Mobilizing the masses through local campaigns - Statistical Data Included

PRESIDENTIAL ELECTIONS are associated with remarkable campaign spending and a spectacle of mass media advertisements and news coverage. Congressional campaigns, and statewide races for offices such as governor, also receive substantial media exposure. The result of these high-profile campaigns is increased public interest in politics and elections, and higher levels of voter turnout.

Down-ballot races, such as elections for the state legislature and local offices, on the other hand, have traditionally involved less spending and media coverage than do contests for higher offices. Given the fact that they often fly below voters' political radar, these campaigns are sometimes thought to have little effect on voter participation.

Nevertheless, there is evidence that state legislative contests are changing, and that state legislative campaigns matter. These contests have become increasingly expensive, with average inflation-adjusted expenditures increasing about 70 percent from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. They also have become more professional. Pollsters and strategists have replaced volunteers and unpaid staff as the core of many state legislative campaign organizations.

The rise of state legislative campaigns raises an important question: Have they become visible enough to generate higher levels of voter participation at the polls? The answer is yes. Research conducted by the Center for American Politics and Citizenship at the University of Maryland finds that state legislative campaigns can indeed spur voter turnout. The center analyzed a representative sample of 882 state legislative contests that were held in 44 states between 1996 and 1998. The results show that campaign spending and party get-out-the-vote efforts have an impact on district-level voter turnout, even when controlling for the effects of state election laws, district demographics, and concurrent high-profile elections. For every dollar state legislative candidates spent per eligible voter turnout increased by 1.2 percent. Turnout was 2.6 percent higher in elections where the candidates spent a combined total of $4.13 per eligible voter (the cutoff point for the top 10 percent interms of campaign spending) t han in races where the candidates spent the average of $1.81 per eligible voter. As Figure 1 shows, the difference in turnout between the most and least expensive elections is 22.1 percent.

These findings support what most candidates and political consultants believe about election campaigns - that spending money on radio, television, direct mail, and other forms of voter contact mobilizes their supporters. As one of the candidates we interviewed in our study asserted, "The reason people spend money campaigning is that it works." Our results show that the combined efforts of both candidates can boost voter turnout in general. Campaign spending in legislative elections can help combat the anemic voter turnout that reformers frequently lament.

Our research also demonstrates the significance of political parties in elections and the increasing importance of what Washington Post journalist David Broder refers to as "shoe leather politicking." Districts where state and local party organizations undertake considerable grassroots efforts to turn out the vote have relatively high turnout. As Figure 2 illustrates (see page 36), turnout averages about 35.1 percent in districts with the lowest levels of party canvass efforts, but increases to almost 37.4 percent in districts with the highest levels of party canvass efforts.

State legislative candidates have begun to reap the benefits from the party-building efforts of state and local party leaders. As a Republican candidate from a Mid-Atlantic state explained, "You need the party behind you....Grassroots recruitment, going door to door, and volunteer type activities are what you need the party [to be] doing."

Similarly, the former chairman of the Democratic National Committee, Joe Andrew is widely credited with helping Democrats win control of the Indiana statehouse when, as Indiana Democratic Party chairman, he devoted a significant portion of state party resources into grassroots activities.

These results have important implications for campaign politics and political reform. State legislatures are almost evenly divided in 26 upper or lower chambers. State legislators, in many states, control the reapportionment process of U.S. House seats. Given that many state legislative campaigns are well-financed, professional, and generate public attention in their own right, mobilizing the masses through local politicking may determine not only which state legislative candidates win office, but may hold the key to the balance of political power nationwide.

Moreover, the backers of campaign finance reform might want to think twice before imposing excessively low ceilings on candidate or party spending. If campaign fundraising and spending limits are set too low, voter turnout probably will fall to even lower depths. Reformers may be exacerbating one problem when trying to address another.

Peter Francia, Ph.D., is a research fellow at the University of Maryland's Center for American Politics and Citizenship. Paul Herrnson, Ph.D., is director of the Center for American Politics and Citizenship.

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HARDBALL POLITICS, THE DOCUMENTARY

Last fall, political consultant Chris Sautter was strategizing amid the drama of the tumultuous post-election recount. This year he's creating a drama of his own. Democrat Sautter, who acted as Al Gore's recount adviser in 2000, had his first film featured on the opening night of the New York International Independent Film and Video Festival last month.

The documentary, titled "The King of Steeltown: Hardball Politics in the Heartland," is a 75-minute documentary about the 1999 Democratic mayoral primary in East Chicago, Indiana, between incumbent Robert Pastrick and his longtime rival Stephen Stiglich.

"Steeltown" details the vanishing machine politics of a decaying rust-belt town. Pastrick won the nomination for an eighth four-year term using an army of both paid and volunteer supporters and an aggressive campaign on the issue of sidewalk repair. Following its showing at the festival in Los Angeles, it was heralded by film critic Mark Olsen as one of the best in this year's festival. He noted that "Sautter has a finely honed feel for the fading machinery of old-school party politics."

Sautter says the film is a good way to preserve a political culture -- machine politics -- that is vanishing. Ironically, it is disappearing due to the rapid influx of political consultants to the scene such as Sautter himself. Instead of hiring local guns, politicians are more often hiring consultants from all over the country.

Sautter hopes the documentary -- which is in the style of the Clinton election saga "The War Room" -- gets picked up by an independent cable channel.

He is also working on a screenplay about Chicago Mayor Richard Daley.

COPYRIGHT 2001 Campaigns & Elections, Inc.
COPYRIGHT 2001 Gale Group