The Behavioral Consequences of Public Appeals: Evidence on Campaign Fundraising from the 2018 Congressional Elections

Abstract

Whereas the preponderance of studies on public appeals evaluates their impacts on mass public opinion, we investigate behavioral responses—in particular, the willingness of donors to contribute to candidates for public office. As appeals, we identify and code the online messages from all 2018 candidates for Congress, winners and losers alike, about both Donald Trump himself and his signature policy initiative, immigration reform; and as behavioral responses, we track candidates’ daily itemized fundraising totals. What Republican candidates for Congress say about Trump, we find, bears significantly on their ability to raise money. In the immediate aftermath of complimenting the president, Republicans secured a modest increase in fundraising; when they criticized him, however, they promptly suffered a substantial decline. We do not observe comparable evidence for Democratic candidates. Our findings are robust to a wide variety of measurement and modeling strategies, and expand our understanding of the political stakes of public appeals.