IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/socsci/v100y2019i4p1308-1321.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Laying the Foundation for a Successful Presidential Campaign: Public Attention and Fundraising in the Preprimary Period

Author

Listed:
  • C. Douglas Swearingen

Abstract

Objective This study advances the presidential primary fundraising literature in two ways. First, we explore candidate fundraising during the preprimary period through the lens of public attention, arguing that candidates must find ways to activate interest in their campaigns in order to raise money. Second, we use Google Trends data to measure how much the public is paying attention to each presidential primary candidate and how this concept affects fundraising. Methods We use pooled cross‐sectional time‐series models to determine the impact of public attention on a candidate's weekly fundraising totals. Results We find that a candidate's share of public attention is one of the main drivers of preprimary period fundraising, even for non‐front‐running candidates. Conclusion This finding illustrates the role the public plays in shaping the preprimary period and identifies a determinant of fundraising that is readily available and frequently updated, allowing both scholars and campaigns to better monitor the preprimary phase of the presidential nomination process.

Suggested Citation

  • C. Douglas Swearingen, 2019. "Laying the Foundation for a Successful Presidential Campaign: Public Attention and Fundraising in the Preprimary Period," Social Science Quarterly, Southwestern Social Science Association, vol. 100(4), pages 1308-1321, June.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:100:y:2019:i:4:p:1308-1321
    DOI: 10.1111/ssqu.12631
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1111/ssqu.12631
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/ssqu.12631?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Robert Urbatsch, 2020. "Trade connections’ effect on European regions’ interest in Brexit," European Union Politics, , vol. 21(1), pages 173-179, March.

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:socsci:v:100:y:2019:i:4:p:1308-1321. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/journal.asp?ref=0038-4941 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.