Race for the Capitol 2002: Page 4 - Legislative Cash Sources

Race for the Capitol 2002
Cash sources

Pie Chart: Cash Sources All Legislative Candidates 2002

The election cycle runs four years for Senate candidates, two for Assembly. This means that Senators have nearly four years, and Assembly members, two years, to raise money for their reelection. Individuals contributing $100 or more -- whether giving through a special interest group conduit or independently-- contributed 46% of the total cash available to candidates during their respective election cycles. The next most important cash source was "cash on hand" at the beginning of the Senate's and Assembly's respective election cycles. Because most challengers and candidates for open seats do not form their campaign committees until the election year and often not until they file nomination papers in July of that year, most of the cash on hand shown here, cash held nearly two to four years before the election date, was in the hands of incumbents.

In fact, incumbents held the lion's share of the money in all categories but two, the WECF grant and self-contributions. Forty-six incumbents out of the 100 on the final ballot had no opponent in November, so they did not even qualify for the grant. The few remaining incumbents who actually faced credible opposition preferred the fundraising advantage conferred by incumbency over the fundraising and spending restrictions attached to the WECF grant. Furthermore, with their fundraising and cash balance advantages, incumbents do not usually need to raid their own pockets for campaign cash. Open seat candidates and challengers, however, were far more reliant on government grants and self-funding.

Column Chart: Cash Sources Legislative Candidates 2002 -- Election Status

Looking at the relative dependence on different cash sources, the picture changes somewhat. The greatest differences are in three categories: cash from individuals giving $100 or more, from conduit givers of $100 or more, and political committees ("PACs & Parties"). Although challengers and incumbents trailed behind incumbents in absolute sums raised from these categories, they were relatively more dependent upon them. Especially noteworthy is the dependence on conduit givers, where challengers exceeded incumbents by 10 percentage points. Overall, legislative candidates relied on conduit money more than gubernatorial candidates. None of the four partisan candidates for governor in November obtained even as much as 7% of their cash from conduits.

Looking at cash sources by party, Republicans had an advantage in every category but one -- public funding in the form of the WECF grant. Incumbency is partly to explain for this. The large Republican majority in the Assembly means there were simply more Republican incumbents and hence more money for Republicans all around and less need for Republicans to use the WECF grant.

Column Chart: Cash Sources Legislative Candidates 2002 - Party

When it comes to their relative dependence on each cash source, Republicans and Democrats are almost identical in every category, differing significantly in only three: contributions from individuals giving less than $100, conduit givers of $100 or more and the WECF grant. Democrats opted for the WECF grant in greater numbers than Republicans (40 vs. 10), while Republican candidates, conversely, enjoyed far greater favor with conduits.

The relative importance of conduits to Republicans is reinforced when we compare the cash profiles of all Democratic and Republican candidates with those actually facing major party opposition in November. These candidates need to raise money, so the relative importance of cash on hand declines. Furthermore, the WECF grant becomes more important because candidates with some sort of November opposition are the only ones who qualify for it. The most notable change is in the relative importance of conduit contributions for Republican candidates. While conduit contributions are two percentage points more important for Democrats facing November opposition than for Democrats as a whole, for Republicans the jump is four times as much -- from 22% to more than 30%. In fact, in absolute terms, such Republican candidates received nearly four times as much from conduit givers than their Democratic opponents. If we look at candidates by party and election status, the difference in conduit support becomes more pronounced: Republican challengers in November received 36% of their cash from conduits versus 9% for Democratic challengers, open seat Republican candidates 43% as opposed to 8% for their Democratic opponent, and Republican incumbents received 21% as opposed to 17% for Democratic incumbents.

Column Chart: Legislative Cash Sources by Party: All Candidates vs. Those with November Major-Party Opposition

Column Chart: Top Five Conduit Givers to 2002 Legislative Candidates

Of the five conduits whose members gave the most through contributions of $100 or more, four showed a marked preference for Republicans. The leading conduit giver by far is the Majority GOP Conduit. It accounted for 24% of all conduit contributions of $100 or more. Run by the Republican Party of Wisconsin, it plays a huge role in the party's campaign efforts -- the party only contributed $106,000 to the same group of candidates during this period. Except for the chiropractors, all of the remaining top five conduits showed a strong partisan tilt in favor of Republicans. The chiropractors' conduit was the largest source of conduit money for Democratic candidates. Badger 2000, a partisan conduit giving only to Democrats, was a distant second.


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