scholarly journals Leadership political action committee donations and party status: A technical and theoretical extension

2019 ◽  
Vol 6 (4) ◽  
pp. 205316801988955
Author(s):  
Soren Jordan
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
Political Action Committees ◽  
Political Action Committee ◽  
Triple Interaction ◽  
Policy Influence ◽  
Action Committee ◽  
Technical Extension

A recent study by Aldrich, Ballard, Lerner, and Rohde (2017) examines whether a specific type of money—donations from leadership political action committees—is systematically related to party goals outside of policy influence. Their model is theoretically incomplete, as leadership political action committees donate considerable money to candidates who do not help the party win new seats or maintain ideological cohesion. I account for this behavior by introducing a new conditional predictor: incumbency. When modeled as a triple interaction with party status and ideological fit, incumbency helps better explain the donating behavior of leadership political action committees. This interaction is paired with a technical extension, more directly modeling the multiplicity of races in which leadership political action committees do not make a donation in a campaign cycle. I find that extending the study with a more appropriate model allows us to draw better inferences about the behavior of leadership political action committees.

scholarly journals Local Union Officers' Donations to a Political Action Committee

2005 ◽  
Vol 51 (1) ◽  
pp. 40-61 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marick F. Masters ◽  
Robert S. Atkin
Keyword(s):  
Political Action ◽  
The United States ◽  
Political Activity ◽  
Political Action Committees ◽  
Political Action Committee ◽  
Union Commitment ◽  
Strategic Response ◽  
Presidential Candidates ◽  
Local Union ◽  
Action Committee

During the 1980s, unions in the United States significantly increased their political activity, partly as a strategic response to declining membership. An important aspect of this effort is contributing money to congressional and presidential candidates through political action committees (PACs). U.S. federal election campaign laws allow unions to raise PAC money from members on a strictly uoluntary basis. Elected local union officers may play an important part in union PAC fundraising, as they are a sizable cadre of potential donors and their donations may send powerful signais to rank-and-file to donate as well. This paper examines the PAC donations among a sample of elected local union officers of the United Steelworkers of America (USW). The descriptive results show significant variation in officers' PAC donations. Regression analyses show that union commitment is a significant predictor of PAC support as is location in a non-right-to-work state. The results have implications for promoting union PAC fundraising efforts, and hence the potential of U.S. unions to rely on political action as a strategy for resurgence.

Political Advertising in the 2016 U.S. Presidential Election: Ad Hominem Ad Nauseam

2018 ◽  
Vol 63 (7) ◽  
pp. 935-947 ◽  
Author(s):  
John C. Tedesco ◽  
Scott W. Dunn
Keyword(s):  
Presidential Election ◽  
Political Action ◽  
Full Range ◽  
Political Action Committee ◽  
Ad Hominem ◽  
Political Advertisements ◽  
Message Strategy ◽  
Action Committee ◽  
Campaign Ads ◽  
Message Strategies

Political advertisements ( N = 136) from the 2016 U.S. presidential election are content analyzed in this study that investigates message strategy used by Donald Trump and Hillary Clinton in their televised ads. The negative nature of the campaign, and the high negative views voters held for Trump and Clinton, seems to have influenced the tone and focus of the ads. Despite Trump’s reputation for ad hominem attacks throughout the primary and general election phases of the presidential campaign, it was Clinton who waged more ad hominem attacks in her advertisements, mostly focused on labeling Trump as unfit for office. Trump and his supportive political action committee groups were more likely to run contrast ads to compare differences between his policies and Clinton’s policies, but Clinton’s campaign failed to use a full range of message strategies to contrast her policies with Trump’s and to bolster her own image through her campaign ads.

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