Distributive Politics with Primaries1

We develop a model of electoral competition in which two parties compete for votes amongst three groups of voters. Each party first internally selects one of two candidates to run in a general election. Candidates within a party share a fixed ideological platform and can promise a distribution of a unit of public spending across groups. Without primary elections, the selection process is random. With primary elections, an ideologically friendly subset of the voters strategically chooses the candidate. In the basic model, primary elections cause politicians to cater to extreme groups rather than a moderate group with many “swing voters.” The amount promised to extreme groups is decreasing in the ideological polarization of those groups, while each party’s probability of victory is increasing in the size and extremity of its favored group. We also find that an incumbency advantage reduces the amount promised to extremists, and therefore benefits moderates. In a series of influential papers, Lindbeck and Weibull (1987), Dixit and Londregan (1995, 1996), and others develop models where electoral competition drives political parties to target divisible resources towards groups or regions with relatively large numbers of “swing” voters. The evidence in support of these swing voter models, however, is mixed, at least for the United States. The strongest evidence comes from studies of the allocation of campaign resources. Several papers find that battleground states receive a disproportionate share of the advertising in U.S. presidential campaigns (Colantoni et al. 1975; Nagler and Leighley 1990; Stromberg 2008). The evidence is noticeably weaker when we examine the distribution of government expenditures. Some studies of New Deal spending, federal grants, and federal employment find that states with a presidential vote share nearer to one-half, or a more variable presidential vote swing, receive somewhat more federal aid (e.g., Wright 1974; Wallis 1987, 1996; Fleck 1999; Stromberg 2002). However, Stromberg (2004) shows that these significant correlations vanish when state fixed effects are included, indicating that the results may reflect unmeasured state variables. Larcinese, Rizzo, and Testa (2006) and Larcinese, Snyder, and Testa (2006) find no evidence that states receive more federal funds if they have closer presidential races, more frequent presidential partisan swings, or a larger percentage of self-identified independent or moderate voters. Ansolabehere and Snyder (2006) examine the distribution of state aid to local governments, and find little support for the swing voter hypothesis. There is probably more evidence in support of the idea that government expenditures flow disproportionately to areas with more “core” or “loyal” party voters. Some studies find a positive relationship between the share of federal spending going to a geographic area (state or county) and the Democratic vote in the area (e.g., Browning 1973; Ritt 1976; Owens and Wade 1984; Levitt and Snyder 1995). Since Democrats were the majority party in Congress during the years studied, this suggests that federal spoils go to the victors, although the results might also reflect the behavior of the Democratic party or the characteristics of areas that tend to vote Democratic. Levitt and Snyder (1995) go further, comparing programs passed during years of unified Democratic control with programs passed during years of divided government, and find that programs passed during unified Democratic control exhibit Colantoni et al. (1975), Snyder (1989), Stromberg (2002), and others develop similar models in the context of allocating campaign resources. However, Larcinese, et al., (2006) do not find any significant relationships of this sort for U.S. states.