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Does the gift keep on giving? House leadership PAC donations before and after majority status

Publication ,  Journal Article
Aldrich, JH; Ballard, AO; Lerner, JY; Rohde, DW
Published in: Journal of Politics
October 1, 2017

Party leaders face a significant trade-off financing races when the party is out of power: while they care about gaining control of the House, they do not know how willing a potential representative will be to work with and for the party once elected. Leadership political action committee (LPAC) contributions are a major mechanism of leadership control over the financing of congressional campaigns, with the hope of influencing the future behavior of candidates. We study differences between contributions of the LPACs for leaders of both parties conditional on majority status. We find that both majority and minority party leaders prioritize winning elections and ideological homogeneity in their donations, but that these trends are largely contingent on overall electoral conditions. In their contributions, majority party leaders pay more attention to ideological cohesion than minority party leaders, while minority party leaders are more interested in gaining seats in the House than majority party leaders.

Duke Scholars

Published In

Journal of Politics

DOI

EISSN

1468-2508

ISSN

0022-3816

Publication Date

October 1, 2017

Volume

79

Issue

4

Start / End Page

1449 / 1453

Related Subject Headings

  • Political Science & Public Administration
  • 4408 Political science
  • 1606 Political Science
 

Citation

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ICMJE
MLA
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Aldrich, J. H., Ballard, A. O., Lerner, J. Y., & Rohde, D. W. (2017). Does the gift keep on giving? House leadership PAC donations before and after majority status. Journal of Politics, 79(4), 1449–1453. https://doi.org/10.1086/692736
Aldrich, J. H., A. O. Ballard, J. Y. Lerner, and D. W. Rohde. “Does the gift keep on giving? House leadership PAC donations before and after majority status.” Journal of Politics 79, no. 4 (October 1, 2017): 1449–53. https://doi.org/10.1086/692736.
Aldrich JH, Ballard AO, Lerner JY, Rohde DW. Does the gift keep on giving? House leadership PAC donations before and after majority status. Journal of Politics. 2017 Oct 1;79(4):1449–53.
Aldrich, J. H., et al. “Does the gift keep on giving? House leadership PAC donations before and after majority status.” Journal of Politics, vol. 79, no. 4, Oct. 2017, pp. 1449–53. Scopus, doi:10.1086/692736.
Aldrich JH, Ballard AO, Lerner JY, Rohde DW. Does the gift keep on giving? House leadership PAC donations before and after majority status. Journal of Politics. 2017 Oct 1;79(4):1449–1453.
Journal cover image

Published In

Journal of Politics

DOI

EISSN

1468-2508

ISSN

0022-3816

Publication Date

October 1, 2017

Volume

79

Issue

4

Start / End Page

1449 / 1453

Related Subject Headings

  • Political Science & Public Administration
  • 4408 Political science
  • 1606 Political Science