No Experience Required: Early Donations and Amateur Candidate Success in Primary Elections

• Published date: 01 May 2023
• Author: Rachel Porter,Tyler S. Steelman
• Date: 01 May 2023
• DOI: http://doi.org/10.1111/lsq.12396

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LEGISLATIVE STUDIES QUARTERLY, 48, 2, May 2023

DOI: 10.1111/lsq.12396

RACHEL PORTER

University of Notre Dame

TYLER S. STEELMAN

University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

No Experience Required: Early

Donations and Amateur Candidate

Success in Primary Elections

The electoral dominance of “quality” candidates— political insiders with

a history of holding office— is well- established. However, research on the recent

rise in successful political neophytes is less studied. Despite longstanding trends

in the predominance of experienced candidates in primary elections, nearly half

of all quality candidates who ran in non- incumbent races lost to a candidate

without prior electoral experience in 2018. In this article, we investigate the

success of political newcomers in elections for the U.S. House of Representatives

by examining a topic often overlooked in the growing literature on primaries:

campaign finance. We show that, from 2016 to 2020, political newcomers saw (1)

greater success in future fundraising, and (2) an increased likelihood of primary

election victory when they garnered more early contributions from outside their

district. This contrasts with prior elections, where early money from inside a

candidate’s own congressional district served as the strongest predictor of future

fundraising and electoral success.

The electoral dominance of “quality” candidates— political

insiders who have previously held elective office— is well- established.

Experienced candidates are judicious in their emergence decisions,

have greater name recognition, and possess established networks

of supporters. With this arsenal of advantages, quality candidates

have been known to beat out their politically inexperienced

competition in federal elections with remarkable consistency.

However, scholars and pundits alike have noted that, in recent

elections, political neophytes have reached new levels of electoral

success. Porter and Treul (2018) find that candidates with prior

experience in elected office are no longer besting those without

experience in the systematic way they once did. From 1980 to

2014, U.S. House candidates with political experience who ran in

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