporates overlapping state and federal constituencies, I find that contributors in states with legislative control of redistricting (rather than an independent commission that does this work) target more of their money to state campaigns that may shape redistricting outcomes for years to come. This analysis shows that contributors are capable of sophisticated giving strategies influenced by the nature of their state institutions. Chapter 2 uses social network analysis to examine how political parties take advantage of variations in state laws to circumvent federal campaign finance reforms. McCain-Feingold's regulation of contributions to political parties, along with the absence of federal regulation of intra-party transfers, has led state parties to create segregated funds--one for "hard" money raised according to federal campaign finance laws and one for "soft" money raised according to state campaign finance laws, which are often more permissive. I find that in some election cycles state parties behave strategically by trading money between states with less and more permissive campaign finance laws. Chapter 3 investigates how well-funded ballot measure campaigns affect issue salience in the 2012 election. A multi-wave survey, and ballot measure fundraising are used to examine the effects of exposure to ballot measures on individuals' views of issue importance. Using a regression analysis, I compare respondents who live in states with ballot measures on each issue with respondents who do not experience well-funded ballot measure campaigns on the subject. I find that, while in the aggregate ballot measures do not affect issue salience among respondents, ballot measure exposure does alter views of issue importance among certain demographic groups